I am sorry for the length of the following.

Johanna Rubba wrote:

> I remind Bob Yates of the very first macro-objective of 3S:
>
> "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."
>
> I've said this so many times before; I'm gonna say [sic] it one more time. . . .

Thank you, Johanna, for reminding me, and everyone else on the ATEG
list, about the first objective.  I have no idea what I have written
which requires such a reminder, but I appreciate your thoughtfulness.

I have more difficulty in understanding the following:

> Diversity-acknowledging approaches are also scientifically accurate,

What are "diversity-acknowledging approaches" and what does
"scientifically accurate" mean in this context?

I look forward to reading more about the following:

> We don't need to
> continue to support the kind of linguistic insecurity that Bob thinks is
> inevitable.

I make many typos in writing these responses on-line and constantly
worry whether those errors will be so egregious that my colleagues will
ignore my ideas.  I want to know why this worry is not an inevitable
consequence of engaging in public discourse, especially about the nature
of English grammar.

I appreciate the description of text grammar.  I find the following
description interesting, especially the use of the word "tendencies."

>  These two functions are fulfilled by grammatical choices,
> although the patterns are tendencies rather than rigid rules.

I wonder how many students want to be told about tendencies.  Exactly,
what is the percentage of a tendency?  How much deviation must there be
from a tendency for a text to be "ungrammatical"?

The Redford example is not unexpected.  What is the point of instruction
based on the following observation?
>
> My analysis of a text
> about Robert Redford, for instance, finds Redford in subject position
> 500 times, with no other subtopics or non-topics reaching anywhere near
> that number.

Would a teacher write:

This text clearly has problems because the person the text is about is
not in the subject position enough times.  In this text, it is X times
and for such a text it is usually/often/frequently/always (I don't know
the correct frequency adverb here) Y times.

When I encounter such texts, I ask the student how this information is
related to the claim being made in the text.  I don't have to count how
many times the topic of the text is in the grammatical subject position.

> Of course, this makes the most sense if one views grammar instruction as
> a process of educating students about their 'writing tool-box'. It makes
> less sense within a 'grammar as fix-it' philosophy, in which conforming
> to standard grammar is the main concern. On the other hand, functional
> grammar can be very helpful for students who have trouble writing
> coherent texts, and have to fix this trouble.

One of the texts that every writing teacher, especially a basic writing
teacher, should read is Mina Shaughnessey's Error and Expectations.
Shaughnessey  places  the problem of basic writing with movement from
abstract to concrete statements.

"[BW] papers tend to contain either cases or generalizations but not
both.  If anything, students seem to have more difficulty moving from
abstract statements down to more concrete levels than they do moving up
the ladder of abstraction." (p. 240-1)

There are issues of grammar in this "movement," but grammar instruction
alone, "a tool-box approach" is not issue.  And, clearly, this is not an
issue of controlling the standard.  It has more to do with expectations
of the audience about how claims are presented and what appropriate
kinds of generalization and support for such generalizations are.

Bob Yates, Central Missouri State University