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When it comes to writing, are conventions more important than what the writer is trying to say? No. In fact, conventions help relay exactly what the writer wants to express. To borrow an old expression, writing without conventions is like playing tennis without a net.

Consider this simple combination of words: rich said bill.

What is going on here? We have any number of options to choose from:

Rich saw his friend:
Rich said, “Bill.”

Or Rich saw a silver thing that rings:
Rich said, “Bell.”

Or Rich saw an animal at a rodeo:
Rich said, “Bull.”

Or Bill saw his friend Rich:
“Rich,” said Bill.

Or Bill saw his friend Rick:
“Rick,” said Bill.

Or Bill saw a stone:
“Rock,” said Bill.

Or a guy with the nickname Bull saw the stone:
“Rock,” said Bull.

There, we’ve gone from the ambiguous, rich said bill, to the intended, “Rock,” said Bull.

Along the way conventions gave meaning to every sentence.

The rules of writing didn’t just develop out of a vacuum. They developed out of a need to communicate effectively in writing.

By using facial expressions and gestures almost all of us can make our meaning understood when we speak.

When writing, we rely on conventions to accomplish this goal.

Stephen Hawley

As I wrote in an earlier entry, I took piano lessons when I was young, but as it turned out, all I really learned was how to play scales. I never learned how to play piano.

This is exactly the situation students face when they encounter writing textbooks that separate writing from grammar.

Before continuing, I think it might be a good idea to clarify what I mean by “grammar.” Strict linguists would argue that grammar is an amorphous aspect of language that even the youngest child learning to speak can understand. After all, the child has no knowledge of spelling or punctuation rules, but still the child can speak in comprehensible utterances. This is proof that the child understands the underlying grammar of the language.

Conventions, as I’ll use the term in these articles, are the accepted rules of writing. Conventions tell us to capitalize the first word of every sentence and to add an end-mark at the end. Spelling conventions are the agreed-to spellings of the words we write.

When I speak of “grammar,” I am using the term as it is used in most writing texts. That is, “grammar” is interchangeable with “conventions.” Generally, “conventions” is the more appropriate word to use.

Now, back to the topic. Learning to write without an integrated approach to conventions is the same as trying to learn to play the piano by only playing scales. An important piece of the equation is missing.

Conventions give meaning to a piece of writing. Writing minus conventions equals nonsense.

More on this next time.

Stephen Hawley

I am always surprised at the way most writing textbooks are arranged. They are generally divided into two parts. The first part is dedicated to actual writing, and the second part is devoted to grammar and conventions. In essence, writing is being taught as two separate subjects.

Let’s look at the textbook set being used in the school where I teach. The first half of the Writing and Grammar “Handbook” is given over to such topics as “The Writer in You,” “Narration,” and “Writing for Assessment.”

The second half, beginning on page 190, starts off with a look at nouns and pronouns. The parts of speech are then covered in order, and it isn’t until page 267 that sentences are actually examined.

In other words, almost half the text is covered before the basics are touched upon.

As I wrote in an earlier post, I am certain to the point of betting a month’s pay on it, that students entering my class will write with run-ons and fragments. They have not developed sentence sense.

There is no point in trying to teach narration, description, or any other form of writing until students, at the very least, understand that sentences represent a specific basis of writing, and that they have specific forms: sentences begin with a capital letter and end with an end-mark of punctuation.

A better arrangement for writing texts is the integration of grammar with actual writing assignments.

At the beginning of the year, assignments are naturally bent towards developing sentence sense. As the year progresses, various conventions and forms of writing may be added.

As it stands, most writing texts put the cart before the horse.

In their expectation that students have already developed sentence sense, publishers of these texts are clearly relying on facts not in evidence.

Stephen Hawley

As teachers, we must set objectives with measurable outcomes. An objective that states something like, “Students will think about the correct form of paragraphs,” is an example of an objective which cannot be measured, since it is obvious that it is impossible to measure what a person is thinking.

Oftentimes, we are tempted to believe that a student “gets it” even though we have no proof of this fact. This kind of optimism leads to failures down the line.

Refer to yesterday’s blog where I discussed the overwhelming certainty of encountering run-on sentences I feel at the beginning of every school year. Though it is said that the past is no predictor of the future, I rely on years of living experience to make an educated guess that after night comes day.

Years of teaching have taught me that run-on sentences are one of the first problems I will encounter with a group of middle school writers.

So what to do about this? First of all, I need to create a set of measurable objectives that will lead students from where they are in writing to where I want them to be. In this case, I must lead students from run-ons to properly punctuated sentences.

One obstacle that has to be overcome is that writing run-ons has become a habit for these students. It’s as though they touch pen to paper and start pushing ink with no thought at all of end marks or any other mark of punctuation.

