Ed,
That's an interesting experiment.
Would you be able to share with us more details about the items you used to
test the students' understanding, such as their wording, and how the teachers
actually attempted to introduce the passive during the year? (I would also be
interested in the summary statistics, but that's probably too far off the
purposes of the list.)
Regards,
Karl
Edgar Schuster wrote:
> A couple of decades ago in September, I tested an entire tenth grade
> class on their ability to recognize passives---nearly 500 students in
> all, at a reasonably good suburban Philadelphia high school. I used
> five multiple choice questions with four possible answers for each. (I
> believe that means that a chance score would have been 25 percent.) In
> September, the result was 50.0 percent correct. Recognition of the
> passive was supposed to be a "Mastery" objective for tenth grade
> English. I tested the same students at the end of the year in June.
> The result was 51.2 percent correct. The "gain" was not statistically
> significant.
> At a later time, teaching junior and senior college business majors at
> Penn State, it was clear to me that they could not recognize passives.
> I conclude by quoting Ed Vavra, When and how (and we might add, "by
> whom?") can passives be effectively taught?
>
> Ed Schuster
>
> On Feb 4, 2009, at 5:55 PM, Edward Vavra wrote:
>
>> Craig,
>> First, the passives. Rarely, I think, do we teach students to USE
>> constructions. They do so naturally. I'm amused to see your question
>> followed by Scott's, to which I'll try to reply separately. Remember
>> that I'm working in what I believe to be the current reality--most
>> students are unable to identify finite verbs. If they cannot recognize
>> them in the first place, what good does it do to "teach" passive
>> voice. KISS introduces passives, as a concept to be learned, in fifth
>> grade, primarily with the objective that students learn to recognize
>> passive voice. Why? Because some teachers will tell students never to
>> use passives (silly, but that is currently taught), and some
>> instructors will tell students to use passive voice. Unless students
>> can recognize passives when they see them, either "direction" is
>> meaningless. It's my hope to include exploratory exercises on passives
>> (uses and abuses) in the upper grades. Most of the
>> "Practice/Application" sections in the upper KISS grades have slots
>> for an exercise on passives. See:
>> http://home.pct.edu/~evavra/kiss/wb/LPlans/G10_WB1.htm#Practice_1
>> Thus we agree, passives are "important to discourse decisions." Where
>> we may disagree is when and how they can effectively be taught.
>>
>> I don't understand how you can think that natural language development
>> can't occur without instruction. Isn't it obvious that the sentences
>> of older students are more complicated, especially in terms of
>> embeddings, than the sentences of younger students? Thus, for me, the
>> question is the purpose of instruction. I'd say that it is to help
>> students better understand how language works. In other words, the
>> ability to analyze sentences enables students to discuss (and thus
>> understand) how passives, for example, work. Or how deep embedding of
>> clauses may cause problems for readers. True, some people argue
>> against formal instruction in language, believing that it "just
>> happens." But just because it happens does not mean that it happens
>> effectively, and just because they are wrong does not mean that we
>> have to be.
>>
>> Appositives -- as always, I argue that unless students are taught to
>> recognize the things in the first place, instruction will not be very
>> effective. Thus in KISS recognition (identification) always comes
>> first. But KISS also includes a variety of sentence manipulation
>> exercises and combining exercises in which students are asked to
>> combine clauses by using an appositive, etc.
>>
>> My response to your last, and most important question, is the entire
>> KISS site. It is more or less laid out at:
>> http://home.pct.edu/~evavra/kiss/wb/LPlans/Overview_Levels.htm
>>
>> Ed
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar
>> [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Craig Hancock
>> Sent: Tuesday, February 03, 2009 5:12 PM
>> To: [log in to unmask]
>> Subject: Re: Developmental phases of grammar knowledge
>>
>> Ed,
>> I would disagree with you on passives, though I'm confused about why
>> you would say you introduce it in fifth grade but don't feel students
>> need to learn it. Are you making a distinction between the KISS program
>> and your college teaching? In an ideal world, wouldn't passive verbs
>> (and their function) be a natural part of the curriculum? They seem to
>> me important to discourse decisions. And students need to deal with the
>> computer grammar checks, which routinely underline them as wrong. I
>> find them important to my own understanding.
>> I'm also troubled by the routine assumption that language development
>> occurs "without instruction." Certainly, we are capable of learning all
>> kinds of things from observing what's going on around us, languaqe
>> included, but this seems to me to routinely downplay the possible kinds
>> of interactions that would help mentor the process. The argument
>> against making language a major part of the curriculum depends on a
>> belief (I think mistaken) that it just happens.
>> When you say appositives should be taught, do you mean recognition?
>> Use? I like to make the point that entities can be named over and over
>> again, and that seems to help, at least at the college level. George
>> Will is more than just a well-known columnist, so appositives
>> (renaming) can happen forever. He's also a passionate baseball fan,
>> though that may not be relevant to the context. And he's not an example
>> I would use for my students. Maybe Oprah? Perhaps it's the "cognitive"
>> and functional recognitions that matter the most. At least at the
>> college level, students seem to get it quickly.
>> What knowledge about language helps in discussions about putting
>> language to work? Can we build that knowledge about language as we
>> mentor students into different language worlds, including the world of
>> school? I think those would be my central questions.
>>
>> Craig
>>
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