ON CERTIFICATION
I like Craig's idea that certification be part of a teacher's
preparation and include appropriate course work. It seems to me that Scope
and Sequence produces course work (curriculum), which leads to
certification. Completed course work promises that those who learn are
competent in their knowledge of the subject matter. (Not necessarily in
teaching it to others.) I tend not to trust a single test to indicate
knowledge of or ability to teach language and grammar.
Since The Elements of Style was cited as a sort of standard, I wonder if
everyone has looked at Strunk and White recently. Their brief text contains
this: Elementary Rules of Usage, Elementary Principles of Composition; A Few
Matters of Form; Words and Expressions Commonly Misused; and An Approach to
Style. The style section suggests, in part, that students write naturally
from a suitable design, not overwrite or use a breezy manner, and that they
use nouns and verbs. This last is as close as The Elements comes to grammar.
No parts of speech and so on.
The Elements of Style is contained in Writer's Choice: Grammar
and Composition (Glencoe 1996) Grade 12. Which does contain parts of speech
and diagramming sentences. Diagramming "shows the relationship of words and
various parts to the sentence as a whole." But the authors don't explain why
students ought to know this relationship, nor do they explain how to use it.
Dick Betting
----- Original Message -----
From: "Craig Hancock" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Saturday, September 02, 2006 9:29 AM
Subject: Re: Grammar Certification vs. scope and sequence
> Phil,
> >
> Your statement that "nothing is getting done" angers me a great deal.
> Even before you had any details about the program, you had very
> negative and hostile things to say about it, and a good deal of energy
> has been used up trying to reassure you that we are not the pack of
> fools you have called us from time to time (with little curiosity about
> what we are about, almost no history of interaction.) Look back at our
> "word class" discussion and tell me you haven't derailed a consensus at
> every major point. The same holds true of your stubborn insistence that
> all nouns are "entities", to the point where some people came on list
> to say please cease and desist from fruitless talk. Without that, we
> could have made quick and rapid progress.
> The project can go on if in fact we are not interrupted by someone
> telling us the world will laugh at us if we try to change traditional
> grammar in ways other than the changes he would make.
> Personally, I think this goes beyond differences in philosophy and
> approach and crosses over into a need on your part to own or control
> whatever gets done.
> I am certainly willing to take scope and sequence into committee. I can
> bring it back to the New Public grammar group, which has already done
> some thoughtful work. You can do the same for your own project, but
> quite frankly, I will oppose any certification program that simply
> seems like a hostile, confrontational approach to the profession and
> not a reaching out. Whatever you come up with needs the support of ATEG
> before it can be an ATEG program. Scope and Sequence was
> enthusiastically endorsed at our last annual meeting (at the
> conference.) We have a go ahead to proceed, and we would like to carry
> out that mandate with the understanding that it will come back to
> conference for future approval. You need to follow the same route if
> you want to use ATEG as the umbrella.
> Many of us are in public education, not working for the military. I
> suspect our daily realities are very different. You may benefit from
> seeing what we come up with and not assuming ahead of time that it will
> be flawed.
> I will try to keep an open mind on what you are doing, but please don't
> slow down our progress and then criticize us for moving too slow.
>
> Craig
>
> This working at cross purposes may be what is bothering people, but as
>> nothing seems to be gettind done right now it may be the best place to
>> start. The problem of reconciling the two once there were fully worked
>> out draft proposals is unlikely to be that difficult. Or sharing earlier
>> drafts according to a schedule may be good too.
>> ,
>>>two independent committees, which isn't precisely what you've advocated,
>>>would to easily work at cross purposes (is "cross purposes" an "ice
>>>cream" phrase?). That there might be two groups working together and
>>>influencing each others work so as to arrive at a curriculum and
>>>certification standards seems reasonable.
>>
>>
>> Well read my review of the book in the last ATEG journal. I pointed out
>> the places where it varies.
>>
>>
>> I've gone through the Houghton Mifflin web site for Honegger's book, and
>>>it looks pretty decent. Given some of the things that he does with
>>>parts of speech, phrase structure, etc., I would not infer that it
>>>represents traditional grammar in the senses you have alluded to. But
>>>in terms of presentation of structure it's not bad.
>>
>>
>> Phil Bralich
>>
>>>
>>>-----Original Message-----
>>>From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar
>>>[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Phil Bralich
>>>Sent: Friday, September 01, 2006 2:55 PM
>>>To: [log in to unmask]
>>>Subject: Re: Grammar Certification vs. scope and sequence
>>>
>>>>
>>>>Perhaps I left a step out of the argument. I agree with many on this
>>>>list that we need a new grammar curriculum. You and I differ on that.
>>>
>>>
>>>You are really missing the whole discussion here. Scope and sequence
>>>are a part of any field's curriculum design. Certification or the
>>>offering of degrees is the result of a curriculum having been taught.
>>>The development of a final test for certification naturally must be
>>>based on the curriculum that is offered by the school offers the
>>>curriculum. However, the issues that arise in the splitting of a fields
>>>body of knowledge into a series for scope and sequence are very
>>>different from the issues that arise in trying to test that field's body
>>>of knowledge all-of-a-peice as a certifcation exam. The issues are
>>>sufficiently different that not only do they suggest two different
>>>committees to develop them, they more or less compell us to create two
>>>committees. This is what you keep missing here.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>>I'm not being intentionally dense when I say that I don't understand
>>>>what you mean by "... the entirety of traditional grammar is
>>>>inescapable." Both "entirety" and "inescapable" are a little unclear
>>>to
>>>>me.
>>>
>>>Take a look at my review of Mark Honegger's _Grammar for Writing_ in the
>>>last ATEG Journal. I made a similar discussion and pointed this out
>>>with more examples when I explained why I believed his book was very
>>>complete and that he had, in spite of protests to the contrary, provided
>>>the entirety of traditional grammar.
>>>
>>>
>>>Phil Bralich
>>>
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>>
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>>
>
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