First, I want to thank those of you who gave me
permission to use your posts here in our newsletter,
and I want to remind those of you who have not given
me such permission to please do so. Since the
guidelines are in draft form, I may have to simply
summarize them as a preface for printing the
comments, but I think that the discussion should be
shared with all our members through the newsletter.
Second, I want to agree, basically, with Martha,
especially where she refers to "grammar" as "the
structure of English." There are, however, two things
which worry me. The first is that, although I recognize
the importance of grammar in writing, we are
overlooking the importance of comprehending
sentence structure in reading -- and thinking. I devote
a chapter to each of these in TGLA, and it is difficult
for me to summarize here. Suffice it to say that this
plea is coming from someone who teaches five writing
courses per semester. We need to look at the whole
picture.
My other worry concerns Martha's hierarchy. I love the
idea, but I would suggest that the most important
things that teachers should know and "be able to do"
are not on the list. To me, the first priority should be to
enable teachers to talk about basic grammatical
constructions -- subjects/ verbs, clauses, appositives,
etc. By "talk about" I mean that they shoud be able to
identify them in students' writing, such that they can
use the terminology both to understand (themselves)
and to communicate to students what is good and
what is bad in the structure of the writing. For
example, I have had teachers tell me that they would
have marked the sentence
The plane crashed five miles from it, its tail pointed
upward.
as a comma-splice. In effect, they were "correcting"
errors in students' writing that were not errors. ("[i]t's
tail pointed upward," a noun absolute, is perfectly
acceptable, and even stylistically advanced. Without
some basic terms -- and an understanding of how to
use them -- teachers will not be able to use grammar
to improve students' writing.
I would further suggest that this knowledge of basic
concepts is fundamental to many of the items on the
hierarchy which Martha presents. Take, for example,
language acquisition. Much of the research on this
topic has little relevance to teaching in that it concerns
development from birth to age 5. It may be fascinating
to note that children at a specific age develop -- on
their own -- the ability to distinguish the difference
between "The doll is easy to see" and "The doll is
eager to see." But how does this affect what we do in
the classroom? Most studies of language acquisition
beyond age five involve the development of clauses,
appositives, etc. Can teachers understand what is
going on here if they cannot identify clauses,
appositives, etc?
The next item on the hierarchy is "diversity, dialects,
social roles, etc." Are not most of these differences in
usage rather than in basic sentence structure? Here
again, I would suggest that the teachers' ability to
recognize clauses, etc. would give them the ability to
see -- and explain -- what fundamentally unites
language. Black English, creoles, etc., like all
Indo-European language, are still structured around
S/V/C patterns, modifiers (adjectives and adverbs),
and clauses.
Until teachers are able to recognize these
constructions in students' sentences, most instruction
in language acquisition, diversity, etc. won't be worth
the time spent on it.
End of sermon?
P.S. I just came from a meeting with a Professor in
Human Services. Basic grammatical problems in her
students' writing frustrate her, and, even more
frustrating, she realizes that her students don't know
what "first person pronouns" are. Hence, she has to
write a list:
Don't use "I," "me," "my."
The problem with the list is that it is incomplete. The
student next will use "myself," which is not on the list.
Is "first person pronouns" simply a grammatical
category, or is it a concept which applies to writing
done in areas other than English classes?
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