What Does it Mean to Teach Writing? II: Attention to Conventions

The best writers not only have great ideas written in a unique voice, they also sweat the details: spelling, punctuation, grammar. To many students (and adults) thinking about sentence structure or ending punctuation may seem to be the least interesting part of the writing process. But as a writer, I can attest that attention to conventions are key to communicating important ideas clearly, maintaining your expertise, and even writing with craft that makes your writing stand out.

Spelling—Yes, it’s important.

When we’re encouraging young students to get their thoughts on the page, we may encourage them to “spell the best they can and move on.” This advice can help free up their working memory to focus on other elements of composition like structure and elaboration. However, when students are presenting a final piece to readers, accurate spelling is important as it conveys accuracy, thoughtfulness, and a desire to communicate clearly.

How can you help students spell more accurately?

Start with assessing their spelling. You can do this with a spelling inventory—a list of words chosen to elucidate understandings of different spelling patterns—or by noticing patterns in their errors in their writing. This assessment will help you pinpoint where in your phonics and spelling scope and sequence they need further explicit instruction, and it can also reveal opportunities to teach strategies they can use when editing their work for spelling.

One great strategy for younger students is to have them practice part-by-part spelling. Ask them to say the word they want to spell, clap it part by part, write the letter(s) for the first part, then the second part, and continue until the whole word is written.

Older students may need to check for common homophones, which even adults often misuse. Teach them to be on the lookout for  your and you’re; two, to, and too; its and it’s; and there, their, and they’re. Have them reread the sentence and replace the word with its definition and ask themselves, “Is that correct?” If not, they can replace it with the correct word and spelling.

Punctuation—It can change meaning.

As writers, students need to know the rules of punctuation so that they can clearly convey meaning and nuance to their readers. However, we also want students to know that writers often use punctuation to shape the way readers relate to the text, impacting both prosody and a sentence’s meaning.

How can you help students pay attention to punctuation choices?

All students can benefit from reviewing their work to ensure that they haven’t overused certain punctuation, which can mute the meaning. Imagine a paragraph filled with exclamation points at the end of every sentence or a multi-page story that uses ellipses at the bottom of every page. Ask students to think about the purpose of each punctuation technique and consider what to keep and what to change.

Many writers have difficulty punctuating speech. When do you use a comma? Does the punctuation mark go inside or outside the dialogue marks? How do you indicate a new character is speaking? Teaching students how to punctuate (and paragraph) speech helps the reader follow the dialogue.

Grammar—It can be an entry point to writer’s craft.

Grammar can be malleable, it changes over time, it has regional differences, and it can reinforce or challenge conventions. Yes, students need to learn certain conventions, so their writing is clear and precise for the intended audience. But students can also play with the conventions so that their writing has a greater impact on the reader.

Subject-verb agreement is challenging for many writers, and students in grades 4–8 are ready for a strategy that helps the match the number of the subject to the number of the verb. For example, the subjects each, everyone, nobody, someone are singular and need a singular verb. None can be tricky, since it can mean “not one” which requires a singular verb, or it can suggest a group which would necessitate a plural verb. A caveat: sometimes writers want to mimic real speech patterns and may deliberately choose to use a plural subject with a singular verb or vice versa.

Run-on sentences can make it difficult to understand a writer’s intent. Teaching students to look for sentences that have more than one subject and predicate can help them determine if they need to add a conjunction, break it up into two sentences or more sentences, or keep it as is. Each iteration will change the tension, the pace, the emphasis, etc.

As you can see, the details do indeed matter. Students need to understand the conventions of spelling, punctuation, and grammar. In certain types of writing it makes sense to follow “the rules.” In other types of writing, or for certain purposes, authors may break some of the conventions as it helps set the scene, create character attributes, determine the flow, and so on.

For more information on strategies that help students with spelling, punctuation, and grammar conventions, check out The Writing Strategies Book and its partner The Writing Strategies Book Companion Charts.