Insights from my observations

Hi everyone, Kevin here. This is my first post, so if it...kinda sucks, please just bear with me. We have been discussing our writing and our future student's writing in class, and we have come to a few conclusions. Apparently, we have several different opinions about what are the best methods to write ans what are the best methods for our students to write. Additionally, we also have various opinions about what are the correct rules of grammar to require our students to follow when writing their papers. I have been observing the 11th grade English class at Harrisburg High for two weeks, and part of my duties have been to grade, you guessed it, five paragraph essays. First, if you have not had the experience of grading high school papers, it can be a challenge. There are times when the papers are barely coherent, so I have been exposed to plenty of errors. Additionally, my CT has given me a list of the errors she is most concerned with. This is what I would like to discuss. At first, I was a little apprehensive about only checking for certain errors, but after a discussion with my CT, it occured to me that we are working with high school students of various abilities, not college students in a composition class who might be trying to prepare for upper division English. Some of the students I am working with may start a sentences with "and," but they are not using the word and its placement as a dramatic device. They have simply confused the rules of grammar. Having learned this valuable lesson, it is my opinion that, whether or not our language and its grammar rules are constantly in flux, we as teachers must use a standard that is somewhat universal and basic. What do you think?