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Daily Oral Language, The Bell Tolls For Thee: A Critique Of Daily Sentence-Editing Exercises, Karen Pezzetti

Language Arts Journal of Michigan

For decades, experts have argued that effective grammar instruction must occur within the context of students’ authentic reading and writing processes. Despite this mandate, however, many teachers continue to use daily sentence-editing exercises like Daily Oral Language (DOL) with their secondary ELA students. Here, I argue that ELA teachers must abandon daily-sentence editing routines on three counts: first, these exercises do not help students become better writers; second, they implicitly communicate several dangerous messages about writing and revision; and, third, they are particularly harmful for speakers of stigmatized dialects of English. The article concludes with a short list of guiding …