The answer to your questions, I think, Sophie Johnson, is that the
grammar-mathematics analogy, like most analogies, doesn't hold up under
close scrutiny.

> ----------
> From:         Sophie Johnson
> Reply To:     Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar
> Sent:         Friday, June 15, 2001 12:44 AM
> To:   [log in to unmask]
> Subject:      Re: Grammar and Literature -- Help Please
>
> As soon as `the teaching or grammar' crops
> up the `in isolation', `dead boring', etc.
> allegations also rise. Why does this not
> happen when people talk about teaching mathematics?
>
> We really ought to face the fact that grammar as a
> school discipline is an approach to Linguistics in no
> lesser measure than school maths is an
> approach to Mathematics.
>
> By the same token, do we ever doubt that school maths
> will result in students' better ability to count small change?
> Why then do we doubt that students' better ability to write
> will be the result of their being taught grammar?
> Sophie
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Nancy Patterson <[log in to unmask]>
> To: <[log in to unmask]>
> Sent: Friday, June 15, 2001 10:24 AM
> Subject: Re: Grammar and Literature -- Help Please
>
>
> > Geoff,
> >
> > What I think you have discovered is that learning has to be
> meaning-based.
> > It has to be meaning-full.  And it has to have a meaningful context.
> Let's
> > face it.  If the isolated teaching of grammar turned students into
> better
> > language users, it would.  Believe me (and Susan Ohanian who has paid
> even
> > closer attention to this than I have), the vast majority of English
> > classrooms out there still provide traditional grammar instruction.  But
> > that instruction is either so meaningless to students that they can't
> even
> > remember getting it, or it is so distasteful or disconnected that
> students
> > didn't learn much.
> >
> > The issue that we should be talking about here is not whether or not
> grammar
> > should be taught, but HOW it should be taught.  And it seems that the
> > systematic teaching of grammar is not the best approach.  Meaningful
> grammar
> > instruction has to be more organic and tied to a context.  That is what
> all
> > the learning theory points to, by the way.  I'm not talking about just
> > grammar here.  All learning generally requires a context.
> >
> > I think what surprises me most often when I read discussions on this
> list
> is
> > the lack of consideration for what we know about how people learn.  The
> > people on this list are probably not representative of the way most
> children
> > learn, especially the subject of grammar.  Children do not seem to bring
> to
> > awareness their knowledge of grammar  through the isolated teaching of
> that
> > grammar.  It makes no sense to them.  What does make sense to them is
> > conversations about the language they use, and then frequent,
> meaningful,
> > and "just in time" individual direct instruction about particular
> problems
> > they are having.
> >
> > For what it's worth, I don't think NCTE is "anti-grammar."  In fact, I
> think
> > that's a rather ridiculous assumption.  I DO think NCTE members are
> trying
> > to say quite clearly that there has to be a better way to teach grammar,
> to
> > define grammar, to deal with grammatical issues in meaningful ways.
> >
> >
> >
> > Nancy G. Patterson, PhD
> > Portland Middle School, English Dept. Chair
> > Portland, MI  48875
> >
> > "To educate as the practice of freedom is a way of teaching that anyone
> can
> > learn."
> >
> > --bell hooks
> >
> >  [log in to unmask]
> > http://www.msu.edu/user/patter90/opening.htm
> > http://www.npatterson.net/mid.html
> >
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