Dear Gretchen,
    I decided to response to your query by pretending I was a seventh-grade teacher who had to teach to these standards.  I tried to look at the standards with a positive attitude--"Okay, how do I interpret these; what do I need to be looking for in my students' writing, and what do I need to teach them?"--rather than nit-picking the language in which the standards are written. As you will see, I wasn't successful in the no nit-picking area.

1. The students should be writing sentences that incorporate modifying words, phrases, and clauses.  If those modifiers are misplaced, I should bring that error to my students' attention.  Students should be using the active voice in most of their writing.  If they are using the passive voice excessively, I should bring that to their attention.  (Nit-picking: I have no idea why these two areas--modifiers and active voice--are combined into one point.)

2. Students should be writing sentences that are complex enough to make use of infinitives and participles.  I should encourage their use and plan some lessons to introduce them to the function of each.  Maybe it will be enough for students to understand that infinitives cannot be predicate verbs and that participles are predicate verbs only when they are preceded by helping verbs and, to go along with the modifier standard in #1, that participles head phrases that function as adjective modifiers of nouns.  I should be on the watch for vague or ambiguous uses of pronouns; if I see these in my students' writing, I should discuss it with my students and teach some lessons on pronoun-antecedent agreement.  (Nit-picking: Again, I have no idea why these two areas--infinitives and participles and pronoun reference--are combined.)

3. My students need to learn the eight parts of speech (if they do not already know them).  I can give them a diagnostic to determine this and go from there.  I also need to teach my students to write and be able to identify simple, compound, and complex sentences. (Nit-picking: Hmm, this last part "types and structure" is really vague.  I think of types as simple, compound and complex.  Structure could mean declarative, interrogative, and imperative, or it could be transitive vs. intransitive verbs, passive voice, inverted clauses--lots of things.  I certainly want to get clarification on this.  And again, why pair parts of speech with sentence types and structures?)

4. My students should be using basic end punctuation and learn the basic rules for commas. If they are not already, 
they need to start quoting material from other sources and/or start writing dialogue in short stories to learn to use quotation marks.  They will learn about semicolons when I teach them about compound sentences, and they will learn that commas go after introductory dependent clauses when I teach them about complex sentences.  (Nit-picking: Appropriate English usage?  Isn't that what all this has been about?  Why give pronoun reference as the one example?  Why pair punctation and English usage together?  I also want to know what the sixth-grade standards and the eighth-grade standards are.)

I started out really trying hard to be a team player.  As a seventh-grade teacher, I am a conscientious employee, so I want to make sure my students take away from my class the grammar they need for the eighth grade.  But right now I'm just plain irritated.  This draft is vague, redundant, and illogical in both organization and presentation of examples.  I realize this is just a draft, but whoever wrote it would themselves benefit from a grammar class AND a writing class.
 
Question: did a note accompany this draft in which the committee appologized for the draft's roughness and asked for revision suggestions from teachers?  I hope so.

Good luck with this.
Jeanne Rodgers
CSU, Sacramento





 ----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Eduard C. Hanganu" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Friday, March 31, 2006 2:52 PM
Subject: Re: Seventh Grade Grammar Standards - comments, anyone?


> Hi,Gretchen!
> 
> Are you quoting the curriculum commmitee draft of the language arts 
> standards? It seems to me that the "standards" or "outcomes" are not 
> listed in logical order and that the description of the "standards" 
> lacks clarity. For instance, does "use active voice" mean that the 
> students should use *only* the active voice, or they should *give 
> priority* to the use of the active voice?
> 
> Eduard 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> On Fri, 31 Mar 2006, Gretchen Lee wrote...
> 
> >Hi,
> > 
> >Our curriculum committee just presented us with a draft of the  
> language arts 
> >standards for our private school.  Here are my seventh grade  
> grammar 
> >standards:
> > 
> >1. Place modifiers properly and use the active  voice.
> >2. Identify and use infinitives and participles and make clear  
> references 
> >between pronouns and antecedents.
> >3.  Identify all parts of speech and types and structure of  
> sentences.
> >4. Demonstrate the mechanics of writing (e.g., quotation marks,  
> commas at 
> >the end of dependent clauses) and appropriate English usage (e.g.  
> pronoun 
> >reference).
> > 
> >Anyone have any comments on these?
> > 
> >Thanks,
> >Gretchen
> >
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