Would you like to know what made this possible?
 
Your score: (Student # 279) ...................................................... 760 
Harvard Business School, incoming class .................................. 526 
National Scores, Senior men, 74 Undergraduate Colleges ............ 448
 
There were three reasons: instruction, instruction, and instruction.
 

Student # 279 did not acquire it by osmosis or via some Chomskian fetal mystery. He was taught how to do it, beginning at his mother's knee.
 
I am fascinated by the ATEG discussion of how children acquire language and how knowing "good" grammar does not help their writing, and ultimately the comprehension of their readers, but I don't yet believe it.
 
Every trade has its vocabulary and its ways of doing things, ways that have proved themselves over the years to be more effective than others. And every trade demands that the newcomer learn "the way it's done" first and then be open to the ways it might be done differently.
 
What grammar teachers do is important and necessary work. 
 
.brad.09feb09.


      

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