With all due respect to opposing points of view, I think that Jeff Glauner
has it right.  What is desperately needed is the systematic study of
grammar from the beginning of a student's formal education.  I am working
on a book making this case from my perspective as a classicist at a public
university.  My impression is that ignorance of grammar has caused a
serious decline in writing ability among college students and has made it
impossible for most of them to learn a foreign language.  (In this
respect, my campus is typical.  With the possible exception of Spanish,
the foreign language departments are all dying.) I joined ATEG in order to
gain further insights into the issue, and have certainly not been
disappointed.

From what I have seen, the research used to justify the elimination of
grammar is relatively short-term.  In other words, it has been demonstated
that the addition of grammar lessons to English composition classes does
not improve writing.  This seems to me to be a very obvious and
unimportant conclusion, since grammar, like a arithmetic, takes a long
time to learn properly.  There are schools that teach grammar
systematically from the third grade on.  Anecdotal evidence suggests that
their students do extremely in all aspects of the language arts.  If the
NCTE research were correct, the opposite would be true.  Students who
wasted all that time studying grammar should be severely crippled by the
time that they reached high school.  In my book, I think that I will
urge studies to compare the achievements of students with such curricula
with others.  All of your comments are welcome.

David Mulroy
University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee













On Fri, 9 Jun 2000, JEFF GLAUNER wrote:

> You are probably right about the research, Bill.  That is going to be an
> uphill battle--if anyone steps up to fight it.  I think, however, that the
> first step is for us to develop the teachable, useful grammar.  There are
> two states I know of that haven't waited for the research.  Missouri and
> Colorado have mandated the return of grammar to the curriculum, at least to
> the teacher education curriculum.  (Are there other states doing this?)  If
> we can concentrate on getting useful things going in these states, good
> researchers--not just from research universities, but elementary and
> secondary teachers from large school districts--will come forward to study
> and report.  My daughter, an elementary teacher and a budding researcher,
> will be teaching in Missouri starting next year.  I have already tagged her
> to do some classroom research at the primary level with the grammar I have
> developed.  It is largely for my own use in improving my course, but, if we
> could get the entire building to buy into the research, something
> publishable might emerge.
>
> Jeff Glauner
> Park University
>
> > Grammar was bounced out of the curriculum because of abundant research
> > showing that the study of grammar had no useful effect on writing skills.
> > To put grammar back into the curriculum will require not only developing a
> > more accurate, teachable and learnable system of simplified grammar but
> > also conducting research showing that the new grammar does something
> useful
> > for students. The research will have to be quantitative and of sufficient
> > validity to be published in refereed journals.
> >
> > In my opinion, nothing less will do the trick. It's too bad that we don't
> > seem to have ATEG members from research universities who might have the
> > time, money, and necessity for doing the needed research.
> >
> > Even in the unlikely eventuality that these conditions could be met,
> > grammar would still have to fight its way into the curriculum against a
> > tide of new material being added because of the new standards and tests.
> >
> > Bill
> >
> > William J. McCleary
> > 3247 Bronson Hill Road
> > Livonia, NY 14487
> > 716-346-6859
>