[tvural]

"A large percentage of that time is then spent marking up grammar and spelling."

As an aside, I don't think this is the optimal way to teach people how to write. What were the ideas in those papers? How were they organized? Do the student's arguments make sense? I think that's what most students spend most of their time thinking about when writing an essay, and it can be a bit demoralizing to see the teacher care just as much about whether the grammar was right. Most students can fix grammar mistakes relatively easily once they notice them anyway.

[narrator]

I don't think I remember actually being taught how to write in primary school. I think they should reteach grammar in high school from the beginning. Most people's brains just can't pick up a systematic treatment of some of the finer points when younger. I went and did all the grammar quizzes over at http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/quiz_list.htm a couple of years ago. It improved my writing a lot, and only took a weekend.

[seanmcdirmid]

I honestly didn't learn how to write until I got to graduate school. My very patient adviser had to beat it into my skull. Writing is a very practical art...you need to practice at it a lot vs. studying and memorizing rules, and my pre-grad school education didn't really force that.

[knight17]

Can you tell what other resources you've used to learn, what practices were helpful in studying grammar, what was not helpful in your study of grammar?

[seanmcdirmid]

> Most students can fix grammar mistakes relatively easily once they notice them anyway.

You would be surprised! Especially with people whose first languages aren't English. Having something to provide feedback on grammar problems early on would be really useful. Of course, once they get grammar down, the next step is rhythm and flow, as well as reducing redundancy, and the biggest problem, as you say, is always the story, but you have to peel through lots of grammar problems before you get to that point. I edit a lot of research papers for my Chinese peers (most have PhDs, I work in a China-based research lab, so that isn't weird), so I'm pretty clear on the problems.