Tim,

Which incorrect conclusions of the Braddocks and Hillocks report are 
you talking about? Their main conclusion, that teaching grammar has 
no beneficial effect on composition, still seems valid to me. It is 
true that the grammar being taught was usually old-fashioned, taught 
in isolation from the actual practice of composition, or focused more 
on usage and mechanics than basic grammar, but that was how 
composition was often taught in those days.

It is their second comment, that teaching grammar may be "harmful" to 
students, that receives the most complaints from proponents of 
grammar. But even here the complaints are not all that justified. 
What they actually said was that the time spent on grammar was taken 
away from the actual practice of writing and for that reason might be 
harmful to students' progress in learning composition.

As for why some college composition teachers are so opposed to 
grammar in the composition classroom, you need to go back to what 
used to be done in many composition classes and, indeed, in some 
entire composition programs. That was the intense focus on errors in 
composition and the related attempts to use the teaching of 
grammar-as-syntax and grammar-as-correct-usage. We had a long battle 
to get rid of that approach to composition and to focus attention on 
actual writing instead. If you even suggest that you are interested 
in going back to grammar, those who remember the battles are bound to 
look at you with horror. You would need to explain pretty quickly 
that you are not proposing to go back to the old methods but to try a 
modern approach.

The same unhelpful use of "grammar" was, by the way, also the main 
approach to teaching composition when I began teaching secondary 
English in 1961. I did it for 3 years (if I remember correctly) until 
personal observation led me to conclude that this was going nowhere. 
I have never gone back. I have occasionally tried introducing some 
lessons on both kinds of grammar, because it does, after all, seem 
intuitively obvious that some knowledge of grammar or some lessons on 
the mistakes students make would work, but I quickly rediscovered why 
I had abandoned them in the first place. One often forgets that what 
is intuitively obvious (the world is flat) often turns out to be 
untrue. As someone pointed out earlier, you do not need to teach any 
formal lessons in grammar (of either type) to teach composition 
successfully.

Bill


>I agree with Paul's comments about the age factor, and want to add 
>that my original comment about English teachers who seem to hate 
>grammar was meant primarily to refer to college-level people. This 
>is the level I am most familiar with. In my experience, speaking 
>anecdotally again, most secondary English teachers are very much in 
>favor or grammar, though I'm sure there are exceptions.
>
>It is mostly the college-level people who have taken the incorrect 
>conclusions of the Braddock and Hillocks reports and mounted 
>intense, aggressive campaigns against grammar teaching at both the 
>secondary and the college levels. I'm sure there are exceptions, but 
>this has been my experience. Of course, what the college people say 
>often filters down to the secondary level, either in official policy 
>or just in lore, so either way it does its damage.
>
>Tim
>
>Tim Hadley
>Research Assistant, The Graduate School
>Ph.D. candidate, Technical Communication and Rhetoric
>Texas Tech University
>
>________________________________
>
>From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar on behalf of Paul 
>E. Doniger
>Sent: Sat 10/1/2005 9:29 PM
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: Re: Hostility toward grammar teaching
>
>
>Christine,
>
>Excpet for liking math, I'm with you (but I like music theory, which 
>is a kind of grammar, too). It seems to me that most of the people 
>who are hostile to teaching grammar are English teachers of my 
>generation or a little older - I'm 58 (a.k.a., they're my 
>colleagues). I just heard this week some anti-grammar comments from 
>an  otherwise excellent English teacher. Some attitudes will only 
>change, I suspect, as the old guard retires; however, though the 
>newer generations may be more open to teaching grammar, they may not 
>be well enough prepared to teach it (we've been seeing a thread on 
>this issue again recently). What you say about beliefs that are 
>puzzling rings home to me, too.
>
>Curiously, I am rehearsing my theatre kids in The Mouse That Roared, 
>and there's a line from professor Kokintz in response to the 
>question about his Q-bomb -- a WMD of immense power -- that it's "a 
>peace weapon."  I see that as a laugh line!
>
>Paul D.
>
>Christine Reintjes <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
>	Who are these people who are hostile to grammar teaching? Are 
>they people
>	who aren't knowledgeable about grammar and feel threatened? 
>Why is it hard
>	to define grammar? Isn't it the structure and patterns of a 
>language? I'm
>	wondering what is really at stake here.
>
>	I find grammar studies interesting and fun. Am I unusual? 
>It's probably a
>	combination of nature and nurture like most things. I also 
>like math, and I
>	know some people say they detest math, but no one suggests 
>that as a reason
>	not to teach math. I'm glad to learn about this controversy 
>which I've been
>	unaware of most of my life. I began my career as an ESL and 
>college English
>	teacher at my community college in 2000. I was amazed to learn that
>	teachers were forbidden to teach grammar. I'm still amazed. It's so
>	puzzling, but then many beliefs are mind boggling to me like 
>usi! ng violence
>	to make the world peaceful.
>
>	--
>
>	Christine Reintjes Martin
>	[log in to unmask]
>
>
>
>
>	----Original Message Follows----
>	From: "Stahlke, Herbert F.W."
>	Reply-To: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar
>
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>
>
>
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