Craig,

I regret that you feel silenced when people challenge a particular point-of-view you have.

Craig writes:
     I was disappointed when I first started posting because I said in 
an early post that I found functional grammar very useful as a writing 
teacher, and I was immediately attacked. 

******
I remember one of those exchanges very well.  You observed that functional grammar was useful
because it helped you understand what "effective  writing" is.  I agree that generative linguistics
has no way of defining effectiveness.  However, I am not quite sure that functional grammar does either
and asked you to tell us how effectiveness is defined from a functional perspective.

As you have observed more than once, I don't seem to understand what you write, so perhaps you have
provided us with a functional perspective on writing effectiveness and I missed it.  I apologize if that is the case.

It statements like the following which I found particularly disturbing.

Craig writes: Generative grammar declares itself 
essentially irrelevant to pedagogy. 

*************
I have no idea how a concept can declare itself to be anything.  

The value of generative linguistics is that it tries to capture the underlying linguistic competence of a language user.  Because we are concerned with developing (L1 and L2) writing, Jim Kenkel and I have found understanding the underlying competence of a language user is important for trying to figure out why developing writers (both L1 and l2) do what they do.  
We see our work in the tradition of Mina Shaugnessy, who proposed that we must see what developing writers do as principled.

As best as I can figure out, systemic functional grammar, and construction grammar, have nothing to say about a developing writer's underlying knowledge of language.  (Halliday is quite explicit that SFL is not a theory of the mind, exact page number and quote available on request.)  Correct me if the following pedagogy from SFL and construction grammar views of language are wrong: Because language is a set of patterns that are learned from exposure, it follows that writers who don't use particular patterns just haven't been exposed to those patterns enough times.  

It seems to me that such perspectives have nothing to say about the kinds of non-standard (a better term: "innovative") constructions developing writers produce.  If we assume our students' exposure has been to standard written texts, then the question is: where do those "innovative" forms come from?  That is a question that neither systemic functional grammar or construction grammar would even ask (see Schleppegrill's paper in the recent Research in the Teaching of English for an example of an SFL paper not even asking the question), let alone answer.

On the other hand, if we make the generative assumption that developing writers already have a principled linguistic system, then this question is fundamental for developing a pedagogy that can deal with the "innovative" but non-standard constructions in a developing writer's text.  (And, over the course of the last decade, Jim Kenkel and I have been trying to answer that question.)

I regret if you feel my comments above are challenges that silence you.   Of course, the following is correct:

Craig writes:
We need to have a robust, open 
conversation about new ways to understand language.

***************************
When time permits, I hope you will share with us in specific ways how these new ways to understand language provide us with insights into the teaching of writing. 

Bob Yates, University of Central Missouri 

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