Bob,
   It is hard for me to see this:
"If students produce strings that they have never seen before than an
explanation that grammar is learned strictly from input is flawed."

    The term "strictly" is your own addition. If you take the strictly
out, how do you get from A to B?

   Do you see vocabulary as innate as well? It seems to me a similar sort
of problem: Why do students use words in ways that differ from what
they see in print? My do they misspell or punctuate so awkwardly?

    "According to..."  and "claims" seem to me very important ways to
carry out what I sometimes call the attributive function. I work with
a text--"They Say/ I Say"--that helps students learn these functions
through schematic structures.

   It's OK to say "According to Craig, he claimed the painting was his
when we first saw it..." The problem comes in when we shift to the
present tense. The structure works (carries out its function) when you
need a kind of double distancing--he claims that he once claimed.

   You can also make it work for present tense. "According to Craig, he
claims that he loves his wife every time she asks."  The writer is
effectively saying that he isn't sure about the loving or even about
the fact that the claiming is happening, but is sure that Craig has
said so.

    This seems to me a problem for a certain kind of verb (like asserts),
but not for others. "According to Craig, he plays a good guitar." I
would tend to treat it like evidence that grammar is often very
locally tied to one or a small group of words. It has to do, at least
from  my view, with how we cognitively understand the notion of
claiming. Cognitive grammar deals with this all the time. Also
involved is the discourse function of attribution, which puts the
writer/speaker at some distance from an assertion. My students often
do so awkwardly as they are learning how to do it, which is true of so
many things in life. (I don't necessarily hear every aspect of the
music I listen to. What I hear, now that I know so much more about
music, is so much more than I heard before.)

   I don't know about you, but my students don't notice a great deal of
what they read. If you slow things down and direct their attention,
they have a better shot at it. They are certainly not used to thinking
about "how" an essay means.

   If grammar is emergent and dynamic, it is also constantly innovative.
I'm not sure how innate grammar accounts for grammaticalization.



