Herb,
  Your situation underscores more than ever the need for a comprehensive
scope and sequence. It seems unconscionable that the conversation should
be about eliminating ALL need for an English teacher in training to
explore the nature of language. When the ball is in our court, we need
to be talking about three courses or so as a minimum, with a sound
rationale.>All my conversations in Nashville lead me to believe we are
on the right track with our four-pronged approach: standards,
assessment, curriculum, and teacher training. All those need to change,
and they all need to be in harmony with each other.
    The NCTE powers that be are more open and accessible than I would have
predicted, but I think we also need to take advantage of that and come
up with very clear positions of our own. We are a sub-group of NCTE,
but that does not mean we should ever be pressured into supporting
positions that we do not, in conscience, believe. We need to simply
recognize that we are ATEG members because of an expertise about
grammar and a passion about the subject that go well beyond the field
as a whole. We are advocates for grammar in the world of public
opinion, which means we need to build our case. The better that case
is, the more we should welcome these chances to speak.
   I think many in NCTE are frightened that the grammar cat will be let
back out of the bag. But once you reassure them that it's not the same
old cat, they are much more open to talk.
   I think we can make the point that it's not bad grammar teaching, but
bad writing teaching that comes about because, as you say, the teachers
aren't prepared to deal with language in relation to writing. I see so
many instances in which bad advice about writing is given in the name
of "grammar". Ignorance matters. Here's an example: one of my writing
students, in a routine conversation about what she learned in high
school about grammar, tells me she learned "that I can't write
contractions." This was not even nuanced, but given as a blanket rule.
I think it struck me finally, for the first time, that that's not
grammar, but bad writing teaching coming from a teacher not trained to
know much about language (or even observe it.)
   We need some way of saying that "grammar at the point of need" can be
no better than the knowledge of the teacher who is teaching it.
   In other words, they are not even teaching grammar, but idiosyncrasies
and prejudices and half-truths, all of which harm the teaching of
writing.



Craig



 Carolyn,
>
> Your plea resonates richly with a lot of us.  Let me address just the
> education part of it, because I'm just now involved in a debate with our
> English Education faculty in the English Department on whether our
> undergraduate requirement for all English students should be eliminated
> for EngEd students.  The requirement is that everyone take either a
> Language and Society course or an English Linguistics course, the latter
> covering a lot of English grammar.  Education faculty claim that they have
> too many other things to cover to be able to sacrifice the time for a
> grammar course.  They're right that they have very little flexibility in
> their programs, which I see as a problem in their curricula.  But they
> also argue that they cover grammar in their classes.  What they do, in
> fact, cover is a small amount of prescriptive grammar--very little of the
> sort of knowledge we have been discussing as essential for the writer to
> think critically about her writing.  In their own training they've
> received very little training in grammar or linguistics, and they tend
> pretty unanimously to buy into the older NCTE position on the teaching of
> grammar.
>
> I've drawn a good bit from our recent discussions that I will use when the
> issue comes up for debate in the department faculty meeting.  What EngEd
> wants to do is counter to the direction that grammar training is moving,
> counter to the direction the NCTE is moving, and certainly counter to the
> wishes of school boards and parent organizations, however ill-conceived
> their notions of grammar may be.
>
> Good luch with raising the status of grammar at WVSU!  We need it too.
>
> Herb
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar on behalf of Carolyn
> Sturgeon
> Sent: Sat 11/18/2006 8:23 AM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: grammar instruction before and during college
>
> Cynthia raises a critical issue, that of grammar knowledge and college
> students.  How do students who don't understand the most basic issues of
> grammar (such as identifying the subject and verb in a sentence)
> successfully finish k-12 to arrive at college?  Almost all of my college
> students can tell me a noun is a person, place, or thing (or an idea for
> the
> younger students), but few can identify the nouns, let alone the subject
> in
> a simple sentence such as The cat sat on the table.
>
> As a university English teacher with an interest in teacher education and
> a
> doctorate in composition studies, I tend to teach middle and upper level
> writing and language courses, and I teach courses required for the
> education
> and English education students. I am terrified to see the fear, confusion,
> and ignorance many of these students have in grammar.
>
> We are fortunate enough to have a basic grammar course offering in the
> department, but it's not required by the education department for its
> students.  (I believe the criminal justice department is the only
> department
> on campus wheich requires its students to take this course.)  To be fair,
> education students have such distribution requirements that they literally
> have only one or two free electives, but, in my experience, education
> students desperately need help with their grammar, as do almost all of our
> students.
>
> Speaking for myself, I always include as much grammar in class lessons as
> I
> can, and I always comment on grammar in writing assignments, but grammar
> is
> not a stated general education or course goal in our courses for anything
> but the intro and advanced grammar courses. In truth, I'm lucky to steal
> one
> class day out of about 31 for grammar. I also address grammar when I
> return
> papers to show students what worked in their syntax and what didn't.
>
> How can k-16 teachers work together to address this problem?  How can
> 12-16
> education and English professors work together on this problem?  Any ideas
> out there?
>
> Carolyn Sturgeon
> West Virginia State University
>
>
>
>>From: Cynthia Baird <[log in to unmask]>
>>Reply-To: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar
>><[log in to unmask]>
>>To: [log in to unmask]
>>Subject: Re: NCTE conference
>>Date: Fri, 17 Nov 2006 17:15:36 -0800
>>
>>Since you are preparing to present at NTCE, and your presentation
>> includes
>>teacher preparation, I thought I would take the time to share with you my
>>recent experience with student-teacher grammar instruction.
>>
>>   I currently have a student teacher from my local college here in rural
>>south-central Colo, and I am dismayed at her lack of grammar knowledge.
>> In
>>Colo, a secondary language arts license allows one teach 6-12, so I would
>>think that some grammar knowledge might be beneficial to anyone wanting
>> to
>>teach at least at the middle school level.  My student teacher's grammar
>>knowledge is abysmal--she can't even explain to my students the simplest
>> of
>>concepts such as pronoun case or pronoun-antecedent agreement.  She
>> doesn't
>>know what a comma splice is, nor can she explain such punctuation errors
>> to
>>my students.  I do not think the fault lies within my student
>> teacher--the
>>college simply does not incorporate secondary grammar instruction
>>prepartion anywhere in the English degree.
>>
>>   I know this is just one isolated example of teacher preparation, but
>> if
>>your presentation at the NCTE conference can in any way impress upon this
>>influential organization the need for better grammar preparation amongst
>>teachers, then I, along with many parents and students, would be most
>>grateful.  If colleges are not even providing prospective teachers with
>> any
>>grammar knowledge, what does that say for the future of teaching English
>>grammar?
>>
>>   thanks
>>
>
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