Nancy--I am the director of the Bluegrass Writing Project and am fascinated
by your description of your presentation.  However, when I try to open it,
Netscape shuts down.  Could you e-mail it to me as an attachment?  Also,
I'd be very interested in reading your articles--can you share the
citations?  Thanks.  Liz Spalding


At 08:50 AM 6/30/01 -0400, you wrote:
>Just a couple of comments here.  "Don't think; look" seems to reflect one
>theory regarding literary criticism--New Criticism.  It's not that academics
>who embrace a different theory disregard thinking.  Their thinking goes in a
>somewhat different direction. And while there are certainly a lot of New
>Critics still out there, other lit crit theories have taken hold, theories
>that respect the reader as an agent in the meaning-making/literature-making
>process.  Many of you probably earned your bachelors degrees when New
>Criticism was king.  I did.  I actually loved it.  But waiting in the wings
>was a more powerful, I think, theory driving lit crit, one that would be
>embraced by the growing number of academics who came from different
>cultures.  And certainly there were more women entering the academy.  These
>women were reading
>Cixous,  Rosenblatt, and Kristeva, not to mention Bakhtin, Derrida, and
>Barthes.  Different voices, different ideas, different schemas.  These
>academics were looking for lit crit theories that weren't so eurocentric, so
>(sorry) phallocentric.
>
>When you are talking about reading, you really cannot avoid talking about
>writing too.  As I explain it to 7th graders--all reading is writing.  All
>writing is reading.  But we also need to understand that reading and writing
>are both psycho-sociolinguistic process that are, in many respects, similar.
>So when we look at grammar in the context of an already written text, we
>have to remember that text is called into being by a reader who brings to
>the text experience as a writer. That text does not stand alone.  And if we
>look at the cognitive processes of writing and reading, we see some
>similarities.  And, both processes are transactive.  They require a
>gathering of thoughts, if you will, a pre-engagement process.  And both ask
>the reader/writer to constantly predict and adjust.
>
>If you are looking at a k-12 language arts curriculum (and I realize some of
>you are thinking in a more post secondary mode) grammar should be just one
>of many conversations that happen.  As a teacher, my job is to engineer
>conversations and experiences for my students.  Text is always the topic of
>conversation, whether it is oral, written, or visual texts.
>
>A couple days ago I was a keynote speaker for a national writing project
>site at Michigan State.  I was invited to talk about grammar because of two
>articles I had published.  My powerpoint presentation for the keynote is now
>on-line and you are welcome to look at it.  Remember that my audience was
>k-12 teachers.  Some of them had a fairly good knowledge of grammar.  Others
>did not know what a preposition was.  So, the writing invitation at the end
>(which incorporates a poem by Gary Snyder) deals with grammar at a basic
>level.  Some of you no doubt will cringe, either at the research and theory
>I cite, or the way I contextualize a grammar lesson into a larger
>conversation/experience about written language and how it works.
>
>But you are welcome to look at it.  I plan to add a couple slides to the
>writing invitation since I cannot provide directions or discussion prompts
>in the moment they way I could during the presentation itself.
>
>Enjoy or cringe as your experience and philosophy tell you.
><http://www.npatterson.net/rcwp/grammarrcwp.htm>
>
>Nancy
>
>At 11:59 AM 6/30/01 -0400, you wrote:
> >      Paul's example is a fine one--starting with the students' perception
> >of a certain general characteristic in the style of the text, and tracing
> >that charactertistic back to a grammatical feature.  This seems to me to be
> >what "discovering" grammar is about.  It could be extended to many responses
> >that students have to texts, maybe even the vaguest ones, such as "it's
> >descriptive" and "it's hard to follow."  Traditionally, it seems to me,
> >classroom discussions of literature move toward interpretation and become
> >quite general quite quickly; students often get into discussions and simply
> >stop looking at the book.  (I tell them, as a professor of mine did once,
> >"Don't think; look.")  The awareness of style and its effects is not a
> >particularly strong thread in English education.  But the language arts
> >goals stress the value of meaningful discusssions of language, and so
> >students should have practice in articulating their impressions of a style
> >and then understanding the qualities, including the grammatical ones, that
> >create the style.  Not always easy to do.  Thus Paul's comments are helpful.
> >Maybe to teach confidently this way, teachers would benefit from a greater
> >repertoire of "grammar in the context of literature" examples.
> >
> >On another aspect of grammar and reading, I recall some discussion on this
> >listserv a few months ago suggesting anecdotally that going over basic
> >sentence patterns during a reading course had improved reading comprehension
> >among weak readers (native English speakers). That is something I want to
> >try the next time I teach developmental reading.  If it is true, it seems to
> >me very significant.  (The reverse is very likely true--the more one reads,
> >the easier it is to grasp sentence patterns, and grammar in general.  But we
> >would expect that.)  If some formal exposure to sentence structure
> >configurations helps weak readers, that seems to me as important as the
> >saying that knowing grammar improves writing--and may be just as elusive to
> >prove one way or the other.
> >
> >Brock Haussamen
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
>Nancy G. Patterson
>Portland Middle School, English Dept. Chair
>Portland, MI  48875
>
>"To educate as the practice of freedom is a way of teaching that anyone can
>learn."
>
>--bell hooks
>
>  [log in to unmask]
>http://www.msu.edu/user/patter90/opening.htm
>http://www.npatterson.net/mid.html
>
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Dr. Elizabeth Spalding
Assistant Professor
Department of Curriculum and Instruction
309 Dickey Hall
University of Kentucky
Lexington, KY  40506-0017
Phone:(606)257-4127
Fax:  (606)257-1602
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