Bill,
I don't know what's happening in more recent documents, but when the new Indiana language arts standards came out ten years ago or so I went over them closely, identifying every statement that referred to or could reasonably be interpreted as identifying metalinguistic knowledge. There was quite a lot, certainly plenty of justification for a linguistically rich language arts curriculum. However, that's not how the state and many school corporations in Indiana interpreted the standards. Basically, little changedin the curriculum in the way of grammatical and linguistic content.
I think these statements are intentionally or, perhaps more generously, inadvertently written to be vague. And then they tend to get interpreted in the least rigorous sense.
Herb
Herbert F. W. Stahlke, Ph.D.
Emeritus Professor of English
Ball State University
Muncie, IN 47306
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From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar [[log in to unmask]] on behalf of Spruiell, William C [[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Saturday, August 18, 2012 4:01 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Quick Common Core question
Hi all --
I'm lazily attempting to draw on ATEG's collective experience, largely because I've discovered that educational bureaucracies inevitably think of a different name to file something under than I do. I'm in the process of making sure the English-ed grammar sections I'm about to teach address the Common Core directly. The CC has a number of statements that are ambiguous as to whether what's being asked for has to do with students simply "producing a construction", or (instead) having conscious metalinguistic knowledge of it. As an example, at one point the CC says that students at grade eight should "form and use verbs in the active and passive voice" (I'd want "voices" there, but that's probably pushing things). Native English-speakers without some kind of language impairment will form and use actives and passives, of course -- just record them long enough and you'll get both. Read one way, a large set of these CC objectives basically boil down to, "determine if any of your students are second language learners or have language impairments"; read another, they're instead "determine if your students have specific metalinguistic knowledge."
Is there anything approaching an official statement about which one of those readings is intended? If so, does anyone know where it is? Apologies if I'm asking something that's totally obvious. The course is one I haven't taught in a couple of years, and the switch to the CC in my state was in the early phases the last time around.
Sincerely,
Bill Spruiell
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