Craig's comment on writing and grammar sent me back to the late  
fifties and early sixties, those heady years when some of us English  
teachers believed that linguistic science might actually have an  
impact on the teaching of English in our secondary schools.  I myself  
was involved in some research which attempted---in part---to measure  
whether the teaching of grammar had any effect on student writing  
ability.  In connection with that research, we did an enormous amount  
of testing of our high school students.  We designed a 98-item test of  
attitudes toward grammar and writing and constructed what I thought  
was a wonderful test of grammatical knowledge.  I am so sorry that I  
have copies of neither, but here is one thing we learned, quoted from  
an article I published in 1962:

    In our own eleventh grade classes we found that our students averaged  
only 45.4 percent       correct on a traditional grammar test and that 85  
percent found grammar lessons neither           pleasant nor interesting.
    
I was teaching at that time in Cheltenham High School, a public school  
in the suburbs of Philadelphia; it was an excellent public school by  
almost any measure, located in a community of privilege.  In fact, it  
was one of the schools that participated in the famous "Eight Year  
Study."

As for the effect of grammar on writing ability, one might look at an  
article by Lena Suggs, published in the March 1961 English Journal,  
entitled "Structural Grammar versus Traditional Grammar in Influencing  
Writing."  (My own research did not focus mainly on that issue, but we  
did measure it.)  I do not recall what Ms. Suggs found, but I'm sure I  
read her article at the time.  Nevertheless, in 1962, I wrote

    There is, unfortunately, very little evidence that the study of  
either the new or the traditional       grammar improves student writing.

Now, I am sure that neither my research nor Ms. Suggs' would measure  
up to strict scientific standards, but I will say as a person who was  
deeply involved in such research that it involves an ENORMOUS amount  
of work, even to do a one-year study.

And on the topic of needed research, how about a study to measure  
whether the freshman comp course improves student writing?  I once  
suggested such a study to my department chairman, with details as to  
how it might be done.  He shot me down in less than the time it takes  
to pass from one class to another.

I am not a cynic, and I am not trying to discourage anyone.  I'm just  
trying to contribute a little past history to the discussion.

Ed Schuster

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