Repetition (Score 1)

I have had no English courses in college, but the best class I ever had the pleasure of taking was my High School AP English class. It was taught towards the AP exam. Twice a week, we would come into class, receive a poem or short story and we had the remainder of the period to write an essay on it. Each essay was graded and handed back to us. I am sure that it was a lot of work for my teacher, but nothing has benefitted me more than that intensive class. I suppose the short answer is that teaching style and grammar is good, but the only way to really reinforce skills that will stick with students is to have them write. Having a limited amount of time forces students to write, rather than stress about word choice or grammar. They will learn their own weaknesses, not those of spell-check or the thesaurus, and they will improve. Cheers