Thank you to Martha, Craig, Herb, and all the rest who have been discussing  linguistic grammar!
    I always enjoy hearing conversations about grammar that remind us that, at the end of the day, "grammar" is a perspective. There are no Grammar Gods, only opinions, preferences, and arguments steeped in a particular view of how language works. Some teachers cringe and yell, "Don't tell me that!" But the grammarians and linguists of ATEG prove that this is NOT a scary concept -- it's more precise, more honest, and more practical to demystify (and de-sanctify) grammar before presenting it to students for study.
    I'm glad to know that we are working on a Scope and Sequence Project, a continued response to NCTE's position statement on grammar teaching, etc., but I'm even more glad to know that this work is being done with "grammars" and not just "grammar" -- traditional/prescriptive, structural/descriptive, functional, case, (a mercifully small amount of) generative, performance, cognitive, etc. 
    I recently finished an introductory unit on "Grammar and Grammars" with my undergraduate students in a teacher education program, exploring the history, nature, and diversity of grammar perspectives (they'll begin studying more in depth on Tuesday with Martha's article on linguistic grammar from Grammar Alive! actually!). One of the students wrote in an informal writing assignment the following: 
   
  "Realizing that there are so many different ways of looking at grammar is liberating, not depressing! I can finally stop pretending that I know all the rules or that there really is a single set of rules that work. It's kind of like everyone letting their bellies out, and finally just being real. Why are we clinging to such a puny system of teaching this stuff, when there's so much out there to use? I'm finally ready to sit down with my students, be honest, and get to work on understanding how language works!"
   
   I rather like it! Thanks for the conversation!
  
 


          *****************************************************************
  John E. Dews 
  Instructor, Undergraduate Linguistics
  MA-TESOL/Applied Linguistics Program
  Educator, Secondary English Language Arts
  English Department, 208 Rowand-Johnson Hall (Office)
  University of Alabama
   






		
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