>I would opt for trying. Otherwise, where does one stop? The "whole" is way 
>too deep. 

The whole is not too deep this is what people keep missing.  8 parts of speech, 8 sentence roles and eight types of sentence plus exposure tenses, passive, subjunctive, conditional and you are pretty much there.  


>
>It might be more productive to say that the NCTE position is on purpose. We 
>ought to be trying to meet that position with this: Grammar instruction is 
>necessary when it leads to an improvement in student writing and speaking. 
>In other words, in student awareness and use of stylistic changes to be more 
>effective.

Grammar is not meant for improvments in speaking and writing alone, grammar is a general education requirement that is valuable for all the language arts as well as for the brain. Just like algebra you don't necessarily know when and how a student is going to need it but it is important enough to be there as a life preparation.  When the student gets to later stages in life foreign language learning, composition, rhetoric, and logic are all benefitted by improved knowledge of grammar.   Whether it shows up immediately or can be tested or not is another story.  I would be hard pressed to demonstrate that someone's skills in cooking would improve with a better knowledge of cooking terms, but he would wiser better informed cook.  

Phil Bralich

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