Herb,

I don't want to speak for middle school teachers everywhere, but I'll try to
respond to your comments as broadly as possible.  Please note that even in
our small private school, our English department disagrees with each other on
this point.  (pleasedontflamepleasedontflameplease . . . .)


In a message dated 12/21/2000 9:49:29 PM Pacific Standard Time,
[log in to unmask] writes:<<  Givon and McCawley may
 not be standard references, but Quirk certainly is, and I haven't
 seen that cited in the middle school discussion.
*********************
Your question presupposes that middle school teachers teach enough grammar to
warrant a $250 or so book to use as a reference.  When I first analyzed what
was going on in my classroom, I was puzzled by the apparent lack of transfer
of grammar instruction to writing.  So I went looking for my own experts -not
on grammar points, but on how/why I should be teaching grammar.  I found
several - Hillocks, Weaver, Noguchi, Krashen, etc.  The experts we middle
school teachers read have convinced us that teaching grammar in isolation
doesn't work to improve writing.  We are still trying to figure out WHY we
should take class time for teaching whole class grammar lessons. See below.
 ****************************
[snip]  Back to Herb

 <>>
******************
This, I think, gets to the heart of the problem.  We may have different
goals.  Linguistics IS worth studying - for its own sake.  The problem is
that we English teachers have N number of minutes to prepare our kids to go
on.  We are expected to teach reading (not only reading, but reading across
the curriculum), literature and critical analysis, poetry, vocabulary,
writing (persuasive, narrative, descriptive, poetic, rhetorical forms, etc.),
traditional prescriptive grammar (at some schools), test taking skills, study
skills, critical thinking skills, and anything else they can loosely lump
under English.  All in a way that encourages kids to fall in love with
reading and writing, and all in under an hour a day at most schools.

Math teachers teach math.  An hour a day.

Many of us would applaud a separate linguistics class starting at any level -
elementary would be fine.  But we are judged on how our kids read and write
about literature and their lives.  All the grammar texts I've seen (even
those that purport to be grammar and writing texts) start with traditional
grammar drill.  "Put-an-F-next-to-the-fragment-and-an-S-next-to-the-sentence"
takes lots of time I don't have, doesn't seem to have any impact on the
students' elimination of fragments, and ensures that my kids think that
English is "stupid and boring."

Most progressive English teachers I know are using reading and writing
workshops because the research that shows how much better the results are
when students have some choice and some buy-in to their work.  I use the
Internet extensively to give my kids and authentic audience for their
writing.  We use minilessons on s/v agreement, punctuation, fragment control,
etc.  Where do we fit linguistics study in to that hour?

More importantly (and the reason I've been such an unceasing nag!), where do
we find a linguistics program/text that is written for middle school?  I've
seen college texts (and Johanna was kind enough to send me hers) that are
wonderful, but there is nothing that an isolated sixth grade teacher can
easily use over the course of a year.  (I exempt Ed Vavra's KISS because it
requires a school-wide, multigrade buy-in, which I don't have.)

So, as far as we are concerned, bring on the linguistics classes.  Heck, I'd
even study to be qualified to teach it!  It's a fascinating field.  But most
of us aren't sure where or how to fit it in to what we do every day.  As I've
said before (I admitted I'm a nag!), we know what doesn't work.  But there is
no consensus as to what does.

A separate linguistic class would be wonderful.  An important question,
though, is whose ox do you gore to get the time for it?  As much fun and as
useful as linguistics is, until you can show me what I can safely eliminate
to make room for it and how it will help my kids in reading and writing, I'd
fight for those minutes.

And I'm willing to listen.  Think how hard the math teachers would fight.

Gretchen in San Jose
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