Zero Tolerance Policy

The "Zero Tolerance" Writing Error Policy

Grammar problems arise in almost everyone's writing at some point or another. Anticipating that students will produce perfectly clean text with no errors in usage, spelling, or punctuation is, probably, an unrealistic expectation for any teacher to have. I don't expect perfection in student writing--perhaps because I hate to have my expecations dashed! But I do have a "zero tolerance" policy for a number of common surface errors (listed below). Read on for more information about this policy.

Rationale:
Students in this class are future teachers. Teachers are expected to communicate in writing to a number of different audiences (parents, colleagues, administrators) on a regular basis. Whether it's fair or not, such communications will influence the ways that the audience members assess a teacher's competence. A letter to parents (or a memorandum to the principal) that is riddled with errors will leave a bad impression, and will contribute to the public perception that teachers don't know what they're doing. This policy is intended to create the habit of looking specifically for commonly-made errors in writing, and fixing them before the writing reaches its intended audience.

How it works:
If you turn in work that contains one or more of the errors listed below, it will be returned to you with a score of "0" for the writing conventions and errors portion of the grade (usually accounting for 15-25% of the total grade). If you receive such a score, you may look over the piece carefully and correct all of the errors you find (those on the "do not commit" list below will be marked with an asterisk *), and resubmit the work within one week for re-evaluation. If errors on the list below remain, the piece will receive the same grade as before.

What if I make other errors?
Errors not on the list below may be pointed out by the instructor, and will contribute to your work's overall score. But if the error is not on the list below, your paper will be graded and returned.

Errors on the "Do Not Commit" list

there/they're/their

there = in that place
they're = they are
their = belonging to them

its/it's

its = belonging to it
it's = it is

than/then

than = compared to
then = an occurance in the past; the next step

your/you're

your = belonging to you
you're = you are

were/we're/where

were = past tense of "are"
we're = we are
where = in what place?

definitely/defiantly (this is a spell-check error)

definitely = for certain
defiantly = with open opposition

possession and plural confusion (apostrophe errors)

If you're talking about more than one of something, add an "s" or "es" to it

one dog, two dogs
one pass, two passes

If you're talking about something that belongs to another thing, add an " ' " or " 's " to it

a bowl belonging to one dog is "the dog's bowl"
a bowl belonging to two dogs is called "the dogs' bowl"
the recipient of a pass is "the pass's receiver"
the recipient of two passes is "the passes' receiver"

This page was last updated 9 February2004