When I started working at Gladlyville U I was strict about writing mechanics. I expected that students' written work would be meticulously edited, and I marked them down if it wasn't. Both of those things are still true, I guess, but my expectations are much lower.
Students routinely turn in written assignments that read like haphazard first drafts, with freeform spelling and punctuation. Even when they're making more of an effort, though, they often treat apostrophes as optional.
I think maybe I'm a product of a place and time that put a lot of emphasis on writing mechanics. For my parents, who grew up on western Kentucky farms, it was excruciatingly important not to sound (or look, if we're talking about writing rather than speech) ignorant. I went to junior high and high school in southern West Virginia, where I think my teachers must have been reacting to the widespread anti-intellectualism all around them. I went to college with the idea that a misplaced apostrophe was a personal failing.
This is absurd, obviously. And yet I wish sometimes that some of my students had a wee little sprinkle of that attitude. Not enough to cause them distress, you understand -- just enough to restore some apostrophes to their writing.
I have spent hours this week grading an assignment in which students were discussing a book (an AMAZING book -- highly recommended, and germane for those of you interested in the questions about AAC users raised in Happiness Falls). I have read so many posts about "Fionas doctor" and "the authors husband."
If I were a betting woman, I'd wager that English is moving in the direction of German, which does not require apostrophes. The apostrophe omissions are so widespread in the writing of young adults that I expect in 30 years' time it will be acceptable to show possession by adding an s without an apostrophe -- as in "Jamies prediction about Englishs future." But it is NOT 30 years in the future, and so I will keep marking down the students who omit apostrophes.
It's a lot of marking down, though.
Recent Comments