"Errors," was Re: adjunct pay whine

[Carrol Cox]

Kelley Walker wrote:
> 
> [clip]
> 
> social sciences/humanities  grads can work together. work together to
> create a database of common student errors and corrections: copy, cut,
> paste, printout for ea. students (save on all that writing).

(Administrative pressure varies re this, but assuming freedom]

If by errors you mean syntax, spelling, etc. there is a far far better
way -- don't see them. In any case, it is important to notice that the
vast majority of syntactical errors exist only in the student's written
work, _not_ in her speech. A student who was potentially one of the
better writers I ever had, and one with acute literary perceptions even
as a freshman, never in three semesters submitted a paper containing
even one complete sentence. _All_ his errors were slippages between
brain and finger -- at the time I had a very quick memory, and I could
judge his command of English syntax, etc. by memorizing sentences he
spoke in conference. The evolution of the human brain apparently was
such as to make speech mastery fairly universal -- but the ability to
hold language in memory while transcribing it to paper or keyboard is
apparently specialized, like perfect pitch or the ability to wiggle your
ears.

A world that wants to make use of the full intellectual powers of its
inhabitants will have to find ways other than writing for the sharing of
advanced thought. It is entirely possible that the person, whoever he
was, that we call Homer would not have been able to pass a freshman
writing course.

  give up some
> of your authority and use collaborative learning techniques: better
> pedagogy, lightens your load.

It's probably better pedagogy -- but I suspect would usually intensify
rather than lighten the load.

Carrol
>