Rob,
   I think one of your final sentences holds the key for me:
>
"But if we are to believe that we can foster an appreciation for
literature and composition, we should also believe that we can foster an
appreciation for language and how it works."

   When you talk about grammar throughout the post, you tend to think of
it in terms of motivation to avoid error. But the same love of language
that draws us to literature and writing ought to lead us to a deeper
sense of how meaning happens. When we revise for meaning, we are
altering the form of our sentences to better fit our evolving purposes.
When we look closely at word choices and word constructions in the
literature we love, we bring its deeper meanings to conscious light.
Grammar can be fundamentally interpretive.
   None of us likes to be embarassed, and we all probably have a few
embarassing moments of our own to reflect on. It's interesting that
being corrected took you out of the debate. The same thing happens to
our students when we "correct" their writing without paying much
respect at all to who they are (and can be) as people and as writers.
The reluctance to correct may come from that, but it's dangerous when
we don't bring any grammar at all, even the best of their sentences, to
light.

   In a funny way, I think those who know most about gramamr are least
inclined to reduce it to error.
   We make errors in "vocabulary" (I hate the connotations of that)but we
try to enrich our students' stock (and love) of words to help them
become more adept as readers and writers. We never expect to motivate
them through embarassment.
   Grammar happens when there is no error. For many of us, it is a
meaning-making system.
   If you aiom at effectiveness, correctness can come along.

Craig


I don't know if this adds to or detracts from the current conversation,
> but
> Ronald's post with the twenty sentences has me thinking.  I am coming to
> this conversation as a college "professor" who is trying to prepare future
> teachers for the world in which they will work.  In the end, I have a
> relatively firm grasp on "teaching literature" and "teaching writing," but
> I
> am very uncomfortable with "teaching grammar" (and I recognize that the
> word
> "grammar" here no longer cuts it).  And so I am very interested in all
> that
> is happening on this list.
>
>
>
> Right now, my thinking in this area is centered around two basic concepts:
> knowledge and disposition (and I would like to apologize here for my lack
> of
> field appropriate terminology).  We can debate the nature of the knowledge
> of grammar (and not having formal training beyond my undergraduate
> linguistics requirements, my knowledge cannot approach the knowledge of
> this
> list), but unless our students possess the appropriate disposition for
> learning "grammar," the knowledge we provide goes in one ear and out the
> other (by the way, we like to assume that this problem rests alone with
> grammar instruction when current reality tells us that a similar problem
> exists with literature/reading instruction and writing instruction;
> reality
> also tells us that this problem exists within education in general
> crossing
> all disciplines).  Quite simply, we can teach very specific concepts to
> our
> students, but unless they care to learn and use that knowledge, the
> methods
> we employ are ineffective or unsuccessful.  And so I can use a sentence
> like
> (or any that Ronald posted):
>
>
>
> Everyone walked to their car after the game
>
>
>
> and I can point out the problem(s) with this sentence, and my students can
> understand what I have told them, but they will continue writing and
> speaking with the same error.  It seems that only with an appropriate
> "critical experience" will they begin to dispositionally understand the
> relevance of the concept and avoid committing the same error.
>
>
>
> Which brings me to a quick personal story.  I was raised by a mother who,
> generally speaking, used the language correctly and appropriately (I
> understand the potential socio-political aspect of this, but that is
> another
> issue), and so I, generally speaking, used the language correctly and
> appropriately.  It wasn't until my second year of teaching High School
> English that, in my memory, I had my first real "critical experience."  In
> a
> faculty meeting I made a statement in defense of a certain policy (I don't
> remember now the specific statement or the policy I was defending), and an
> English colleague immediately responded by correcting the mechanical
> structure of my sentence (he did not address the policy... would this be
> and
> ad grammarian fallacy?).  I was embarrassed.  From that moment I began to
> consider what I said and how I said it.  The point here is that it was
> only
> after I began to dispositionally care about how others would respond to my
> writing and speaking that I began to internalize the "descriptive" rules
> of
> our language.  Once I cared, then this carried over into my speaking and
> my
> writing.
>
>
>
> And so, it seems that we need to begin developing "critical experiences"
> for
> our students in addition to philosophies, approaches, and methods for
> teaching grammar.  But, I would argue, we need to develop "critical
> experiences" that empower rather than disempower.  Although my experience
> in
> that faculty meeting proved monumental and, in the end, helpful, I chose
> not
> to speak further that day in the defense of the policy.  I was just
> embarrassed.
>
>
>
> On another note, it is nice and interesting to proclaim platitudes like
> "devoting classroom time to the study of grammar does not influence
> student
> writing," but I believe that in the appropriate environment where students
> dispostionally care about how they say or write something, they will learn
> whatever we are teaching.  I understand and believe to an extent the
> concept
> of teaching grammar within the context of student writing.  But if we are
> to
> believe that we can foster an appreciation for literature and composition,
> we should also believe that we can foster an appreciation for language and
> how it works. It seems that any breakdown in our philosophy of teaching
> grammar might also reveal a breakdown in our philosophies of teaching
> literature and writing.
>
>
>
> Rob
>
>
>
> ___________________
>
>    Robert Lockhart
>
>
>
>  Assistant Professor, English Education
>
>          Curriculum and Instruction
>
>                A301D Ginger Hall
>
>           Morehead State University
>
>          Morehead, Kentucky  40351
>
>               Office: 606.783.2834
>
>                 Fax: 606.783.5044
>
>    <http://people.moreheadstate.edu/fs/r.lockhart/>
> http://people.moreheadstate.edu/fs/r.lockhart/
>
> ___________________
>
>
>
>
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