Craig


>


Craig and I come from very different disciplines.  I think that may
> account for why we see the nature of language and the nature of evidence
> so differently.  Craig writes:
>
> Why our students write things they have never seen in writing is an
> interesting question. I'm not sure of the connection to this thread.
>
> Here is why I think that is important for this thread and more importantly
> for teaching.
>
> Craig has written the following about the nature of grammar.
>
> What we should be talking about more than we are is that there is
>  huge change going on within linguistics, away from the idea that grammar
> is
> innate, toward the realization that grammar is learned, away from the
> notion that grammar is well understood as a formal system, toward the
> realization that it is inevitably tied to cognition and discourse.
>
> If grammar is learned, then the question how students produce strings they
> have never seen before is very relevant.  (Innovative structures pose a
> serious problem for the claim that language is learned and not the
> property of innate principles.)
>
> Likewise, if grammar is tied to cognition and discourse, then what these
> innovative structures say about our students' cognition and ability to
> construct a coherent discourse is very relevant, too.
>
> I take seriously the notion that we have to begin teaching where are
> students are.   When it comes to grammar, this means we need an
> understanding that is a plausible explanation for why students do what
> they do.  If students produce strings, that they have never seen before
> than an explanation that grammar is learned strictly from input is flawed.
>
> Bob Yates, University of Central Missouri
>
>
>>>> Craig Hancock <[log in to unmask]> 06/10/10 5:24 PM >>>
> Bob,
>     The claim I made is not about language, but about views that are being
> developed by linguists. I'm not sure why you are frustrated by that.
>     A number of studies have shown (or purportedly show) that study of
> formal grammar doesn't carry over to writing. The development of
> functional understandings of grammar would open that issue up. It's
> not, as far as I can tell, an exorbitant claim.
>     Why our students write things they have never seen in writing is an
> interesting question. I'm not sure of the connection to this thread.
>
> Craig
>
>  Colleagues,
>>
>> It can be so frustrating exchanging views with Craig.  He makes claims
>> about language that are at such a high level of generality it is
>> impossible to relate them to the issues those of us who teach language
>> (and I'm including writing) face.
>>
>> An issue my colleague Jim Kenkel and I have been thinking and writing
>> about is how to account for strings (grammatical forms) in our students'
>> writing that don't seem to occur in the edited reading that they do.  I
>> tried to give an example of such a form.  Students write (1) for (2),
>> the
>> form that occurs in edited writing.
>>
>>  1) According to Craig, he claims grammar is tied to cognition and
>> discourse.
>>  2) According to Craig, grammar is tied to cognition and discourse.
>>
>> Craig in the previous post said that grammar is "inevitably tied to
>> cognition and discourse."  And, in his last post, he writes about
>> grammar:
>>
>> The view is simply that it is picked up using
>> normal cognitive processes: for example, intention reading and pattern
>> finding (Michael Tomasello).
>>
>> If (2) is the only pattern our students encounter in their reading, how
>> is
>> they that produce (1) if grammar is the result of pattern finding?
>>
>> (I could make the same point with a  "mixed construction."  Mixed
>> constructions don't occur in edited writing, but our students produce
>> them.  It seems to me this fact suggests that much more is going on than
>> "pattern finding." )
>>
>> I wish he would apply his views of grammar to real world issues we
>> teachers face.  However, it is frustrating when his posts and responses
>> remain at such a high level of generality.
>>
>> Bob Yates, University of Central Missouri
>>
>> Jim Kenkel and I in the last issue of Written Communication in 2009
>> offer
>> an explanation for what we think is going on with such innovations.  Of
>> course, the paper suggests the need to teach grammar, but it is not from
>> the perspective Craig has offered here.
>>
>>>>> Craig Hancock <[log in to unmask]> 6/10/2010 2:04 PM >>>
>> Bob,
>>     There are, of course, many linguists, yourself included, trained in
>> generative approaches, who still hold those views, just as there were
>> many functionalist linguists while generative grammar held strong
>> sway. The comment was about a trend toward functionalism, which I
>> think is accurate.
>>    As I think you know, saying that grammar is learned doesn't mean it
>> was
>> directly taught. People used language for thousands of years without
>> theorizing a grammar. The view is simply that it is picked up using
>> normal cognitive processes: for example, intention reading and pattern
>> finding (Michael Tomasello). The view is that children learn about the
>> world and acquire the appropriate language simultaneously. It is a
>> social semiotic.
>>    Many people who argue against direct teaching of grammar seem to be
>> saying that grammar itself is not meaningful. If your view of grammar
>> is that it is deeply tied to both cognition and discourse and that it
