Hi, Fr. Laurence!  I'm a "lurker" - I just read other's contributions and
enjoy but have never written in.  I'm a network administrator at a
manufacturing plant so it is a pleasant break in my day to think about
language skills!  When something really interesting to me such as your
letter comes by, I forward it to my son & daughter-in-law who are teaching
English in China.  As I read your letter, I found myself wishing I could be
in your 7th grade English class!   And I would love to have you teach my
children as well.  Have you created your own teaching guide?  I think there
could be a market for it.  And probably more so if it were accompanied by a
video showing moments captured throughout your year.   Your work in growing
a boy who couldn't distinguish a subject from a verb into a young man who
is eager to put diagrams on the board, is intrigued by verbals and likes to
show off his use of the semi-colon has got to encompass much more than what
could ever be captured in the linear words of a teaching guide.  I have to
infer that you blend discipline, respect, humor, caring and enthusiasm into
your teaching in the mystical, magical proportions that can never be
described quite well enough in just words alone.


I had a 7th grade teacher like that.  At the first of the year she had us
all send off for some kind of thin little book which contained a collection
of grammar rules and a red pen with a specialty finger grip.  These became
prized and much-used possessions.  She drew many strange and funny
creatures on the board to illustrate her points.  ( I still remember the
double-headed compound subject goose, and the silly looking hanging
participle.)  We diagrammed.  We divided into small groups.  We wrote
lesson plans and made dittoes (remember those?!) and taught the class our
lesson.  High school grammar was easy because it was mostly review of what
we already knew.  We did lots of other things too - "ordered" something
from Sears catalog,  and wrote back to describe a problem with the item,
memorized "Declamations," gave good directions, and wrote.  Boy, did we
write.  Often, she would put a number out in the margin of our stories.  It
was the number of the rule in our grammar book that we needed to study in
order to correct the sentence.  That 7th grade teacher is now 75.  She
still lives in Palouse, a town of about 900 people,  many of whom trace
their love of English and of learning back to her and give her a special
place of honor.  I do too, especially so, for she is also my mother.  And I
wish I had a video of her in that 7th grade classroom, because, as good as
her lesson plans were, I know that if someone wanted to follow in her
footsteps, they would need more than her lesson plans.  They would need a
cup of her fire and a spoonful of her spark and a bucketful of her
creativity and a whole heartful of her caring.  Thank you, Fr. Laurence,
and all of the rest of you who delight in your work and pass that delight
on to your students.


Linda Chase
Gardner Denver, Inc.
Quincy, IL 62301
chaseli@gardnerdenver



----- Original Message -----
From: Fr Laurence <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Monday, February 07, 2000 1:35 PM
Subject: from the trenches


>         A recent posting from Joanna Rubba requested input on grammar
teaching
> from "the K-12 crowd." At our private boys school we admit into 7th grade
> boys from many different school backgrounds. Since some have studied
> grammar and some have not, we have to start from scratch.
>         I begin by pointing out that you need two things to make a
sentence:
> something you're talking about and what you're saying about it. I point
> out how exciting it is that we have this power to join two ideas
> together-"fuse" them-in this way, and that there are an infinite number
of
> ways of doing it. We start by finding this pattern in two-or-three-word
> sentences. As we expand sentences-always making them interesting and when
> possible choosing them from their own writing or from literature they are
> reading-they see how subject and predicate can acquire modifiers, whether
> single-word or prepositional phrases, and how, depending on the kind of
> verb (intransitive, transitive, linking), they can be filled out
> ("complemented") with direct and indirect objects and subject
complements.
> Then come the verbals: gerunds, present participles and infinitives. By
> the end of the first trimester, the students are comfortable diagramming
> simple sentences, including sentences with prepositional and participial
> phrases of all kinds. Their eagerness to put diagrams on the board and
the
> intelligent questions they ask about the logical relationships between
> parts of a sentence is exciting to see and belies the notion that grammar
> is dull.
>         We use a British form of diagramming in which the major sentence
> units-subject, verb, direct object, indirect object, subject complement,
> adjective and adverb modifiers, are placed in boxes and joined with
> appropriate lines. This method is simpler, less sprawling than the line
> diagramming of Warriner's and most American textbooks. It allows the
basic
> architecture of the sentence to stand out clearly. When students see how
a
> word in the adjective box can suddenly acquire a direct object because it
> is a present participle, they say "Wow!" They are intrigued by the way
the
> hybrid parts of speech (verbals) expand the possibilities of including
> information in a sentence without the need for any new grammar
principles.
>         Since the sentences in exercises in many grammar textbooks are
often too
> contrived, uninteresting, or few, I collect my own from novels, stories,
> student writings. I sometimes have students imitate these sentences by
> creating their own sentences on the same pattern. This helps them "try
on"
> styles of writing they might never have used on their own, expanding
their
> repertoire. Seventh graders are capable of writing sentences rich in
> participial phrases, inversion, variety of length and structure, absolute
> constructions, etc., though I would not claim this as a direct result of
> grammar study except insofar as the latter raises consciousness of
options.
>         In the second trimester of 7th grade we move on to complex
sentences.
> Since subordinate clauses are used as a single part of speech-adjective
> (relative clauses), noun (usually direct object), or adverb (8 kinds)-and
> since the pattern of verb-subject recognition has become automatic by
this
> time, they easily spot clauses. All they need now is to learn the typical
> introductory words (conjunctions or pronouns) for each kind of clause. By
> the end of the trimester they can diagram any kind of sentence, including
> some quite challenging ones like these:
>         . There are people who don't want to hear what you have to say
unless it
> is what they have already said to you.
>         . He said it was all up with him because if he did get saved,
whoever
> saved him would send him back home to claim the reward. (Twain)
>         . Prackle had several blond sisters of whom he was so proud that
he had
> on occasion caused a commotion when he thought they had been insulted.
> (Steinbeck)
>         Again we use a simplified form of diagramming, writing each
clause in a
> rectangle followed by the Kind of clause (Adjective, Noun, Adverb, Main)
> in a second (adjoining) rectangle, and its relationship to the rest of
the
> sentence (direct object, modifying a noun or verb, etc.) in a third. The
> students feel proud that they can understand how such sentences are put
> together since many college students cannot do that.
>         Somewhere along the line we throw in compound sentences, which
are easy
> since they are simply two or more simple sentences joined together, and
we
> learn the different methods of joining. They like to show off their use
of
> the semi-colon, which always provokes a discussion about how the parts on
> either side of the semi-colon are related to each other, and whether the
> semi-colon is or is not more effective than a period and two sentences.
> Some of the authors we read in 7th grade use a rich variety of sentence
> structures. We practice identifying simple, compound, complex,
> compound/complex sentences in books and stories by Robert Louis
Stevenson,
> Twain, London, S. E. Hinton, Lessing, and others. Students come to see
the
> nobility of a finely constructed sentence that accomplishes several
things
> at once. In high school the tools they have learned to use in 7th grade
> can be applied to ever more varied and developed texts as a way of
> appreciating style.
>         I agree wholeheartedly with most of the contributors to this list
that
> contextualizing grammar (seeing it in connection with thought and its
> expression) is the way to rescue it from the doldrums where it has
> languished so long. It is an insult to children's intelligence to assume
> they cannot be interested in how ideas are related and how the sentence
> mirrors or embodies this relationship.
>         Thank you all for reading this. If I can further the cause in any
way,
> please let me know! Bon courage.
>         Fr. Laurence Kriegshauser, O.S.B.
>         Saint Louis Priory School
>         500 South Mason Road
>         St. Louis, MO 63141
>