Recycling Paragraph: Which Errors Matter Most
A student submits this paragraph in a timed essay: 'Last year, our school decided to start a recycling programme. Each class were asked to collect plastic bottles. The programme was launch in January by the principal. Since then, students has collected over 200 kilograms of bottles. The principal, along with the teachers, were impressed by the response. The bottles are sent to a centre where they are converted into flakes. We must continue this project because it teach us responsibility and it make our school cleaner.' The teacher marks it 6/10 and writes: 'Some errors are slips; two affect agreement across the sentence.' The class is revising for the A/L examination, where error correction carries 10 marks. You are asked to act as the teacher's assistant and prepare a correction note for the student.
1. Correct the paragraph. Then identify the five errors you would prioritise in feedback and explain the rule behind each.
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Corrected paragraph: 'Last year, our school decided to start a recycling programme. Each class was asked to collect plastic bottles. The programme was launched in January by the principal. Since then, students have collected over 200 kilograms of bottles. The principal, along with the teachers, was impressed by the response. The bottles are sent to a centre where they are converted into flakes. We must continue this project because it teaches us responsibility and makes our school cleaner.'
Five priorities: (1) Each class were -> was: 'each' is singular, even though 'class' contains many students. (2) was launch -> was launched: passive requires past participle. (3) students has -> have: plural subject; 'since then' also requires present perfect. (4) principal, along with the teachers, were -> was: 'along with' is a parenthetical phrase, not a coordinator; the head noun is singular. (5) it teach ... it make -> teaches ... makes: third-person singular subject 'it' needs -s. These are not just slips; they show the student is not yet tracking the head noun or the auxiliary.
2. The teacher says two errors 'affect agreement across the sentence'. Which two, and why are they more serious than the missing -ed in 'was launch'?
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The two cross-sentence agreement errors are Each class were and The principal, along with the teachers, were. In both, the verb has been attracted to a nearby plural ('class' as a group of students; 'teachers') rather than to the grammatical head ('each class'; 'the principal'). That is a systematic error in identifying the subject, so it will recur in many sentences. Was launch is a local verb-form slip: the student knows the passive but has not produced the participle. It is still an error, but it is more easily fixed by a checklist. The teacher should prioritise the agreement pattern because it affects many clauses and can make the writing appear careless even when the ideas are clear.
3. Rewrite the final sentence to avoid repetition and improve parallelism.
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Rewrite: 'We must continue this project because it teaches us responsibility and makes our school cleaner.' The original repeats 'it' and uses two bare verbs, which makes the sentence sound like a list of separate claims. One subject with two parallel present-tense verbs ('teaches', 'makes') is tighter and shows that both effects belong to the same project. It also avoids the error of dropping the third-person -s twice.