Text (students’ writing) is ‘exploded’ between full stops. In early stages, with a student at beginner level, it may help a student to see the point if his writing is physically cut apart at full stops and photocopied with gaps between each ‘sentence’. At the very least every full stop should be greatly exaggerated – highlighted perhaps. Somehow, at any rate, each ‘sentence’ is made very independently visible, very easy to consider in isolation from all others. Each ‘sentence’ is then considered from secretarial and authorial points of view. We ask questions of it in both modes. The aim is to get the student to understand how to do this self-correction autonomously, and routinely to do it, just as we do all the time.

I wish you luck, incidentally, explaining just what a sentence actually is. The Shorter Oxford English Dictionary from 1993 gives, among a lot of other stuff: ‘A series of words complete in itself as a thought, containing or implying a subject and predicate and conveying a statement, question, exclamation or command’ and (throwing in the towel altogether) ‘A piece of writing between two full stops’ and (musical, but helps) ‘A complete idea...’.

We have dealt with considering our own writing as a secretary but we must first examine it as its author. Separating these two aspects of writing greatly simplifies the process of self-correction for students. Our questions asked of the writing will be different in each case. This fundamental approach must, as always, be made metacognitively clear to the student.

As secretary we ask questions like: do the spellings look right? Does the punctuation fit the way it reads? These need to be answered, of course, as students are only too well aware, but punctuation and spelling are not writing. There is no soul or excitement in them. They are essential to learning literacy, and helpful to the reader, but do not move or motivate. Students need to be enthused about writing and they need, therefore, to be very specifically taught about the many skills of authors – which is what they are, of course, whenever they write.

As author we read our sentence (preferably aloud, to catch and consider its cadences) as many times as is necessary to answer questions asked of it. In author mode we ask such things as: is it really a sentence at all? If not, should it be broken up into two sentences, changed in some way, or perhaps amalgamated, whole or in part, with a neighbouring sentence? Is it too long? (and see appendix five) Does it make sense as it is? If not, why not? Does it read well (sound good)? If not, or perhaps anyway, could it be expressed differently? Would it sound better then? Does it say what was intended (and nothing unintended)? If not, how should it be rephrased? Does it fit with the rest of the piece? Can any fat be cut from it? Is the style attractive – is it me? How will it affect a reader, and is that what I want? And so on, and so on.

It is usually necessary to read and re-read each sentence aloud really to get the feel of it – and this is what students should know they are doing. They want the feel of it. They want to know how it sounds, and their own judgement on that question should be relied upon. Students who are fluent in English are all capable of assessing their own writing simply by trying to say it aloud and listening to it, just as you do. If it sounds wrong it probably is; if it doesn’t it’s probably alright (though may still be capable of improvement – all writing is capable of almost endless improvement). Students need confidence if they are to manage this technique – the aim is to get them using it independently after all. They need early success and they must be absolutely clear how the method works, and also that they should deliberately call upon it. They need particularly to be reassured that binning large amounts of the first, and usually second or even third and fourth attempts is not just usual, it is almost always so desirable as to be best thought of as mandatory. They also need the confidence to stand up for their own decisions as author; if they genuinely wish to say a particular thing in a particular way then that is their choice – it’s their language and they may use it as they wish, Microsoft checks notwithstanding.

It is far easier to deal with language in sentence-sized chunks. Many skills are learned this way: the skills of organising thought, the skills of critical reading, the skills of sentence recognition and construction, punctuation and how it works, the visual checking of spelling. In short, the ability to examine writing in an autonomous and constructive way. The point is assuredly not to get the student to write like the tutor, but to enable the student to recognise, value and express his own voice to his own satisfaction on his own paper. The object is to demonstrate to the student how he can produce better, clearer, more ‘worked’, more intentional and directed, more accurate writing containing more of what he wants and less of what he doesn’t. A student should, after all, leave tuition independent, confident and free; self-sufficient not merely at the level attained in ‘class’ but able, motivated, metalinguistically and metacognitively equipped to develop further alone and autonomously; to provide his own learning environments as and when; in short, to ripen into his own, lifelong monitor, supporter and teacher.