Gretchen asks, "What do I tell them about what/which/whose grammar
to teach?" This is certainly a frustration felt by a lot of
teachers as well as by plenty of undergraduates, who wonder why
they're told that so much that they've been taught about grammar
is apparently wrong. However, the question itself reflects a
difference in approach between many of us on the list who are
linguists and many others who are language arts teachers. As a
linguist, what I want to give my students is a way of thinking
about problems of language, including but not limited to grammar.
They have to find out that there isn't always a right answer but
that questions have to be asked with care. When they're told not
to end a sentence with a preposition (not by me), they aren't then
led to ask whether that statement applies to all of the following
sentences or just to one or some of them:
Where did you put your keys down?
Where did you put your keys down at?
Where did you put your keys at?
Where did you put your keys?
Who were you talking to? (This isn't about who(m).)
To whom were you talking?
By exploring the injunction against sentence-final prepositions,
they learn something about how to solve problems of grammar. Of
course, they can't do this without some knowledge of the content
of grammar, and this is where the many varied and sometimes
conflicting approaches to grammar become a problem. But the issue
is, I think, the old educational question of whether we teach
children to think or know facts. They need some of both.
By the way, I'm not suggesting that language arts teachers aren't
interested in teaching critical thinking. It is, in fact, deeply
gratifying to see the extent to which they are doing just that and
the extent to which new state standards focus on critical
thinking. What we want is for grammar, and language more broadly,
to be included among the areas in which children learn to think
critically.
Herb Stahlke
<<< [log in to unmask] 12/ 2 8:38p >>>
In a message dated 11/30/2000 7:41:30 PM Pacific Standard Time,
[log in to unmask] writes:<< How do we recruit elementary school
teachers into
ATEG? >>
Paul,
Please don't misunderstand what I'm about to say, and I do realize
that this
list serv is not ATEG, but what will you do with them once you get
them?
You do have middle school and (at least one that I know of)
elementary school
teachers as lurkers on this list. When I asked for help this
summer in
figuring out how to implement grammar in the classroom, six or
seven other
lower grade teachers who "lurk" contacted me off list to say that
they were
as confused as I.
What do you need us for? How can we help? I belong to NCTE and
have
presented several times. Do you need ATEG talked up on the list?
What do I
tell them about what/which/whose grammar to teach? (BTW, NCTE has
many lists
from elementary through middle to college. NCTE-talk is aimed at
high school
teachers, although much of what comes through is applicable to
middle school
classes.)
Thanks,
Gretchen in San Jose
[log in to unmask]
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