>
DD,

   A delightful post and a delightful reminder. I didn't mean to imply
that my students are incapable of reading a good handbook--we buy A
Writer's Reference for all our EOP students as I would for my own
child--but that they have been woefully underprepared. The grammar in
context people say metalanguage is not essential. Without it, our
otherwise perfectly capable (though innately energy conserving)
students can't read, weigh, follow, rebel against, or revise
traditional advice.

Craig


 At 12:03 PM 7/20/2006, Craig Hancock wrote:
>>. . .As you know very well, most students
>>can't read the average handbook, and terminology is a key to that. . . .
>
> DD: I can only vouch for my 5th grade up Latin students at a hybrid
> school where all were better than one standard deviation above the
> mean in IQ. Point of grammar came up, the anointed one* washed her
> hands, dried them, got them inspected and went to the shelf for
> Harkness. {Albert Harkness, "A Latin Grammar for Schools and
> Colleges, 1864 and later. I sent then to one of my personal copies,
> usually the 1889 one, because they like handling books older than any
> of their relatives. [Yes, I had more current  handbooks by other
> authors.] They understood the honor and trust that I bestowed by
> allowing them to so do.} I helped the first few times, as they
> prepared the presentation to the class. After that it was the
> previous anointed's duty to pass on the lore. They seemed to love it.
> We certainly didn't do this every day, but at least once a week.** By
> the time they were in Latin III, they knew a lot more about the
> technicalities of grammar than the rest of the school cadre. [Well
> perhaps not more than Lunch Lady, but she was Honduran trained.]  I
> think we sometimes underestimate the ability of our students, as they
> try to take evasive actions to conserve energy.
>
> * Haruspica.
> ** They knew they were awesome.
>
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