A very astute question. What we pretty much agree on on this list is that teachers and students need a shared vocabulary and set of concepts for talking about grammar in ways that are relevant to writing. We don't agree completely on what those terms and concepts are or what "relevant to writing" means. However, all of these questions are ahead of the game, because even if the teacher has a good sense of how to use grammar in the context of the writing classroom, the students don't have either the vocabulary or the concepts, so there's no way to have these conversations.
The question then is whether the composition classroom is the place to teach those terms and concepts, and I think there's a pretty strong argument to be made that it isn't. A lot of composition can be taught very well, and is, without direct recourse to grammatical information. There are unquestionably techniques drawn from the grammar of rhetoric and discourse than can be very useful in reading and writing, but for the most part those need to be learned before the student enters the college composition classroom, and that is precisely what's lacking. How can you teach a student the effective use of passive voice the student doesn't know what a subject, direct object, or agent is, or a be-verb?
This hasn't been mentioned much in this thread, but it occurs to me that composition has gone the methods route rather than the content route, rather like much of teacher education. Since composition teachers can't count on student knowledge of the necessary linguistic content, they have fallen back on methodology, and what has been lost in the process is the realization that there is a base of knowledge that would be very helpful if it were taught during K12.
In the seven general standards for Language Arts in Indiana, Standard 1 requires that stuents use etymological knowledge to interpret and use appropriately new words found in text. Apparently no one's heard of the etymological fallacy. Etymologically, "nice" originally meant "ignorant". Standard 4 mentions "editing" but doesn't suggest anything about the kind of knowledge editing requires. Standard 5 requires that "Student writing demonstrates a command of Standard English" but nowhere is the acquisition of this command touched on. Standards 6 and 7 require that students use "Standard English conventions" in written and oral work but say nothing of what these conventions are or how and when they are to be taught. It's just assumed that these things happen somehow.
Herb
Subject: An Innocent Beginner's Question
Hello-
I'm a first year graduate student, so pardon my ignorance.
I am reading this thread regarding hostility toward grammar with
interest. My goal is to become an adjunct professor in English after
attaining my Master's Degree, which does mean I will be teaching a lot
of composition classes.
I am currently taking a class in English grammar systems, which led me
to this list as a way to educate myself about the current issues in
grammar and English today.
My personal reason for re-learning grammar (I was taught in the
'classical' method all through elementary school: rote, repetition,
memorization, etc.) has been so that I, as a future composition teacher,
will be better able to serve my students by bringing them an
understanding of Standard Written English.
So, to my question: if we are not to spend hours of class on grammar and
usage, how then can we as professors *improve* our student's composition
skills through the use of our grammatical knowledge?
Does that make sense? I'm happy to clarify - sometimes my fingers move
faster than my thoughts these days.
Looking forward to hearing points of view on this-
-patty
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