Regarding the editorial “Rethink college remedial classes”:
As an English instructor who has taught both remedial and introductory writing at the University of Washington, I can testify from my experience to the significance of this problem. Standardized tests fail to test everything that matters, but the SAT and ACT do require students to master important skills. A spliced comma may not eviscerate a sentence, but the Oxford comma spells the difference between “I love my parents, God and Donald Trump” and another equally absurd but minimally coherent sentiment. Grasping grammar helps one to write prose that others can understand.
Few arrive with or develop these skills by the time they reach the end of either remedial or standard writing courses. Institutions place much pressure on instructors to pass students regardless.
My own appreciation for grammar first developed when studying foreign languages helped me to realize how to appreciate other groups of people. Perhaps we should encourage and fund the study of the many non-English languages which Americans speak, read and write every day.
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Josh Eskew, Seattle