Using Strength-Based Praise to Encourage Student Agency in Grammar

How do you explain the 'their, they're, and there's' of the English language? Find out how taking a strength-based approach to proofreading impacts confidence and agency. Traditional practices in higher education often recognize 'Standard English' as the most acceptable form of language, while multilingual writers often do not have confidence in their abilities to express themselves according to these grammar conventions. This lack of confidence over grammar causes writers to think that they are unable to proofread without the guidance of writing tutors, and leads to expectations of comprehensive error correction. However, scaffolding is much more effective for long term learning. Process praise in grammar conferences is helpful for focusing on writers' correct strategies and applying them at other points in the paper. Discussing the effectiveness of points of grammatical strength to use as a model for fixing errors is a helpful tool for scaffolding grammar and building writers' agency.