Breaking habits, good or bad, takes time. The important point to remember is that we are not just breaking bad habits, but replacing them with good ones.

This brings us back to objectives. Writing objectives that require observable behaviors on the part of our students is the cornerstone of successful teaching.

In the case of run on sentences, one culminating objective might be written this way: Students will write a five-sentence paragraph free of run-ons.

One paragraph does not a writer make, but it’s a start, and that’s what we should be concerned with at the beginning of the year.

Stephen Hawley

I think it’s safe to say that at very beginning of a writing program students want to sit down and write stories. Teachers, on the other hand, are inclined to break stories down into component parts, and teach the parts before teaching the whole.

Breaking writing down into specific parts, or chunking, as we like to say, is perfectly acceptable. Certain specific skills should be learned before students can begin to write stories.

Some might argue that the best way to teach skills is by reading what students have written and attacking the problem from that angle. This is perfectly valid. But there are some writing problems that are so universal, that it makes sense to address them from the outset, thereby preventing students from repeating the same mistakes they have been making in the past.

Let’s call this type of teaching “habit breaking.” When we teach to break habits, we rely on our experience to guide us in the direction of specific habits of writing which we feel certain we will find in early examples of middle school writing.

One of the most predictable habits is the run-on sentence. Another is the sentence fragment. We could argue until the cows come home about whose fault it is that students are allowed to progress all the way to middle school with no apparent knowledge of the correct use of end-points, but it’s always good to remember that we teach the students we have, not the students we wish we had.

So, if run-on sentences and fragments are habits of writing among a large number of middle school writers, why not attack these problems at their source: the students lack sentence sense.

Teachers can go a long way towards improving student writing by simply drilling the idea of correct sentences into the minds of their students. Mistakes should be pointed out immediately. Breaking old habits is hard. Sentence sense must replace the bad habits of run-ons and fragments that have been allowed to exist up to the present.

Is this to say that students shouldn’t be writing longer compositions and stories? Not at all.

Just as in learning piano, a mixture of drill and play should be used. After all, when it comes to writing, or any other subject, for that matter, students can’t fix what they don’t know is broken.

Correcting run-ons and fragments allows students to see the basic mistakes in their writing and allows them the opportunity to correct those mistakes. They become better writers immediately.

That’s the goal of a good writing program.

Stephen Hawley

I like to use the analogy of piano teachers when speaking about writing teachers. Both teachers are involved in teaching abstract concepts that yield concrete products. In the case of the piano teacher, the abstract concepts might be notes, time signatures, and harmonies. Writing teachers cover abstract ideas like words, thoughts, and symbols.

I took two years of piano lessons when I was a boy and I don’t recall every really looking forward to them. I do remember a feeling of relief at the end of the second year because I didn’t have to go any more.

After two years of piano lessons I was able to locate specific notes on the keyboard, and I could play simple pieces using both hands. Beyond that, I was not a success.

The question is “Why?” Two years of lessons should have left me with more than the basics.

The answer to the question of “Why?” is simple. My piano teacher was not a professional teacher. She was a talented musician, but she lacked the skills to adequately transfer her knowledge to me.

Mostly what I got was repeated fingerings up and down the scales and reminders of which fingers should be where, and when.

In short, the teacher had lost sight of the forest for the trees. Fingering the scales was more important than learning to play a song. As an audience she had a limited range of interest in what her student was doing, and that interest was basically focused on one thing – correct finger placement during the playing of scales.

I think of this often while I am teaching writing. If I am to be the most important person in a student’s audience, it is my responsibility to provide lessons that will not only improve the student’s abilities, but which will prove worthwhile to the student as well.

There’s a time for drills and a time for writing. Writing is simply applying what is learned during the drills.

As far as my piano experience goes, I got an awful lot of experience with the drills, but very little time playing.

Make a point to keep drills pertinent to writing improvement.

Drill, then play – or in this case, write!

Stephen Hawley

The teacher is the most important member of any student writing audience. The teacher makes assignments, gives guidance, and makes corrections.

Imagine sending your child to piano lessons. You expect the piano teacher to steer your child in the direction of becoming a piano player. The teacher gauges your child’s ability, assigns drills, gives guidance, and makes corrections.

Sounds like a writing teacher, doesn’t it?

Imagine how you would feel if you went to a recital only to hear your child banging endlessly and aimlessly on the keys, and listening to the piano teacher explain, “I just tell them to play the way they feel.”

We expect at least one thing from a piano teacher: we expect the teacher to actually teach techniques for playing the piano.

After a year of lessons, your child should be able to demonstrate an improvement in playing ability.

How does this improvement occur?

