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January 1999

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Subject:
From:
EDWARD VAVRA <[log in to unmask]>
Reply To:
Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Wed, 20 Jan 1999 12:38:22 -0500
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I haven't had much time to keep up with the list, but I want to thank Pam Dykstra and Harry Noden for their bibliographic materials. I have added them to mine. For a couple reasons, I keep my bibliographies on-line. They are a mixture of formats, and include notes, etc., but you are welcome to use them. They are at:

http://www.pct.edu/courses/evavra/Bib/index.htm

     Someone mentioned old issues of Syntax in the Schools. All the back issues are available (some as xeroxes) from ATEG for $5 per volume. The contents of each volume have been posted on the ATEG web site:

http://www.pct.edu/courses/evavra/ATEG/SiS_V11_V15.htm

     The questions about teaching grammar that have been discussed lately on this list are complex, but I still believe that the main problem is lack of coordination. Every teacher attempts to teach grammar, but in essence has to begin at the beginning. It is simply not possible to make students comfortable with systematic grammatical terminology in one year (or one semester) and still have time to have them explore, for example, how clause structure affects style and readability.
      At our last conference, ATEG formed a committee to develop some standards and ideas for the place and role of grammar in the curriculum.  That committee is moving slowly. In the meantime, I have my own ideas set forth on the web and am looking for people who would be interested in working with me on my design:

http://www.sunlink.net/rpp/GC.htm.

And I'm still challenging others to set forth their ideas, either for a somewhat comprehensive design (like mine or even more detailed), or just about what constructions should or should not be taught where. I still find it hard to believe that we (ATEG members) cannot agree, for example, that by the time they complete sixth grade, every student should be able to identify the subjects and verbs in a typical passage written by a sixth grader. Only when we get such agreement ¯ and get it established as the norm either nationally or in a school system ¯ will teachers be able to start beyond the beginning. (i.e., seventh grade teachers would be able to assume that their students could, at the beginning of the year, identify subjects and verbs.)

     Some people have, by the way, suggested that it is not necessary for students to be able to recognize grammatical constructions (such as prepositional phrases, subjects, verbs, clauses, etc.) To me, that is insane. It makes absolutely no sense to tell students that subjects must agree with verbs in number if the students cannot identify subjects and verbs in the first place. And the fact that students cannot identify these constructions, especially in their own writing, is a primary reason for the failure of much instruction about grammar.

     Finally, I think I have fixed most of the broken links on the ATEG web site. The problems arose primarily because Penn College moved to a case-sensitive UNIX server which will not, for example, recognize "ateg" as "ATEG."

    If you got this far, thanks for staying with me.
Ed V.

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