Things That Work: Working with Patterns of Error

Working with Patterns of Error
I give a pattern of error quiz sometime after the middle of the term. Each student must identify his or her own patterns of error and explain how to find these errors when proofreading and how to correct them. This makes the students, rather than me, responsible for understanding and finding the errors they make.

How it works:

• When you are grading papers, keep a sheet where you note errors that each student makes more than once. This is sort of a pain but it's not actually that time-consuming.
• When giving folders back after midterm folder review, have them spend time looking at the errors you have marked in their papers (I underline but do not correct errors, so they have to figure out what they are and how to correct them). They make a list of them. You can also do this for homework. Tell them there will be a quiz on this information. The quiz asks them to give:
  a) their three most common errors
  b) an example of each error.
  c) a correction of the example.
  d) a description of the proofreading technique that helps them find that error.
• The grading is a little creative, but they don't seem do notice. Give them three points for a), three for b), etc. If they don't know the difference between proofreading and revision, and write about explaining quotations, etc., they fail. If they never make errors in their finished papers, they probably have errors that they found in earlier drafts that they can write about (and that kind of student usually doesn't complain anyway).
• If a student fails, he or she comes to my office and takes it again and again until he or she passes.

--Ann Dean

Helping Students Correct Their Patterns of Error
(Creating a Grammar Worksheet)

At some point in the semester, you will have to address certain recurring grammar errors, for example, subject-verb agreement, pronoun agreement, vague pronouns, run-ons, fragments, etc. The best tool for improving students' grammar is a handout compiled from their own papers. I begin "gathering" grammar errors on the Final Draft of the first paper. I collect them according to error, thus creating a master copy of the handout for myself. By the second assignment I have more than enough errors to give them a 2-page "Grammar Worksheet" which I create by taking the errors out of their categories and mixing them up. I tell the class that these are all grammar errors they have collectively made on their first two assignments. I give them a list of the errors represented, but do not tell them which sentences contain which errors. Each sentence has at least one error I have listed. It takes them a long time to correct them, and they find it difficult to pinpoint what is wrong, but they always know that something isn't right. This exercise will take a full class period, but it is worth it. They see that the errors are common in all their papers and they laugh a bit in spite of themselves. More importantly, they see these grammar errors, perhaps for the first time, as unnecessary mistakes which they might be able to catch on their own in the future.

--Michelle Brazier