The technical aspects of writing

[seeker]

Ds is 11. He is a good writer- his grammar, spelling, content and so on are fine. But he still frequently uses random capital letters, errant apostrophes and so on. He knows what to do- give him one of those unpunctuated passages to correct and he'll whizz through it and get it all right. But once he's doing "real" writing it all vanishes again. Any ideas how to sort this out before "big school" in September?

Get him to see editing skills as part of writing? Missing stuff is fine in the first draft - but all writers correct in second or later drafts.

The really frustrating thing is that he is, actually, a brilliant editor- a natural born proof reader. But he still left a 2 line note for his sister yesterday using a lower case letter for her name and your for you're!

Does it matter in a two line note to his sister?
If he can edit his work when needed I wouldn't worry.

No, it doesn't matter in that note, of course- it was just an example. But surely capital letters for proper names should be automatic? And whenever he writes anything it's full of this sort of thing. And if he has to rewrite and edit every piece of work he does then it's such a colossal waste of time! I would much rather he spent time doing something more interesting than copying out his work to correct things that he could get right first time! And there's no sign that he's gradually getting better- if the was I'd leave it.

yes it should be automatic but we all make errors when were are in a hurry

Absolutely. That explains the note. But not the much thought about, carefully and neatly written homework! Or the equally carefully written birthday card with no capital letters at all.

You say he is good at proof reading can he correct his work without anyone pointing out his errors?

Yep. That's why the desire to strangle him is so strong!

then I would say it's laziness ... and you probably should strangle him just a little

Oooooooo, official permission ...from a professional!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I'll have to queue up behind his teacher, though!

IMO, these days there is so much text written in a way that I you would see as being 'incorrect' that it is the norm, and doesn't 'grate' on children / younger people the way it does on those of us old enough to have been brought up when things were written 'correctly' at all times - I don't only mean texts on phones, but all sorts of graphics are used on posters, adverts, on the credits that roll at the end of a film or TV prog., that it's seen as a style thing rather than as being 'incorrect', and, because it's 'the norm' it doesn't need correcting, until someone points out to him it's homework that needs to be correct before handing in.

seeker, we got instant results from this:

DS got a really low mark for English in his report. It's his best subject. he prides himself on it. He was gutted and we were shocked. When I asked his teacher, she said, 'I can't give him the grade he is capable of until he uses capitals and punctuation correctly every time.'

I passed this on to him. He said, 'Is that all?" and has rarely misused them since. He didn't realise they had such an effect on his marks.

Maybe get into cahoots with the teacher to mark him down until he habitually writes correctly.

True - under Michael Gove he stands to lose marks in future not only in English but I think also in other subjects eg History etc?

Have you asked him why he keeps forgetting these? Is it just that he doesn't think it matters? Or is there some other reason?

I think he didn't realise they were that important and so put zero effort into correcting himself as he went along.

His work transformed overnight.

Now i have to do the same with paragraphing. I ask him if he understands what paragraphs are for. He does. So he agrees to use them, then writes pages of cramped, paragraph-free prose. His writing scores are far lower than they should be because of this.

Try and get him to read a lengthyish text with no/limited capital letters and no paragraphs. Writing is about communicating ideas and he should spot that without the markers that we take for granted like capitalisation, punctuation and paragraphs, then it's really hard to get a grip on what ever it is the author was trying to communicate - no matter how interesting it might be.

If he is writing for a purpose, correct capitalisation, punctuation and paragraphs will help him achieve that purpose and indeed are crucial to it - they are not literary 'frills', for decoration only.

Try reading Roman inscriptions - even without knowing the language you can see how bloody difficult it is with everything in capitals and no gaps between words or punctuation!

I'm an English teacher and I notice this problem a lot.

He's at the mastery stage - he can point out errors and explain usage - but he isn't at the point where it's become second nature to him yet.

I think texting, msn etc is partly to blame for this (though I don't want to sound like a technophobic pendant - I think instant messaging is a fantastic thing, and children are amazingly creative with language these days as a result of it) - they're used to reading 'errors' in a way that perhaps their parents aren't, so they don't spot them as readily. In fact, some of my pupils told me that they deliberately make errors so that they don't look like smartarses. I do it too, sometimes, on facebook and so on - correct punctuation and grammar aren't part of the online register, can make you look like a twat and can also be played with for effect (lots of my top set pupils are ironic in their usage, for example). A lot of the time adults just aren't getting the joke.

I'd just keep pointing it out to him and emphasise the importance of proofreading and context. Don't expect him to have 'correct' usage all the time - he won't. None of them do, and they have very good reasons for that.

I'm an English teacher and although it isn't fashionable, I'm of the same opinion as Backfor: there is so much more writing where informality is not only acceptable but is actually desirable as on this site or in text language. Since kids rarely do much formal writing at all (no letters for example) and often don't read either, as Backfor says, lack of correct punctuation simply doesn't 'grate'.