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I just wanted to briefly remark on passive voice. It’s useful when used correctly and it’s useful when it’s correctly not used. Don’t demonize the passive voice. If you want to place emphasis on an object instead of a subject, it’s sometimes better to use passive voice. It’s also useful for concealing agency. While high schoolers should probably be encouraged to not use it (they should definitely practice not using it for a while since they probably use it compulsively and it’s a good habit to break), never throw away a communication tool :’) bearing in mind that miscommunication is also a form of communication (and that sometimes there is a good reason for putting the subject in the background). Wikipedia has a few good lines on this. Unconditional banishment of prepositions from prose seems too harsh to me, though if brevity’s your sole concern, then die passives, die!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passive_voice

P.S. I’ll almost never put up with prepositions except at sentence ends (I’m guessing you’re familiar with the fake Churchill quote I’m alluding to, but if not, google Churchill preposition). Sometimes I feel physically ill when reading prepositions in modern writing (the proper name for this physiological disorder is Englishmajoritis of the Kidneys). Uses of whom also get my hackles up, buuut, that’s another story. For the purposes of graded writing though, have you explained to them that who is a pronoun subject, and whom a pronoun object (if people understand the meaning of subject and object, a lot of arcane grammar rules become more easily comprehensible)?

Great, now I feel guilty for putting a space between a and lot… C’mon, deep down in your heart you know it should be (and will be) a compound word. And yet… Lost wars must be fought. Oh, wait, no they don’t ;’) ttyl.

P.P.S. Do you get the urge to bite, murder, and wreak general havoc in the context of disputes on diction, usage, grammar, and linguistic propriety? I definitely do, which is why I should probably be wearing a straightjacket. Instead, I will attempt to calm myself with my new mantra, “Strunk and White, Strunk and White, wouldn’t bite, wouldn’t bite,” while resisting the urge to add “probably” to the end of it. G’night :’)