Ed raises a good question: what kind of writing do we want our students
to do 'effectively'? I would say every kind, from personal letters to
short stories to expository texts of various genres. In spite of the
popular approach of teaching 'comparison & contrast' vs. 'process' etc.,
I find that actual formal writing varies pretty widely. Business texts,
material in magazines and newspapers, books ... there is great variety
out there, much of which does not conform to these rhetorical categories.

I quote below Objective A of ATEG's 3S committee's 4 global objectives:

"A   Every student, from every background, will leave school with the
ability to communicate comfortably in standard English, and the ability
to
write comfortably in formal standard English, with awareness of when use
of the standard dialect is appropriate."

This is a broad statement, targeting students' overall mastery of
standard English.
Does 'comfortably' mean 'effectively'? Not necessarily! 'Comfortably'
focuses on the writer's experience, not the reader's. But 'effective'
writing is certainly our goal. Writing is effective when it does want
the writer wants it to do -- conveys the intended information
coherently, at the minimum, and with style, at the maximum. Perhaps we
should replace 'comfortably' with 'clearly', or include both. I think it
is very important to emphasize comfort level. It implies a level of
fluency that cannot be attained except through acquisition (not by
learning rules explicitly and then trying to monitor for their
application in use).

Grammar as we approach it today has a relatively narrow focus. Teachers
want to use it to improve students' abilities to produce the kinds of
texts that school will demand of them, with the idea that the 'real'
world will demand similar kinds of texts. So the focus is on correctness
and 'effectiveness' in writing, especially, I think, expository writing.

My vision, and I think that of some other 3S committee members, is
broader. The reason we want to re-examine and reformulate the whole
curriculum, K-12, is to achieve a broader goal for what grammar
instruction will be useful for. Grammar instruction, if it begins at the
appropriately early age and continues _consistently_ and in step with
children's developmental stages, will develop language awareness in
children. Mainly, it will equip them with the terminology and analytical
skills they can use to understand, evaluate, and improve every kind of
writing they do, from poems to business reports.

In fact, I get a sense that on this list there is somewhat of a divide
between people with the narrower focus and people with the broader
focus. Not that this causes disagreement, but I think we do talk at
cross-purposes sometimes.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Johanna Rubba   Assistant Professor, Linguistics
English Department, California Polytechnic State University
One Grand Avenue  • San Luis Obispo, CA 93407
Tel. (805)-756-2184  •  Fax: (805)-756-6374 • Dept. Phone.  756-259
• E-mail: [log in to unmask] •  Home page: http://www.calpoly.edu/~jrubba
                                       **
"Understanding is a lot like sex; it's got a practical purpose,
but that's not why people do it normally"  -            Frank  Oppenheimer
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