The piano teacher is the student’s most important audience member. The student may enjoy playing for the sake of playing. An audience of one is fine for practice. During lessons, though, the teacher lends a practiced ear and years of experience to help continually improve the student’s piano playing ability.

Writing teachers are charged with the same responsibility. We must continually improve the abilities of our students. We do this by making ourselves the most important member of our students’ audience.

As writing teachers, we lend our years of practice and experience to our students. We guide our students’ writing from one level to the next. We must expect improvement, but we must also provide the means for that improvement.

Consider the role of the piano teacher as you begin your teaching of writing this year.

Stephen Hawley

It’s perfectly reasonable to expect a piece of writing like this from a sixth grader at the beginning of the year:

Last summer I went to disneyland and I had alot of fun and it was good and then we went to the rides and the lines were long and we had to wait and after that we went to dinner to and then we drove home.

The problems are numerous and obvious, at least as far as conventions go. It is a simple matter for a teacher to make corrections on a piece of writing like this.

For example, the run-on sentence could easily be broken down into several manageable sentences.

In this case, though, the most important problem isn’t the student’s misuse of conventions. The biggest problem is the fact that the student didn’t write for a larger audience. Like a person making a shopping list, this writing sample was written for an audience of one.

For the moment, let’s assume that the student has a clear recollection of the trip to Disneyland. In fact, at this stage in the game, all we can do is assume. There is no evidence of such clear recollection in the student’s writing.

It is up to the teacher to draw the student’s attention to the fact that though the writer might have a clear picture of a scene in his mind, it is the writer’s job to make that picture clear to the audience.

We can make writing clear to our audience by adding details that help clarify what we are thinking.

All writing is done for an audience, and in the case of a middle school writing class, it is entirely acceptable for students to understand that the most important member of the audience is their teacher.

Now, return to the student’s writing. Hand it to the student. Say, “Do you think I can really see what you did at Disneyland? Add some details to this. Draw a picture using words.”

It is the student’s job to write clearly. It is the teacher’s job to point students in that direction.

Stephen Hawley

Not to belabor the point, but the idea of an audience is central to writing. The fact is, we always write for an audience. True, a person might jot a note simply for personal use, but that simply means the note was written for an audience of one.

Incidentally, how many times have you written a note to yourself and shuffled it off with some other paper work only to re-discover it a week or two later and been absolutely unable to decipher your own writing?

One problem writers face is the use of conventions, the rules, for writing. By the time we’ve grown into adults we are all pretty sure that we know the basic conventions of writing. Furthermore, we use the conventions when we write: we capitalize the first words of sentences, end sentences with a mark of punctuation, and in between the beginning and the end of a sentence we try to get all the spellings and punctuation marks right.

The person who writes a personal note, which he is unable to decipher, probably decided to change some basic conventions while actually writing the note. Some letters were drawn ambiguously, weird abbreviations were used, important details ignored. In all, the note is impossible to read because the writer forgets the conventions he used in the note itself.

An exaggerated example might look like this (try to picture a quick scrawl of handwriting): By bb&b.

This is a simple example of spelling conventions invented on the fly. The note means “Buy bread, butter, and beans.”

Well…If a writer is unable to read his own writing, how can he expect others to read it?

Middle school students who are not yet familiar with all the necessary conventions of writing often turn in pieces of work which even they can’t read.

We’ll discuss this more next time.

Stephen Hawley

When we stop to think about it, almost everything we write every day is intended for one audience or another. With the exception of such things as to-do lists, shopping lists, and the like, most of our writing is intended to be read by someone else. Of course, writers read everything they write, even if only while doing the actual writing. It is safe to say that we write for two audiences: ourselves, and others.

This idea works even when considering a private diary. Why do diaries have locks on them? Because we worry that others will read what we have written. Even in our most private writing, we are considering two audiences. We write first for ourselves, the intended audience, and we use words and phrases which, we hope, owing to the fact that they are saved on paper, will allow us to recapture memories long after they seem to have faded from our minds. At the same time, we are writing for an unintended audience - the sneak who peeks inside the diary. We have to admit that the very thought of our personal writings being read actually forces us to censor what we are writing.

What about codes, you ask. Couldn’t we write in a special handwriting known only to ourselves? Ironically, that only reinforces my point. A writer who goes through the machinations of developing a secret code must be doing so for a reason, and that reason must be fear of being read. An individual so consumed with such a fear is absolutely considering the unintended audience, and the writing will necessarily be slanted with those fears in mind.

Since SYMBOL & SENSE is a textbook about writing, I spend a good deal of time talking about writing for an audience. A thought that is crystal clear in the mind of Student A is clear in his mind alone. Through proper word use, and the application of writing conventions he can help make that thought clear to others.

More on this next time.

Stephen Hawley