Eduard,
   The idea of the scope and sequence is to advocate a single (unified)
grammar, but find ways to portion that out appropriately by grade
level. My own sense is that around 7-9th grade, students are pretty
much ready for an adult grammar. (I know I benefited enormously from a
comprehensive traditional grammar, including Reed-Kellog diagrams, in
seventh and eight grades.)
   My one sense is that students are often taught partial understandings
in the hope that they can meet the goals of high stakes tests that
focus much more on behaviour than they do on understanding. If we have
longer range goals in mind (K-12), then it's much easier to be patient
in the earlier grades. But I think it makes sense to ask "what can we
teach on third grade that will help prepare a student for a
comprehensive grammar in the later grades." Our current practice is to
have discreet goals for each grade level, but not to build (scaffold) a
complex understanding, and that's because NCTE's official position has
been that students need to avoid "errors", but that teaching an
understanding of grammar doesn't help us get there. Our approach is
almost opposite: take care of the understanding of language (grammar),
and error will be much, much easier to deal with. We also believe that
understanding of grammar is enormously useful for critical reading and
effective writing. Writing is not just speech put into written form,
but brings with it demands that need to be much more explicit. We don't
think most students are well served by hoping that it will happen.
   I suspect that we have a wider consensus on these points than is
evident in our conversations. But we have started with the notion that
traditional grammar needs to be adjusted to better describe the
language we actually find in respected texts.
   I am finding more and more instances of people teaching "linguistics"
to students in early grades. Students seem to respond quickly and
readily to exploring language. The goal should be to build a base of
understanding, and to portion that out in age appropriate ways.

Craig  >


Herb:
>
> I agree with you. There is much more to be said about grammar than I
> did, but I was referring to basic guiding principles, and not to the
> details. Still I am getting a little confused: do you want to write a
> grammar encyclopaedia, or a practical grammar? And if you want to
> write a practical grammar ( which is my assumption) for which grade(s)
> are you going to write that grammar? It appears to me that we will
> necessarily have to write grammarS, not just a grammar, each adjusted
> to some school level. One thing is to teach grammar to the elementary
> school students, another to teach grammar to college students. Each
> such level would require a grammar specifically written for its own
> purposes.
>
> Eduard
>
>
> On Fri, 18 Aug 2006, Herbert F.W. Stahlke wrote...
>
>>Eduard,
>>
>>Quite a lot, in fact, as I suggested in my posting to Phil.  Part of
> my
>>problem in this discourse is that I come from a background in which
>>traditional grammar includes Jespersen, Poutsma, Kruizinga, and
> others
>>of the great 19th and 20th c. scholars of English grammar.
> Traditional
>>school grammar, like what is found in the Warriner's series, for
>>example, a series that was used widely in American high schools for
>>quite a long time, is in part of reduction of this combined with a
>>variety of stylistic prescriptions and proscriptions.  I don't have
> the
>>negative reaction Fries had, because I go back to Jespersen on a lot
> of
>>matters.  However, I agree with Fries as to the sometimes mindless
> way
>>in which traditional grammar has been reduced to a few inflexible
> terms,
>>concepts, and maxims.
>>
>>Herb
>
> To join or leave this LISTSERV list, please visit the list's web interface
> at:
>      http://listserv.muohio.edu/archives/ateg.html
> and select "Join or leave the list"
>
> Visit ATEG's web site at http://ateg.org/
>

To join or leave this LISTSERV list, please visit the list's web interface at:
     http://listserv.muohio.edu/archives/ateg.html
and select "Join or leave the list"

Visit ATEG's web site at http://ateg.org/