Michael Kirschner,

The post about your popular grammar class caught my attention because I
have tried to do essentially the same thing and found the students
amazingly resistant.  Could you say something about the pacing and
workload in your class?  For example, about how many classes do you devote
to diagramming simple,  relatively unadorned transitive and intransitive
sentences, like "The boy hit the ball," or "The children play in the
street"?  Since I was also working with students who elected the class, I
would like to think that my mistake was trying to go too fast.  To be
honest, my impression, when the class finally ended, was that
post-pubescent students were simple incapable of grasping basic
grammatical concepts.

Thanks,
David Mulroy




On Fri, 31 Aug 2001, Kischner, Michael wrote:

> I teach a college-level grammar class created by my colleague Edith Wollin.
> It is centered on traditional syntax.  Students use Kellogg-Reed diagramming
> to analyze syntactical structures and then use sentence combining and
> sentence composing to practice using the structures in their own writing.
>
> Most of the students love the class and recommend it to their friends.  The
> interesting thing is that neither Edith nor I does anything special to "make
> the class interesting."  Because of the quantity of material, we are forced
> to keep up a relentless forward movement, and there is no time for
> diversion.  (One student was heard telling another, "This is the one class I
> absolutely won't miss.  I'll skip a math class occasionally, but this
> grammar class you don't dare miss a dayof!")  We do have students work in
> pairs and groups, but that's about it for variety.     Yet they love the
> class.  Why?  We figure it has something to do with our own enthusiasm for
> the material and our secure grasp of it.  At the end of each class, most of
> the student know something they did not know when they came in. The class
> builds knowledge incrementally in the best Piaget fashion, and as the
> students' diagrams get more and more intricate, they take more and more
> delight in building them.  I suppose I should also point out the
> all-important fact that the class is an elective.  There is nothing like
> teaching students who have signed on to what is being taught.
>
> Edith and Wollin have written a textbook for instructors who wish to include
> instruction in grammar and style in a college composition class.  It does
> not use sentence diagramming. It teaches syntactic structures in a compact
> way and then moves quickly to how students can apply knowledge of these
> structures to their own writing.  The book is Writers' Choices: Grammar to
> Improve Style; it is published by Harcourt College Publishers.  People
> wanting to see a sample copy can get one from [log in to unmask]
> > ----------
> > From:         Cheryl Richey
> > Reply To:     Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar
> > Sent:         Friday, August 31, 2001 9:57 AM
> > To:   [log in to unmask]
> > Subject:      Something is haunting me.
> >
> > A while back a professor wrote to this group asking how he could make a
> > seemingly boring grammar book, the name I will not repeat, more
> > interesting for his uninterested students.  Someone answered back
> > something along the line that it is hard to interest the uninterested.  It
> > is haunting me that I never answered my opinion on the issue.
> >
> > One of the most important things taught during a teaching credential
> > program is that it is the teacher/professor's responsibility to make the
> > material interesting.  I would recommend taking an interactive approaches
> > class.  Learn different strategies and methods to get the students up,
> > working together, and getting to know each other.  Do you know how many
> > adults watch and enjoy games?  They play on baseball teams, watch Wheel of
> > Fortune, Jeopardy, they sing in the church choir, etc.  Make it fun!
> > Their interest will follow.
> >
>
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