>> is much more emergent and dynamic than previously believed, then there
>> are radical implications for whether or not it should be taught. Those
>> implications have not been fully thought through.
>>     You and I, of course, see it differently. Others on the list may
>> well
>> be unaware that new views about language are emerging. There are good
>> reasons to see the value of knowledge about language as not yet
>> settled as an issue.
>>
>> Craig>
>>
>>
>>  I want to cite the following from Craig because it is too contentious
>> and
>>> can be worded in a way that is more useful.
>>>
>>> What we should be talking about more than we are is that there is huge
>>> change going on within linguistics, away from the idea that grammar is
>>> innate, toward the realization that grammar is learned, away from the
>>> notion that grammar is well understood as a formal system, toward the
>>> realization that it is inevitably tied to cognition and discourse. One
>>> very important corollary of that is that the language a child needs to
>>> learn to use through school is NOT just cleaned up speech, but a kind
>>> of language that is evolving to accomplish the work of a complex civil
>>> society and complex academic disciplines.
>>>
>>> ***
>>> I have decades of experience teaching both native and non-native
>>> speakers
>>> English.  If it is true grammar is not innate but learned, then why is
>>> it
>>> the case that so many aspects of English have to be taught to
>>> non-native
>>> speakers that are NEVER mentioned to native speakers?  Here are some
>>> examples:  I have never talked about the count-non-count distinction of
>>> English nouns to native speakers, the nature of phrasal verbs, the lack
>>> of
>>> overt agreement on modal auxiliaries, the property of reverse-psych
>>> verbs
>>> with the experiencer in the object position (compare "Bob likes movies"
>>> to
>>> "movies fascinate Bob"), the article system. to name a few.
>>>
>>> Likewise, if important aspects of grammar is not a formal system, but
>>> tied
>>> to "cognition and discourse," then we have two problems as teachers.
>>> First, why is it the case that the Germanic languages lack any verbal
>>> morphology indicating future time, but the Romance languages do?  Does
>>> this mean we English speakers have difficulty conceiving future time?
>>> Why
>>> is it the case that English requires something overt in the subject
>>> position (noun phrase or pronoun) in tensed clauses, but almost all
>>> other
>>> languages of the world don't?  What does this fact reveal about English
>>> speakers cognition in relation to speakers of almost all other
>>> languages?
>>>
>>> A second and more serious teaching problem with claim that grammar is
>>> tied
>>> to "cognition and discourse" is the implication when our students
>>> innovate
>>> and use grammatical forms that don't occur in edited texts.  What does
>>> this perspective say about the cognition of a student who writes (1) (a
>>> very common construction in the students I teach) for the standard (2)?
>>>
>>> 1) According to Craig, he claims grammar is tied to cognition and
>>> discourse.
>>> 2) According to Craig, grammar is tied to cognition and discourse.
>>>
>>> Do we really want to say the student who wrote (1) is cognitively
>>> different than the student who wrote (2) or when student (1) writes (2)
>>> her cognition changes?
>>>
>>> ****
>>> Clearly, there is a difference in the kind of grammar we encounter in
>>> the
>>> written language than what we encounter in the spoken language.
>>> Whatever
>>> our perspective is on how we come to know grammar, we did need to know
>>> more about those differences and the implication those differences for
>>> students to be successful in school.
>>>
>>> Bob Yates, University of Central Missouri
>>>
>>>>>> Craig Hancock <[log in to unmask]> 06/10/10 9:10 AM >>>
>>> Amanda, et. al.
>>>
>>>      Amanda, you should be absolutely commended for your influence in
>>> this. I think there is a bit of the committee effect at work, very
>>> sensible goals mixed in with almost contrary positions, but the shift
>>> toward knowledge about language is palpable, very welcome. I look
>>> forward to reading the appendix.
>>>     What we should be talking about more than we are is that there is
>>> huge
>>> change going on within linguistics, away from the idea that grammar is
>>> innate, toward the realization that grammar is learned, away from the
>>> notion that grammar is well understood as a formal system, toward the
>>> realization that it is inevitably tied to cognition and discourse. One
>>> very important corollary of that is that the language a child needs to
>>> learn to use through school is NOT just cleaned up speech, but a kind
>>> of language that is evolving to accomplish the work of a complex civil
>>> society and complex academic disciplines. Students need to be MENTORED
>>> into that, and we have no chance at all of doing that without
>>> demystifying what is required.
>>>     I do believe that students need to learn to position themselves in
>>> relation to important contentious issues, but I worry very much about
>>> what Tannen calls our "argument culture", which tends to force us to
>>> pick a side instead of exploring possibilities and doesn't encourage
>>> us to admit that we don't really know enough to be certain. I tend to
