Today Mark Overmeyer, author of What Student Writing Teaches Us:
Formative Assessment in the Writing Workshop stops by to answer
your questions! Do you have any suggestions on how to maintain
balance with conventions and other areas of writing based on
assessments? I know focusing too heavily on conventions will
negatively affect their other areas of writing (even if they are
already demonstrating strengths in the other areas), but I would
also like for them to get a better grasp on the conventions
expectations for 7th grade. This is a very good, and important,
question. Yes, you are correct: it is true that focusing too
heavily on conventions can negatively impact writing
performance. Ironically, a complete focus on teaching grammar
out of context can actually cause students to decrease their
achievement in grammar and in writing quality. More information
about the research on grammar instruction can be found in
several sources, including George Hillocks’ Teaching Writing As
Reflective Practice: Integrating