Craig,
First, the passives. Rarely, I think, do we teach students to USE constructions. They do so naturally. I'm amused to see your question followed by Scott's, to which I'll try to reply separately. Remember that I'm working in what I believe to be the current reality--most students are unable to identify finite verbs. If they cannot recognize them in the first place, what good does it do to "teach" passive voice. KISS introduces passives, as a concept to be learned, in fifth grade, primarily with the objective that students learn to recognize passive voice. Why? Because some teachers will tell students never to use passives (silly, but that is currently taught), and some instructors will tell students to use passive voice. Unless students can recognize passives when they see them, either "direction" is meaningless. It's my hope to include exploratory exercises on passives (uses and abuses) in the upper grades. Most of the "Practice/Application" sections in the upper KISS grades have slots for an exercise on passives. See: http://home.pct.edu/~evavra/kiss/wb/LPlans/G10_WB1.htm#Practice_1
Thus we agree, passives are "important to discourse decisions." Where we may disagree is when and how they can effectively be taught.

I don't understand how you can think that natural language development can't occur without instruction. Isn't it obvious that the sentences of older students are more complicated, especially in terms of embeddings, than the sentences of younger students? Thus, for me, the question is the purpose of instruction. I'd say that it is to help students better understand how language works. In other words, the ability to analyze sentences enables students to discuss (and thus understand) how passives, for example, work. Or how deep embedding of clauses may cause problems for readers. True, some people argue against formal instruction in language, believing that it "just happens." But just because it happens does not mean that it happens effectively, and just because they are wrong does not mean that we have to be.

Appositives -- as always, I argue that unless students are taught to recognize the things in the first place, instruction will not be very effective. Thus in KISS recognition (identification) always comes first. But KISS also includes a variety of sentence manipulation exercises and combining exercises in which students are asked to combine clauses by using an appositive, etc.

My response to your last, and most important question, is the entire KISS site. It is more or less laid out at:
http://home.pct.edu/~evavra/kiss/wb/LPlans/Overview_Levels.htm

Ed





-----Original Message-----
From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Craig Hancock
Sent: Tuesday, February 03, 2009 5:12 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Developmental phases of grammar knowledge

Ed,
   I would disagree with you on passives, though I'm confused about why
you would say you introduce it in fifth grade but don't feel students
need to learn it. Are you making a distinction between the KISS program
and your college teaching? In an ideal world, wouldn't passive verbs
(and their function) be a natural part of the curriculum? They seem to
me important to discourse decisions. And students need to deal with the
computer grammar checks, which routinely underline them as wrong. I
find them important to my own understanding.
   I'm also troubled by the routine assumption that language development
occurs "without instruction." Certainly, we are capable of learning all
kinds of things from observing what's going on around us, languaqe
included, but this seems to me to routinely downplay the possible kinds
of interactions that would help mentor the process. The argument
against making language a major part of the curriculum depends on a
belief (I think mistaken) that it just happens.
   When you say appositives should be taught, do you mean recognition?
Use? I like to make the point that entities can be named over and over
again, and that seems to help, at least at the college level. George
Will is more than just a well-known columnist, so appositives
(renaming) can happen forever. He's also a passionate baseball fan,
though that may not be relevant to the context. And he's not an example
I would use for my students. Maybe Oprah? Perhaps it's the "cognitive"
and functional recognitions that matter the most. At least at the
college level, students seem to get it quickly.
   What knowledge about language helps in discussions about putting
language to work? Can we build that knowledge about language as we
mentor students into different language worlds, including the world of
school? I think those would be my central questions.

Craig

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