"...They do what they need to do to get the bottle, and as time goes by they learn better and better ways of getting the bottle. But their goal was always the bottle, not the walk... Communicating effectively is the road to success. Knowing the rules is largely irrelevant to communication. Writers learn to communicate by communicating, not by memorizing rules."This is so crucial, because it's not saying that we don't need to focus on the "walk"--we do--but we need to realize that the walk is not the end goal in and of itself. It doesn't belittle the importance of grammar, but it states that there is a point to grammar, and that is to communicate effectively what you are trying to get across as a writer.
I don't think I ever really realized this until college. I don't ever remember writing anything in high school that I wanted to write, there was never a freedom in writing until recently. Papers were written for the sole eyes of the teacher and what they expected and wanted out of their students, not for communicating something as a writer. Students learn to write better and better when they have a goal for their writing and they can see (or at least partially see) where they are trying to go with it. And I think when students see that goal, they will eventually realize the importance of the steps it takes to get there and to improve. That will come with time, but that is why it is so important to revitalize rather than correct.
Like the chapter says, anyone can correct grammar, but not everyone can respond in a sophisticated way. I think it is hard for me to train myself to not just regard something as "good" or "bad" based on whether or not the grammar is good. Even with working with kids who don't speak "well" according to society's standards, it's all to easy to disregard many of the things they say because we can't get past what the words sound like that are coming out of their mouths. It's a long process, and one in which we should be encouraging to get better and better rather than correcting at every moment of disuse.
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I think the idea that teachers and peers look to grammar mistakes as a means of editing is interesting. And I pretty sure i've been guilty of it in the past. Despite what the education textbooks say, I, personally, am annoyed if there are no marks on a returned piece of my writing. It leaves me wondering if the teacher even read it. And I've definitely learned a good bit about grammar from paper corrections. Even if i didn't exactly know why something was incorrect, i at least began to hear what sounded right. I didn't get very much formal grammar instruction in school, so i appreciate paper corrections. However, i do agree with the book statement that feedback is more helpful to the writing process than corrections. But if as a rule a teacher doesn't correct grammar on papers, he/she has to teach it some other way.
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