Erin,



 



Yep, some of them want to say those are adverbs. In their defense, I should add that many of them haven’t encountered much in the way of discussions of grammar since 6th grade. I don’t know how much of this is a reflex of actual limitations in their former textbooks, and how much is from the way long-term memory erodes complications. Some of the texts I have looked at, though, did appear set up an absolute equation between “location or time information” and “adverb.”  Part of it, I suspect, results naturally from the fact that when authors make up examples for a textbook, they tend to create ones that conform nicely to the definition.  



 



As you’d expect, this causes even more of a problem when the students are deciding whether a prepositional phrase or an embedded clause is adjectival or adverbial (e.g. “The place *where I parked the car* was very shady”). 



 



Thanks,



 



Bill Spruiell



 



From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Erin Karl

Sent: Tuesday, November 10, 2009 6:06 PM

To: [log in to unmask]

Subject: Re: Which via when



 



Do you mean that in those sentence examples your college students would say that Monday, north, etc., are adverbs?  Good grief!  That's what you get when the focus of grammar instruction is completely on the "definition" of the parts of speech and that's it.  



I have seen plenty of texts and curricula do that, but I know of at least one (mine) that doesn't.  



Erin



 



________________________________



From: "Spruiell, William C" <[log in to unmask]>

To: [log in to unmask]

Sent: Tue, November 10, 2009 5:11:03 PM

Subject: Which via when



This is just a quick informal survey-type question: For those of you teaching K-12, how many times have you seen a textbook pointing out that people frequently use information about time or place in order to specify which thing they’re talking about (e.g. “The meeting *on Thursday* was longer than the one on Monday,” or “She headed for the *north* pasture”)? Many of my college students have quite firmly internalized the notion that adverbs “tell you where, when, why, or how,” but don’t remember ever seeing limitations put on that of definition. They think about it as if it’s some kind of fundamental law of the universe, and some of the K-12 textbooks I’ve looked at seem to be presenting it that way. My institution’s “instructional media” collection is mostly from the 80s and early 90s, though, so I can’t tell if things have improved or not.



 



Thanks,



 



Bill Spruiell



 



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