When people try to alter their acquired language, by learning either a foreign language or a different dialect of their own, the effort to use the new forms will require knowledge of the rules, time, attention to form, and motivation. These requirements explain why students who speak a dialect of English perform differently when they complete drill sheets and when they actually write. Students can complete drill sheets correctly after studying one rule because then they are focused on the rule, have the time, and are attending to form. But in their own writing, even on the next day, these conditions will not be present because they will be attending to content and not taking time to attend to form. The drill will not transfer to their writing, and the time given to it will take away from the students' time for the practice, instruction, and critique of writing.
American students reach college having been drilled in most grammar rules.
Requiring further drill for the entire group may not be the most efficient way to deal with the errors that some students are still making. As discussed in the section on finishing, students should work on their proofreading skills so they do not continue to overlook careless errors when they know the rules for correct usage. They should learn to read paragraphs out of order, proofreading for a few grammatical features at a time, and to use the spelling and grammar checkers available on word processors. For each paper, you might assign one or two grammatical features that will be stressed in class and then marked on the final copy rather than attempting to address all of grammar at once. Then students will not feel overwhelmed by an uncontrollable amount of information.