>>> emphasize the idea of making a contribution to an ongoing
>>> conversation--our disciplines, to the extent that they are functional,
>>> are dialogic, and science in particular asks us to hedge in
>>> appropriate ways. For the most part, though, English classes shift
>>> from essays about literature to rather mechanical research projects.
>>> We should do more reportorial and issue related writing, paying
>>> attention to the ways in which those purposes are realized through
>>> language. I think these standards are at least an attempt to expand
>>> the range of discourse we should attend to in our English classes.
>>>
>>> Craig
>>>
>>>
>>> Craig et al.,
>>>> Craig wrote that the common core standards are "strangely arbitrary."
>>>> I
>>>> think that's right on target, especially as someone who was asked to
>>>> consult on the language-related standards. The language-related
>>>> standards
>>>> were originally imbedded in the editing standards for writing,
>>>> suggesting
>>>> that the only reason to think about language at all would be for
>>>> editing
>>>> formal academic writing. Over the course of the seven months that I
>>>> responded to drafts of the standards and wrote the appendix that
>>>> presents
>>>> current research on learning and teaching about grammar, I found that
>>>> some
>>>> of my suggestions (such as including standards that addressed
>>>> "knowledge
>>>> ABOUT language" and asking students to think about the FUNCTION of
>>>> clauses
>>>> and phrases) ended up being included, but many other suggestions were
>>>> not.
>>>> The resulting language-related standards definitely focus more on
>>>> teaching
>>>> the conventions of Standard English than I would like, but I'm glad
>>>> that
>>>> they at least nod toward and leave room for teaching other kinds of
>>>> knowledge about language.  As far as I know, I am the only person with
>>>> a
>>>> background in teaching/researching grammar and language who was a
>>>> consultant on the project, and that concerns me.
>>>>
>>>> Re: the writing standards, I actually don't think that the example of
>>>> second grade writing standards you shared, Ed, represents an
>>>> unrealistic
>>>> dream. My children (grades 1 and 3) attend Pittsburgh Public Schools
>>>> -
>>>> an
>>>> urban district - and are taught the district-wide, standardized ELA
>>>> curriculum, America's Choice. I have seen an astonishingly high level
>>>> of
>>>> informational and persuasive writing from my kids and their
>>>> classmates.
>>>> I've also seen how early elementary children can be taught to develop
>>>> a
>>>> vocabulary for and meta-awareness of writing that typically isn't
>>>> taught
>>>> until high school or college. As a former high school English teacher
>>>> and
>>>> university-level basic writing instructor, I think the America's
>>>> Choice
>>>> writing curriculum is not perfect, but it has demonstrated to me that
>>>> K-12
>>>> students are capable of far more difficult and complex literacy tasks
>>>> than
>>>> we typically ask them to complete. Interestingly, large-scale studies
>>>> out
>>>> of the University of Michigan also show that urban schools that use
>>>> America's Choice demonstrate significantly higher student achievement
>>>> on
>>>> 4th grade standardized tests of reading and writing than comparable
>>>> literacy curricula/reform programs. The researchers hypothesize that
>>>> the
>>>> higher 4th grade reading scores may be caused by the greater focus on
>>>> argumentative and informational writing in the America's Choice
>>>> program.
>>>>
>>>> Amanda
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On 6/9/10 10:49 PM, "Craig Hancock" <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> Ed,
>>>>    They do read a bit more like goals than standards. On the other
>>>> hand,
>>>> I
>>>> think we have resisted any clear articulation of standards for some
>>>> time. I think our students are capable of a great deal more than they
>>>> have been asked to do. I know we have shamefully high dropout rates in
>>>> many of our schools, but I get the sense from students who survive
>>>> those schools that  whole schools suffer from low expectations, not
>>>> from high ones. I know I'm in a much different situation when these
>>>> students come to college, but they respond very well to raised
>>>> expectations when they get here. They take pride in being asked to do
>>>> much more.
>>>>     If I were poor and raising my children in an urban neighborhood, I
>>>> wouldn't accept any of that as an excuse from them (or anyone else)
>>>> for mediocre performance. Raise the bar high. Give the kind of support
>>>> necessary for those who struggle with it. To me, that's a formula for
>>>> high engagement. Again, I know I say that from the luxury of dealing
>>>> with students who have made it to college. The view from here, though,
>>>> is that we don't care enough and don't expect enough (though there are
>>>> saints in the middle of all that. Bless them all.)
>>>>    It seems to me that they have decided that students should learn to
>>>> write narratives, to write an argument, and to write informatively. If
>>>> you look through the sequence, it becomes clear that we don't already
>>>> have some sort of proven way laid out to accomplish that. They seem to
>>>> be imagining a sequence that might work. There are huge unexplained
>>>> goals (like "logical") with a strange assumption that everyone knows
