The English Teacher's Red Pen: History of an Obsession

When reading this chapter, I began to imagine what it would be like as a teacher and what I would focus on when teaching. I imagined myself sitting at a desk grading papers, tests, worksheets, or projects, and being frustrated. The chapter brought up many new thoughts that I had always wondered about when it came to evaluating student work. It seems to me that through out my time as a student I was extremly concerned about not making my papers turn out like a battlefield of ren pen corrections. I was so focused in the grammar, syntax, and semantics, that I forgot about why I was writing or even having fun with it. The ideas never flowed and the inspiration wasn't there. To me the best option for a teacher to consider is to focus more on giving positive feedback in comments about their writing process and their ideas, and leave the red pen in your teaching bag. Responding with "I like your use of that character it really made me relate" or "Have you ever thought about it this way." This could be difficult in a world where standards and benchmarks are the way things must be done, but we should focus on developing writing through ideas not fostering perfection. Students get frustrated and their self esteem lowered when all they see on a paper is red pen grammar errors that lower their grade. Don't get me wrong grammar is important and should be taught, but it should not be the only basis for grading in the english teachers plan. Teachers must develop a new and different way of responding to student writing, or students will continue to dred their writing assignments.