Phil,

You are right to state that grammar and writing do not have to be 
associated in the excessive manner in which some "experts" attempt to 
do it today. I have been studying grammar for years apart from 
writing just because I like it, and I have found that it has helped 
me improve my writing abilities to a great degree, in spite of the 
fact that I never studied it in the "context of writing" or in "mini 
lessons." 

As Johanna pointed out, the major reasons why students do not write 
well nowadays is because they do not read. I have been reading again 
and again two papers which show a *direct* connection between word 
acquisition (the lexicon)and writing skills. Reading helps students 
to internalize grammar through exposure to the written text. If our 
students don't read, no matter what gimmics we use to improve their 
writing, their growth will be at most minimal.

I believe it is time for us to move on from blaming the "old grammar" 
for its deficiencies, and state the true cause of poor writing skills 
in our students, the extraordinary disinclination students show for 
reading, something that seems to be encountered almost everywhere in 
our public schools and colleges.


Eduard 


On Fri, 1 Sep 2006, Phil Bralich wrote...

>>   I think the proposal for a "certification" program SEEMs like an
>>attempt to derail scope and sequence, 
>
>These are sufficiently separate and sufficiently demanding to 
warrant two working groups.  
>
>
>
>
>>   I think that there were reasons why the old grammar was called 
into
>>question. 
>
>This I think is fundamentally flawed unless you mean it was called 
into question by those who didn't know their grammar or who didn't 
want to review their grammar found it politically expeditious to do 
so.  Politically expeditious because there are so many who don't know 
their grammar.  As I have pointed out in earlier posts, one only need 
to try and list the problems in traditional grammar along with 
examples to find that what scope and sequence is offering and what 
used to taught and also what I am talking about are essentially the 
same.  The only real error that ever existed in grammar teaching was 
an overenthusiastic importation of abstractions from the world of 
theoretical linguistics.  
>
>Also the idea that writing and grammar need to be paralleled so much 
is a red herring.  Grammar does not have to do with your creativity.  
It has to do with your logic and rhetoric.  
>
>>A good deal of grammar
>>instruction has been inaccurate (descriptively) and somewhat 
arbitrary
>>and dysfunctional (prescriptively), not well connected to meaningful
>>writing or a meaningful interaction with text. 
>
>This is largely false.  Though I have seen statements like this many 
times before they always come without examples.  
>
>
>>We would be saying, in effect, that there was nothing of
>>substance in the movement away from grammar. 
>
>Which would be correct.  See especially David Mulroy' _The War 
Agaist Grammar_.  
>
>
>
>>    The path we were on--a fairly careful rethinking of traditional
>>grammar, with attention to how grammar might be integrated into
>>reading and writing in a substantive way--I believe has the 
potential
>>to win over converts. 
>
>Well first off, this can't be done as you cannot avoid the teaching 
of all of traditional grammar once you start.  The reason this group 
never takes off is because any time any would start a list of what to 
teach they would very quickly find that all that comprises 
traditional grammar is closely intertwined and once you decide to 
teach anything (puncutation, parts of speech, sentence roles, 
sentence structure) you find that you're compelled to teach the 
entirety of it or give it up ... or wallow in the dream of a coming 
day when smaller or simpler grammar may somehow be devised -- which 
of course would be impossible without a regression of the entire 
planet to some primitive linguistic state, say pre-Tigres and 
Euphrates.  
>
>
>>   Are we too polarized to come up with a consensus? 
>
>I see more of a lack of direction and faulty assumptions as the main 
problem.  I hope you don't mean that certificaiton and scope and 
sequence are somehow polarizing.  They are quite complementary and 
worthy of two separate committees.  
>
>
>
>>   The project could continue outside the umbrella of ATEG. Perhaps 
a
>>Certification program could as well. 
>
>You seem to believe that ATEG can have one and only one committee, 
the scope and sequence committee, which is daft.  Two or even more 
would be fine.   You might find some solutions in dividing the Scope 
and Sequence committee into subcommittees.  
>
>
>Phil  Bralich
>
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>
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