What Is Bonnie Devet's Welcoming Grammar Back Into The Writing Classroom

Although there are many necessary life skills students must learn throughout their adolescent years, one of the most essential facilities that should be practiced and subsequently mastered in school is the ability to write coherently. While there is no debating the importance of math and science in schools, having basic writing skills is crucial to future successes of young children and adolescents. A major way to increase student engagement in writing is through a strong focus on creative writing in the classroom. Not only does creative writing promote self-expression, but it can also help students to master basic sentence structure and grammatical fundamentals. Bonnie Devet’s article, “Welcoming Grammar Back into the Writing Classroom,”

One way to do so is through a technique practiced by Constance Weaver. As explored by Devet, Weaver feels that, “teachers should teach grammar not in isolation but in the context of the students’ writing” (Devet, 2002, p. 13). By teaching students through their independent work, they can learn from their own mistakes rather than through the memorization of countless rules and arbitrary exceptions. This is an enormously beneficial process because students are more likely to be connected to their own work than to sample sentences written on a Smart Board. In addition, it is extremely useful to spend time correcting one’s own mistakes. This will help the student to recognize these same errors in the future, and with practice, the student will be able to master the correct way of writing and eliminate any initial errors that were

106). This idea simply allows for a more “real life” approach to learning. Rather than memorizing rules on subject-verb agreement, the students will be able to directly apply these regulations to their own writing, leaving room for errors and self-editing. This conceptualization of grammar “may lead to internalized writer knowledge, [helping] young writers to become more metalinguistically aware” (Jones, Lines, Myhill, Watson, 1990, p. 110). More simply, allowing these young writers to actively teach and correct themselves will give them the tools necessary for becoming lifelong writers, learners, and teachers. However, despite all of this student-centered learning, the authors here caution that effective teachers must be convinced of their connections between grammar and writing. These convictions will help to ensure that the teachers are able to lead meaningful discussions on “authorial choices in writing” (Jones, Lines, Myhill, Watson, 1990, p. 110). This means that a teacher is able to draw his or her own conclusions about choice of diction and syntax and then prompt students to further explore and discuss an author’s