Home | How It Works | Stats Login | Register         Case: Creative Writing This has been going on for some time. Some of the students in my 7th grade English class cannot distinguish between school writing and everyday speaking. They write like they speak. A lot of my students are African American, and they tend to use Ebonics in their writing. I have been trying to correct their writing errors since the beginning of the school, which was three months ago, but they still continue writing like they are speaking. I talked to the other English teacher at school to see how she deals with this issue if she has it. She said she did not pay attention to the writing errors if students were doing creative writing. I disagree with her. Even in creative writing, students should follow the rules of the language closely. The main problem is almost all of my African American students are failing my class while that is not the case with the other English teacher. Should I reconsider my position on this issue? I feel like my position shows high expectations; but I am not sure any more. Solution: (Rates are posted for this solution!) I am a Special Ed. teacher in a 7th grade inclusion ELA classroom. The ELA teacher that I work with is wonderful and comes up with creative writing topics for her students. I have seen the same issue that you are talking about here even though we are half way through the year and have learned many of the rules of writing. I have been so surprised at how the students write the way they speak and do not put the rules they are learning into their writing. However, the teacher I am with is much like the other English teacher at your school. If the students are putting forth the effort in their writing and truly attempting to be creative, she most often ignores the spelling and grammar errors unless they are really major. Maybe you could correct some of these grammar issues on their papers so they see their mistakes, but don't grade them as harshly for the work. It is difficult to get students interested in writing in the first place and always receiving bad grades may discourage them.