Research and Thinking Blog #4

McGee, T. and Ericcson, P. (2008) “The Politics of the Program: MS Word as the Invisible Grammarian.” Computers in the Composition Classroom. Ed. Sidler, Michelle, Morris, Richard and Smith, Elizabeth Overman. Boston, New York: Bedford/St. Martins, 2008. 308-325.  Print. 

Making Connections:

Funny story I was just reprimanding my mother about Grammar Check in MS Word. She is taking Freshman Comp at the community college and I have been her resource thus far this semester. She sent me an outline for an evaluation essay that is her next major assignment. I gave her written feedback, and decided to call her about frequent sentence fragments, and strangely enough all her sentence fragments lacked subjects. As I am trying to explain this to her she interrupts and says, “Well the grammar check didn’t say anything.”      

                           Urrggggggggggggggggg!!!!!

Summary: 

McGee and Ericsson discuss the history, function and practicality of Microsoft’s Grammar Check (MGC). The historical aspects of the program reveal the strong influence of Computational Linguists (CL) on the development of the program instead of experts in composition and rhetoric. CL’s are virtually computer scientist that convert natural language into various coding. There are 4 major characteristics to take away from MGC:

1. It’s ubiquity
2. It’s near invisibility
3. It’s increasing power
4. It’s theoretical mismatch 

The everywhere existence of MGC has replaced a job duty of English teachers -- instruction of grammar. MGC is considered everywhere because most businesses and home/school pc users are using a Windows operating system, and many people heavily use word processing programs. 

MGC is considered nearly invisible because the settings in Word is automatically set to have Grammar Check on. Another aspect of invisibility is in the words of Fred Kemp, “computerize any activity without having to completely rethink the activity, including all the assumed behaviors that have become virtually invisible.” In so many words, the activity of trusting and using the suggestions of MGC is an assumed behavior the actually system itself has become invisible. 

MGC is considered powerful because of the population it is targeting. The Natural Language Processing (NLP) has helped contributed to CL’s a level of grammar comfort of advanced writers. Advanced writers are usually college educated, and fit other characteristics of the status quo that has “power” in this society. 

The obvious theoretical mismatch is lack of consultation from experts in the field --English instructors, composition instructors and rhetoricians. 

Take Away:

Become critical users of MGC. 

Implications in the ELA Classroom:

As a ELA teacher I try to teaching grammar during the editing and proofing step in the writing process. It brings grammar in context instead of isolation. This ways students are  practicing grammar with their own writing they have developed not just some made up fantastic sentences completely out of context. In Urban Education this is not much of a problem due to the issue of access. However, in a suburban demographic this was quite frustrating. Students would not even proofread their papers and would solely rely on grammar check. If you re-read the suggestions it just doesn’t make sense. I have personally grabbed a grammar book to find justification for MGC’s rationale and ended up being stumped. My suggestions for districts is to turn off grammar and spell check functions in the word processing programs.