Response and the social construction of error

Abstract

Although the subject of error has been the focus of considerable scholarly inquiry, little is known about the effects of error on teachers' responses to students' writing. This article offers a prolegomenon to further research on response to error from a social constructivist perspective. Three areas for investigation are suggested and illustrated with more specific focuses: the effects of error on teachers' processing of student writing; the relationship between error and the and the teachers' construction of the writer's persona; and the relationship between the changing status of socially constructed norms of language use and response to error. Acknowledging the general disjunction between scholarship and teaching practices, the second half of the article turns to another kind of needed inquiry within the “scholarship of teaching.” Greater focus on reflective practice allows teachers to develop more sophisticated approaches to error in the classroom, especially in the relationship between instruction and response to students' writing.