Why We Can't Farm Out the Teaching of Writing

Rachel Toor:

An assistant professor recently wrote to me with an interesting request: "I would like you to suggest a software package or other applications that could more critically assess formal writing than the grammar kernel in Microsoft Office. I am disappointed in my students' writing yet don't really have the time to fully evaluate writing assignments."

Well, then.

I found the question to be strange, and his tone more than a little demanding, but I did a bit of checking. Microsoft's spell checker is a great tool against typos, but, as we all know, it often makes nonsense out of students' prose by suggesting correct spellings of completely different and inappropriate words, which they accept without thinking. Its grammar function drives me nuts, but I suppose for some it can provide a prompt to look more closely at sentences.

Posted by Jim Zellmer at May 6, 2012 1:20 AM
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