I just finished approving a bunch of my students' blog postings and faced the same dilemma I always come up against. Do I proofread their postings or not? I have no issues correcting simple mistakes in which words are skipped, repeated, etc. If they got a chance to read it again, they'd catch it. Those aren't mistakes kids tend to learn from. However, other mistakes--spelling mistakes, grammar mistakes, phrasing--all of these things are mistakes from which kids can learn lessons for the next time around, and which they won't learn unless someone TELLS them they're wrong. Also, I hate to put my kids' writing out onto the great, big, public internet without looking perfect (because it makes BOTH of us look bad).
On the other hand, if I put it out there WITH the mistakes, maybe it's teaching them a lesson to proofread their own work closer before submitting it, and/or that they should have someone else read it before submission.
Teachers tend to have strong (and very opposite) opinions on this topic, so it's bit pointless to discuss this with them, unfortunately. This posting is an attempt to get some valuable outsider opinions about this topic :-) Let me know your thoughts. Now that I think about it, for an even broader perspective, I'm going to see what my kids think. I'll post this as a blog posting for them to respond to and we'll see if they can form some relevant opinions on the topic (and maybe even use the persuasive techniques we've been talking about).
2 comments:
Make it clear to them what your policy is for posting their work. That gives them the power to control how people will see their work. Also make it clear to the reader what your policy is for posting their work. That let's us know that the student is responsible for their own work. I wouldn't edit. Use it as a learning tool. Ask them to show it to their friends/family. Ask later if anyone found mistakes by themselves or others. Helps kids understand the power of this series of tubes.
If they're sending writing out after your approval then it has your stamp on it. That may reflect poorly on you.
I cringe when I see mistakes, and I'd like to see students thinking of anything they put on-line as "published", so it should be their best work.
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