Finally, improvement is self-motivated. The fewer mistakes students submit originally, the sooner they leave other students still struggling in the classroom with checks by every third line. Progress during the semester is also easily seen, if not by checks on individual papers at least by totals in the gradebook shared with a student during conference. Minimal Marking p.168 Third, this method will help teachers analyze the nature and sources of error in ways that lately have proved so insightful among composition specialists. Minimal Marking 169 Crude as this breakdown is, a useful fact immediately emerges.
Students are able to find and correct different kinds of errors at about the same rate.
It is remarkable how often the method winnows away a heterogeneous clutter of threshold errors to leave just a few conceptual errors-errors, though again idiosyncratic and multiplied by repetition, now accessible for focused treatment. Even for teachers who have less time than they would like for individual instruction, there will be progress if this method of marginal checking is maintained during the entire course. At least there has been in my classes. Using inclass, fifty-minute, impromptu essays written the first and last week of the semester, with two switched topics to eliminate influence of topic, I have calculated change in error rate in three regular freshman composition sections. Of course what other factors influenced this gain must remain conjectural.