tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3571309.post111867441903491469..comments2023-10-31T07:32:11.739-04:00Comments on Wormtalk and Slugspeak: Michaelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07566889846240013567noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3571309.post-1118710546124051962005-06-13T20:55:00.000-04:002005-06-13T20:55:00.000-04:00Absolutely. If there's one thing that the cog psy...Absolutely. If there's one thing that the cog psych people who work on writing seem to agree about, it's that the more difficult the topic, the more problems in the writing, at every level from the thematic to the grammatical. <BR/>It drive me crazy sometimes that our colleagues think that writing is somehow different from all other skills. An analogy: if you've coached or watched kids' ice hockey, you will have seen that kids who can skate pretty well go all to pieces when you first hand them a stick. Then they master that, and fall apart on the fundamentals again when you give them a puck. Then put some other kids on the ice playing defense and they forget how to skate again. Eventually the earlier skills are mastered enough (though tons of practice), that they can do the more advanced stuff without losing their fundamentals. <BR/>I think writing works the same way. The only way to succeed is continued practice and correction, which is why a genuine writing-across-the-curriculum program, one that continued to provide instruction in all classes at all levels, would be the ideal. We're trying to build one at Wheaton, but it is--as your experience suggests--a very difficult proposition.Michaelhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07566889846240013567noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3571309.post-1118706871538515642005-06-13T19:54:00.000-04:002005-06-13T19:54:00.000-04:00Do you think the more complicated the topic, the m...Do you think the more complicated the topic, the more grammatical errors there are?<BR/><BR/>I just finished up helping with a workshop on teaching writing in the quantitative disciplines and there was an awful lot of talk about "unclear" writing and grammar problems. The writing teachers among us tried to convince the science faculty that these problems might reveal a greater problem in understanding the underlying concepts and not, as they thought, reveal that the student is a bad writer (necessarily). Interesting I should run into this just after I spent three days thinking about this very issue.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10766222493968363248noreply@blogger.com