Since I seem to be in pedagogical mode these days, I find that I am
connecting more with the posts like this one from Susan van Druten.

> This year after
> using the low-interest but easy sentences, I decided to use the sentences
> from interesting news stories (thanks to FARK).  Boy, did I experience an
> eye-opener!  Their success rate when way down.

Is this is literacy issue or not?  I suspect that it is a pedagogical
issue.  When we teach students 'grammar' using very simple sentences, then
we can expect them to get lost and not perform well when all of sudden
they are presented with the complexity of real-world texts. How can this
chasm between exercises with simple sentences and a complex text be
bridged?  I tend to bridge it by working with sentences that the students
actually produced, assuming that those are more complex than sentences in
the  exercises.  They have ownership of these sentences, and they don't
really feel any ownership of either the simple sentences of the exercise
or the complex sentences of the authentic text.

Having said that, I want to affirm that I do favor the use of authentic
texts.  I would suggest using more syntactically complex texts from the
start, providing scaffolding as necessary for learners to see how the
grammar (also punctuation, etc.) is working (or not working) in those
texts.  The teacher can present the text using color coding and different
fonts to focus attention on the desired linguistic elements of the text.

I think that systemic functional grammar has the potential for guiding
teachers to work with authentic texts, and that's why I am a fan of
Coffin, Donohue and North's EXPLORING ENGLISH GRAMMAR.  They provide a
healthy role model for how to examine grammar in the context of authentic
texts.


R. Michael Medley, Ph.D.
Professor of English
Eastern Mennonite University


Susan van Druten wrote:
> Every fall I start my 11th graders with a review of conjunctions with the
> purpose of getting them to punctuate compound sentences properly.  I have
> experienced limited success with improving run-ons.  Because they have
> overcompensated by putting a comma before every "and," I have asked them
> to underline what is being compounded in the sentence.  This year after
> using the low-interest but easy sentences, I decided to use the sentences
> from interesting news stories (thanks to FARK).  Boy, did I experience an
> eye-opener!  Their success rate when way down.  Plus they didn't comment
> on the interesting news story.  To see if this is a literacy issue, I will
> try a little experiment.  I will read the story out loud and have a class
> discussion about the news story and what it means.  Only then will I give
> them the worksheet on conjunctions.
>
> Susan
>
>
> On Sep 25, 2010, at 9:36 AM, Scott Woods wrote:
>
>> Craig,
>>
>> I use several methods to teach advanced literacy explicitly.
>>
>> For paragraph structure, I have students read paragraphs that have been
>> indented, following Christensen, to show their levels of generality.  I
>> point out how one sentence leads to another, and have students explain
>> to their partner the relationship of each sentence to the others. I also
>> italicize antecedent structures and bold all consequent structures. This
>> allows students to see how one sentence in discourse refers to another.
>> Following this, I present the same paragraphs in scrambled order,
>> initially including the bolding and italicizing.  Students unscramble
>> the paragraphs, usually working with a partner initially, later working
>> independently and comparing, discussing, and defending their order.
>> This forces them to think very hard about the structure of paragraphs,
>> something that takes explicit instruction and practice.  When they write
>> their own paragraphs, I have them italicize and bold the antecedents and
>> consequents to show the connections in their own writing.  I also have
>> them highlight each sentence to show its function: blue for openers,
>> green for topic sentences and conclusions, yellow for the next level of
>> generality, and pink for detail sentences.  Students can look at their
>> own paragraphs and see how they are organized and cohere.  This also
>> reduces the amount of time I have to take on each paper; if students
>> have done the careful work of structuring their work and have shown me
>> how it is orgainized, I can read for other features and give other
>> feedback.
>>
>> Scott Woods
>>
>> From: Craig Hancock <[log in to unmask]>
>> To: [log in to unmask]
>> Sent: Fri, September 24, 2010 9:26:43 AM
>> Subject: Re: how heavy a lift is grammar
>>
>>
>>     One reason I raised questions about literacy is that I am now
>> teaching a class of twenty-two students, all opportunity program
>> first year, who all scored below college level on reading and
>> writing assessments. In previous years, they would have been
>> funneled into a non-credit course. This year, they are taking
>> analytical writing (3 credit, writing intensive) AND a non-credit
>> support course. I'm teaching both. It's my design. In effect, they
>> are taking a five hour version of a three hour class. But what's
>> most relevant, I think, is that I am making literacy the direct
>> focus of the course. They are reading and writing literacy
>> narratives, approaching academic discourse dialogically (using They
>> Say/ I Say as a core text). The experiment, I guess (not totally new
>> to me) is whether making literacy itself more explicit will be
>> helpful in achieving literacy goals. The students, by the way, are
>> encouraged to define their own goals. Since many have more than one
>> language in their lives, being bilingual is sometimes an important
>> part of that. One student just handed a paper to me about his
>> history as a rap artist, about how he has developed his craft.
>>     I was/am generally curious about how we understand literacy as
>> educators, and whether we simply expect it to happen on its own.
>>    It is obviously difficult to enter into public discourse without
>> taking things personally, maybe even more so for those of us who have
>> much at stake. That seems to me part of literacy as well.
>>
>> Craig


R. Michael Medley, Ph.D.
Professor of English
Eastern Mennonite University
1200 Park Road   Harrisonburg, VA 22802
Ph: 540-432-4051 Fax: 540-432-4444
************************************
"Understanding and shared meaning, when it occurs, is a small miracle,
brought about by the leap of faith that we call 'communication across
cultures.'"  --Claire Kramsch

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