Peter,
   In some ways...and it can be painful at times...we need to take some
responsibility for the misunderstandings our students come away with.
We need to do the same thing as conversationalists and as writers, so
I'll try to be more articulate this time around. I apologize that I'm
working these ideas through from a few intuitions that I am taking away
from Nashville.
   I know that's not a direct response to your point. In this case, the
student gave this as the core of what she learned about grammar, by
which she meant that this is what the teacher wanted her to change
about her writing. She learned how to take the contractions out and
thought she was learning grammar by doing that. The point I was hoping
to make is that this is what passed for grammar, but should really be
thought of as bad writing advice, not grammar at all. There's nothing I
know of in the study of grammar that would support the idea of avoiding
contractions, even in fairly formal registers.
   To me, this would parallel lots of prescriptive advice about writing,
such as the idea that a paragraph has to have a certain amount of
sentences. If you ask your students what a paragraph is, you will find
out quickly what they believe from what they have been taught, and much
of it seems fairly silly. The only way to counter it is to say that
it's advice that is not based on a close look at how language works,
but simply on the idiosyncratic prejudices or misunderstandings of the
teacher.
   "Grammar at the point of need" (grammar in context) in many cases is
not bad grammar teaching, but bad advice about writing passing itself
off as grammar. If it's dysfunctional, then the argument might be
whether we should allow the teaching of writing.
   To teach grammar well, we need to look closely at the way effective
text operates. This is from Debra Myhill: "The real power of looking at
language is in making connections for the learner between what a text
means and how it achieves that meaning. Both are important focuses and
both are mutually complementary."
   So, to me at least, the question is whether writing teaching should
focus on asking students to follow formal rules that have no basis in
the real world, or should it ask them to emulate the work of effective
writers. It's not a question about whether grammar helps or hurts
writing, but about whether students should be allowed to be real
writers.
   If the only thing the student is worried about is being "correct" and
the notions of correctness are idiosyncratic, then we have a model for
terrible teaching. To blame that on "Grammar" is absurd.
   In a true study of gramamr, the errors in this approach would be
readily apparent. The practice continues because we are avoiding
grammar, not because we are embracing it.
   So that's what I would say today if I were in Herb's place. Without a
strong grounding in how language works (how meaning happens), most
teachers will give terrible advice about writing, much of it in the
name of "grammar".
   Without knowledge about how language works, the teaching of writing
cannot progress very far. Without that knowledge base, teachers may in
fact do great damage.
   We can make a parallel argument for reading.

Craig

Craig,
>
> Your example about the ban on contractions was telling, but it also
> reminded
> me of an experience I had a couple of years ago.   Early in the semester
> in a
> freshman comp course, a student reported that she had been told never to
> use
> the pronoun "you" in college writing.   Perhaps with an edge of
> indignation in
> my voice, I asked, "Who told you that?"   She replied, "You did last
> semester
> in developmental writing."
>
> Now, I would never tell anyone they can't use the pronoun "you," but
> clearly
> this student thought I had. . . .   Sometimes what students is hear is
> different from what we think we said.
>
>
> Peter Adams
>
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