Grammar Grouch

I was reviewing some papers today, written by 8th graders.  The papers were typed and I noticed a disturbing trend in the kind of mistakes the writers made.

• First, the students tended to abbreviate words as if they were texting or taking notes rather than writing a paper for class.  
• Second, the students clearly relied on spell-check, rather than proofreading the papers themselves.  This was evidenced by the number of mis-used homonyms (their/their and to/too were the words I most often saw confused).  In some cases the student simply allowed the computer to substitute an incorrect word:  "exert" instead of "excerpt" for instance. 
• Finally, I suspect students do not understand the difference between plural and possessive forms, since they almost always used the incorrect form of it's/its.  I also noticed that they generally omitted the apostrophe in conjunction with proper nouns (ie, Sams inability to use an apostrophe in his work drives me crazy! And, Sams going to be in for a shock when he sees all the red on his paper.)  Again, I suspect the issue is that they are used to texting, a punctuation-optional form of expression.

The thing that concerns me the most is that I often see these exact same mistakes in my colleagues' writing.  I notice it on Moodle, and I also see it when I'm participating in peer-review.  These are not occasional mistakes; they're pervasive and I believe they indicate an overall weak grasp of proper grammatical conventions.

I think a lot of these issues stem from our growing reliance on spell-check.  I also think we have grown accustomed to informal writing (texts, emails, chats, etc).  Unfortunately, if we are not able to distinguish between formal written English and informal notes among friends, we will have a hard time teaching our students how to do so.

Before you start rolling your eyes (assuming you haven't been rolling them since the very beginning of this post) let me emphasize that this is not just the cranky ranting of an old-fashioned, snotty academic.  I love spell-check, and I do my fair share of informal writing.  However,  I can also proof-read my own work, and I am able to "code-switch" from informal to formal written English.  I employ these skills when I want to engage in serious, high-level discourse; when I need to convey subtleties of meaning; and when I want to synthesize complex information to create an argument in favor of my position.

In short, when I want to be taken seriously, I employ more sophisticated language

I want my students to be able to do the same, even if that means that we spend class time reviewing apostrophes, homonyms, and the conventions of formal written English.  It might sound old-fashioned, boring, or even irrelevant, but I think the ability to use formal written English is one of the keys to being taken seriously by others.  I want my students to be able to communicate their most insightful, clever, and personal ideas in a way that garners attention and respect.

You can't rely on spell-check to make that happen.