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Since he is 11, he probably has not even studied grammar explicitly in school (that's 6th grade). he has probably studied sentence structure and so it would be ok to correct a fragmented sentence b...
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#3: Attribution notice added
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/40048 License name: CC BY-SA 3.0 License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#2: Initial revision
Since he is 11, he probably has not even studied grammar explicitly in school (that's 6th grade). he has probably studied sentence structure and so it would be ok to correct a fragmented sentence but I would not bother trying to correct a comma splice. It is not that helpful to correct something that he is doing wrong if there is very little chance of him knowing it is wrong. And as for character and plot mistakes, that would also be beyond the scope of 5th-grade writing. In order to not burn him out on writing, accept it for what it is: the work of a child. And it sounds like it was a longer story than most 5th-graders would be willing to write. Correct only those issues that he has been properly taught to correct himself. P.S. grammar is taught throughout middle school starting in second grade and does not stop until high school and sometimes college. based on his age I would assume (this varies by school or teaching method) that he should know: basic sentence structure: subject vs. predicate basic tenses: past vs. present basic word types: noun vs. pronoun vs. adjective end of sentence punctuation: . vs. ? vs. ! and that is about it. in 6th-grade he would learn: comma usage clauses the spelling of commonly misspelled words lots of vocabulary how to properly check a paper for basic grammatical errors and a more thorough in-depth review of the previously covered subjects.