>>>> what that is all about. Hugely important goals like "coherence" seem
>>>> to
>>>> be reduced down to the right sort of transition words, which I can
>>>> guess will become formulaic. I would love to see a word like
>>>> "perspective" show up from time to time. (Either something is an
>>>> opinion or it's factual/logical, not much respect paid to the fact
>>>> that
>>>> many topics benefit from a myriad of perspectives. It looks different
>>>> from this neighborhood than it does in the suburbs.) There's no place
>>>> in all this where students are encouraged to report on their own world
>>>> or become "expert" enough to have something to offer. There doesn't
>>>> seem to be a recognition that the narrative of their lives is also the
>>>> ground for significant contribution to public issues. (Why are the
>>>> drug
>>>> dealers not bothered? What happens around here when someone gets
>>>> sick?)
>>>> I guess I wouldn't be alone among writing teachers in wondering where
>>>> engagement comes in. You've got to know what the hell you are talking
>>>> about OR BE WILLING TO ADMIT THE LIMITS OF WHAT YOU KNOW and I don't
>>>> see any respect paid to that. I keep getting students out of high
>>>> school who have been encouraged to take definitive positions when they
>>>> don't have the knowledge base. Most of these standards seem
>>>> articulated
>>>> as ends in themselves. There's no sense that these are or can be very
>>>> natural developments of the students' own voices and interests
>>>> (interests in a double sense--what interests them and what is in their
>>>> interest to find out and to articulate.)
>>>>     I would say the standards are not fully thought out and at times
>>>> seem
>>>> strangely arbitrary. But I'm not convinced they are too high.
>>>>
>>>> Craig>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Craig et al,
>>>>>       Indeed, he thinks the standards are too high, and so do I.  He
>>>>> gives
>>>>> a couple of excellent examples, including this one, for SECOND grade:
>>>>>       Write informative and explanatory texts in which they introduce
>>>>> a
>>>>> topic, use facts and definitions to develop points, present
>>>>> similar
>>>>> information together using headers to signal groupings when
>>>>> appropriate, and provide a concluding sentence or
>>>>> section.
>>>>>       And another, for 12th grade, which he says is more appropriate
>>>>> for
>>>>> college literature classes.  (Once again, I agree.)
>>>>>       I can't believe anyone on that writing committee has ever
>>>>> taught
>>>>> below college, or in any public schools that I'm familiar with, and
>>>>> I'm amazed that officials from AFT and NEA are going along with this
>>>>> nonsense.
>>>>>
>>>>> Ed
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> On Jun 9, 2010, at 7:56 PM, Craig Hancock wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> Ed,
>>>>>>    My quick reaction to the writing standards is that they are very
>>>>>> much
>>>>>> genre focused without a particularly sophisticated understanding of
>>>>>> the genres in play. It would be interesting, too, to see the
>>>>>> language
>>>>>> section more closely connected to genre, since the corpus grammars
>>>>>> are
>>>>>> now giving us a pretty good view of functional language patterns
>>>>>> within the genres.
>>>>>>    I couldn't access Newkirk's article without subscribing. Does he
>>>>>> think
>>>>>> the standards are too high? Why would the dropout rate be
>>>>>> staggering?
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Craig>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I agree with Herb.  Also, has anyone looked closely at the writing
>>>>>>> standards?  Read Thomas Newkirk's comments on them in the current
>>>>>>> issue of Education Week.  He calls them an instance of "magical
>>>>>>> thinking," and I agree totally.  If they are adopted and enforced,
>>>>>>> the
>>>>>>> dropout rate will be staggering.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Ed
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> On Jun 9, 2010, at 5:16 PM, Craig Hancock wrote:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> The National governor's Association's Common core Standards have
>>>>>>>> been
>>>>>>>> released and can be accessed at www.corestandards.org.
>>>>>>>>   Though they still don't go as far as they ought to in that
>>>>>>>> direction,
>>>>>>>> they seem a radical shift in favor of knowledge about language
>>>>>>>> (not
>>>>>>>> just language behavior) throughout the grade levels. This, for
>>>>>>>> example, is from grade 7: "Explain the function of phrases and
>>>>>>>> clauses
>>>>>>>> in general and their function in specific sentences." This seems
>>>>>>>> to me
>>>>>>>> the sort of thing that can't happen solely "within the context of
>>>>>>>> writing" or through mini-lessons.
>>>>>>>>    Check it out. If I am reading this correctly, they are calling
>>>>>>>> for
>>>>>>>> far more conscious attention to language from K-12.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Craig
>>>>>>>>
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>>>>
>>>> **********
>>>> Dr. Amanda J. Godley
>>>> Associate Professor
>>>> English Education
>>>> Department of Instruction and Learning
>>>> University of Pittsburgh
>>>> 5316 Wesley W. Posvar Hall
>>>> 412-648-7313
>>>>
>>>>
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