WRITING #18

 

Stylebooks for Grade Schools

 

Q. Every year, when my son gets a new teacher, it's as if there's a whole, new world of things to know for writing assignments. Teachers each seem to have a different viewpoint on what's correct for commas and quotation marks and so forth. Some teachers don't even seem to know or care that there are such discrepancies in writing to begin with. No wonder he dreads writing assignments; he's confused, and so am I. What should schools be doing to teach the rules of writing better from year to year?

 

            You can't expect your child to be a good soccer player if the coach never teaches the rules. No one would expect a child to be able to play a complex piece of music if he couldn't be sure the musical symbols meant what he was taught they meant.

It's the same thing with writing: it's almost incomprehensible that schools expect children to know how to write when they don't have a consistent, agreed-upon set of style rules for grammar, spelling, punctuation, capitalization, usage and all the rest.

That's called a "stylebook." It's extremely rare to find in a grade school. But what a wonderful service a parents' group, service club or even high-school English students could provide by working with the teachers in a grade school to develop one.

A good stylebook should list the basic rules about stories, poems, reports, letters, research papers and even emails and Instant Messenger exchanges.

There should be a list of the parts of speech and how they work.

Include the basic rules of spelling, and some of those pesky exceptions that give us trouble even into old age.

A list of frequently misspelled or mis-punctuated words and phrases, with the correct usage, of course, would be most helpful.

Once the stylebook has been thoroughly proofread - no room for error here! - seek funding to give every student and every teacher a copy. Ask your local newspaper: this is a project any editor would love!

 

Homework: Every child and every teacher should have the book, "The Elements of Style" by Strunk and White.