Just a couple of comments here.  "Don't think; look" seems to reflect one
theory regarding literary criticism--New Criticism.  It's not that academics
who embrace a different theory disregard thinking.  Their thinking goes in a
somewhat different direction. And while there are certainly a lot of New
Critics still out there, other lit crit theories have taken hold, theories
that respect the reader as an agent in the meaning-making/literature-making
process.  Many of you probably earned your bachelors degrees when New
Criticism was king.  I did.  I actually loved it.  But waiting in the wings
was a more powerful, I think, theory driving lit crit, one that would be
embraced by the growing number of academics who came from different
cultures.  And certainly there were more women entering the academy.  These
women were reading
Cixous,  Rosenblatt, and Kristeva, not to mention Bakhtin, Derrida, and
Barthes.  Different voices, different ideas, different schemas.  These
academics were looking for lit crit theories that weren't so eurocentric, so
(sorry) phallocentric.

When you are talking about reading, you really cannot avoid talking about
writing too.  As I explain it to 7th graders--all reading is writing.  All
writing is reading.  But we also need to understand that reading and writing
are both psycho-sociolinguistic process that are, in many respects, similar.
So when we look at grammar in the context of an already written text, we
have to remember that text is called into being by a reader who brings to
the text experience as a writer. That text does not stand alone.  And if we
look at the cognitive processes of writing and reading, we see some
similarities.  And, both processes are transactive.  They require a
gathering of thoughts, if you will, a pre-engagement process.  And both ask
the reader/writer to constantly predict and adjust.

If you are looking at a k-12 language arts curriculum (and I realize some of
you are thinking in a more post secondary mode) grammar should be just one
of many conversations that happen.  As a teacher, my job is to engineer
conversations and experiences for my students.  Text is always the topic of
conversation, whether it is oral, written, or visual texts.

A couple days ago I was a keynote speaker for a national writing project
site at Michigan State.  I was invited to talk about grammar because of two
articles I had published.  My powerpoint presentation for the keynote is now
on-line and you are welcome to look at it.  Remember that my audience was
k-12 teachers.  Some of them had a fairly good knowledge of grammar.  Others
did not know what a preposition was.  So, the writing invitation at the end
(which incorporates a poem by Gary Snyder) deals with grammar at a basic
level.  Some of you no doubt will cringe, either at the research and theory
I cite, or the way I contextualize a grammar lesson into a larger
conversation/experience about written language and how it works.

But you are welcome to look at it.  I plan to add a couple slides to the
writing invitation since I cannot provide directions or discussion prompts
in the moment they way I could during the presentation itself.

Enjoy or cringe as your experience and philosophy tell you.
<http://www.npatterson.net/rcwp/grammarrcwp.htm>

Nancy

At 11:59 AM 6/30/01 -0400, you wrote:
>      Paul's example is a fine one--starting with the students' perception
>of a certain general characteristic in the style of the text, and tracing
>that charactertistic back to a grammatical feature.  This seems to me to be
>what "discovering" grammar is about.  It could be extended to many responses
>that students have to texts, maybe even the vaguest ones, such as "it's
>descriptive" and "it's hard to follow."  Traditionally, it seems to me,
>classroom discussions of literature move toward interpretation and become
>quite general quite quickly; students often get into discussions and simply
>stop looking at the book.  (I tell them, as a professor of mine did once,
>"Don't think; look.")  The awareness of style and its effects is not a
>particularly strong thread in English education.  But the language arts
>goals stress the value of meaningful discusssions of language, and so
>students should have practice in articulating their impressions of a style
>and then understanding the qualities, including the grammatical ones, that
>create the style.  Not always easy to do.  Thus Paul's comments are helpful.
>Maybe to teach confidently this way, teachers would benefit from a greater
>repertoire of "grammar in the context of literature" examples.
>
>On another aspect of grammar and reading, I recall some discussion on this
>listserv a few months ago suggesting anecdotally that going over basic
>sentence patterns during a reading course had improved reading comprehension
>among weak readers (native English speakers). That is something I want to
>try the next time I teach developmental reading.  If it is true, it seems to
>me very significant.  (The reverse is very likely true--the more one reads,
>the easier it is to grasp sentence patterns, and grammar in general.  But we
>would expect that.)  If some formal exposure to sentence structure
>configurations helps weak readers, that seems to me as important as the
>saying that knowing grammar improves writing--and may be just as elusive to
>prove one way or the other.
>
>Brock Haussamen
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Nancy G. Patterson
Portland Middle School, English Dept. Chair
Portland, MI  48875

"To educate as the practice of freedom is a way of teaching that anyone can
learn."

--bell hooks

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