My computer tells me this was sent out yesterday morning, but I haven't
gotten my own version in reply, so I'm sending it again. My apologies to
anyone who is seeing it twice. It was a quick reply to Herb's request for
a summary of the scope and sequence project, so please think of it that
way. (I'm resisting the urge to edit.)

Craig

--------------------------- Original Message ----------------------------
Subject: Re: Grammar Certification vs. scope and sequence
From:    [log in to unmask]
Date:    Sun, September 3, 2006 11:09 am
To:      "Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar"
<[log in to unmask]>
--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Herb,
  I think that's a wonderful suggestion. I'll give a very quick overview
and be open to questions. Those of you who have been involved all along
can certainly correct me.
  The project originally started because NCTE has historically been
unwilling to advocate direct teaching of knowledge about grammar and has
been unwilling, therefore, to advocate a scope of desirable knowledge or
a reasonable approach to getting there. Their positions on grammar
generally involve what little is needed, with suggestions for getting
results without much attention to a deeper understanding. We thought it
would make sense to present our own independent position. NCTE seems to
be softening up on that, but the program was in progress and has
continued along its original lines--advice about what a comprehensive
program should include.
  Our presentations at the ATEG conference were meant to show this as a
work in progress and also as a comprehensive project, one that takes a
unified position on all relevant aspects--curriculum, pedagogy,
assessment, teacher training, state standards, linkage to reading and
writing. We are also trying to do this under a large umbrella, giving
all members of ATEG a way to participate and a sense of ownership. This
may be an overly ambitious agenda; I hope not. It is certainly
vulnerable to attack by people who don't want to see it happen or want
to see it happen in a very narrow way, so I'm not fully convinced that
we can do it in as open a forum as the ATEG list, but I am willing to
continue trying.
   Right now, we have a draft statement on rationale for teaching grammar,
which started out being fairly hostile toward NCTE and Hillocks, but
softened up a bit as a result of our NPG discussion. We have a draft
statement on Standard English, more conservative than I would like it
to be, but one that is clear and workable. Cornelia drafted out a well
researched document on sequence that focuses mainly on what we know
about language acquisition as it relates to age. I am beginning to
believe that the transition from speaking to writing (maturation into
full literacy) is much more complex and difficult than the transition
from non-standard to Standard English (which gets the brunt of our
attention in schools.) Deb Rossen-Knill gave thoughtful background on
reliability and validity as it relates to assessment, particularly of
use in discussing the shortcomings (dated nature) of Hillocks'
conclusions. You can't simply teach one thing and test for another,
which makes his tests not "valid" in the current understanding of the
term. Tim Hadley shared his own views on Hillocks as an outgrowth of
his dissertation work. Assessment, of course, has more than one focus:
we can assess the usefulness of a program, assess the acquisition of
knowledge and skills, assess the competence of a teacher, and so on.
All these have relevance. Amanda Godley gave some background to the
issue of teacher training, both for new teachers and existing teachers
who have not been well prepared. At the conference, much time was spent
affirming the program and working on the wording of a statement of
support, which John Crow sent to the list just after the conference.
   We have a panel scheduled for the NCTE conference in November, at which
point we will be public about the project. We also have a workshop
proposed for the composition conference (4 C's) next spring, but have
to hear back. Ultimately, I would like to see it as a set of documents
we can access from the ATEG site. I would rather see it done well than
hurried, but I think we can come up with a fairly complete draft by
next year's conference.
   I have looked at a number of state standards, and the main problem is
not so much in the standards as it is the lack of connection to a
realistic curriculum. There are standards, for example--this is fairly
routine--that tell us students are supposed to "master punctuation" in
seventh grade. People seem to co-exist with documents like that without
anyone saying the emporer has no clothes. The minimalist approach has
focused on error at point of need, with little need for background
knowledge. I believe we are calling for explicit knowledge, saying that
students won't learn to punctuate until they understand enough about
language for the punctuation conventions to make sense to them.  Part
of this means advocating a different kind of testing, very different
from the current SAT or any test that thinks it is sufficient to test
behavior and not deeper knowledge. A test for example that asks "which
of the following is a compound sentence" would test knowledge about
language. One that says "which of the following is correctly
punctuated" simply tests behavior, and it follows from the assumption
that knowledge about language is not inherently valuable to anyone but
a few experts.
   I think it's easier to start with scope than it is with sequence. That
is one reason I was heartened that we were working toward what to do
with words, word classes, parts of speech, and so on, but that wasn't
as smooth as it could have been.   >
   Since that talk, I have been drafting out a scope statement on nouns,
but wasn't sure of the right venue for presenting it.
   Most of the documents I mentioned are saved on my work computer. I
can't attach them, of course, but I can probably fold them in to a list
message (with the risk of awkward formatting.) I'm back to full-time
teaching on Tuesday. It might make sense to do that one at a time
rather than overwhelm the group, or even to do it off list.
   I'm open to suggestions on how to proceed, including bringing the
project back to the New Public Grammar group for further work. We have
people from all over the world on that group, including people deeply
involved in curriculum change in England and Australia. It might help
to have a more complete working draft before full scale discussion
comes in.

Craig

Craig,
>
> I sense in the responses to your posting a refreshing of consensus on the
> Scope and Sequence agenda.  Let me suggest that this would be a good time
> to lay out for us all where work stands on the project and what informal
> working groups we have.  Certainly there has been a group working on
> curriculum, the core of the S&S agenda, and I've agreed to coordinate and
> made some minor steps towards at position on parts of speech.  While I
> hate to impose such a task on you, with everything else that you're doing,
> I suspect you're the only one among us who can readily describe current
> status.
>
> Then, particularly given the support for it I've read over the past few
> days, I suggest we get on with the task.
>
> Herb
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar on behalf of Craig
> Hancock
> Sent: Sat 9/2/2006 9:29 AM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: Grammar Certification vs. scope and sequence
>
>  Phil,
>  >
>    Your statement that "nothing is getting done" angers me a great deal.
> Even before you had any details about the program, you had very
> negative and hostile things to say about it, and a good deal of energy
> has been used up trying to reassure you that we are not the pack of
> fools you have called us from time to time (with little curiosity about
> what we are about, almost no history of interaction.) Look back at our
> "word class" discussion and tell me you haven't derailed a consensus at
> every major point. The same holds true of your stubborn insistence that
> all nouns are "entities", to the point where some people came on list
> to say please cease and desist from fruitless talk. Without that, we
> could have made quick and rapid progress.
>    The project can go on if in fact we are not interrupted by someone
> telling us the world will laugh at us if we try to change traditional
> grammar in ways other than the changes he would make.
>    Personally, I think this goes beyond differences in philosophy and
> approach and crosses over into a need on your part to own or control
> whatever gets done.
>    I am certainly willing to take scope and sequence into committee. I can
> bring it back to the New Public grammar group, which has already done
> some thoughtful work. You can do the same for your own project, but
> quite frankly, I will oppose any certification program that simply
> seems like a hostile, confrontational approach to the profession and
> not a reaching out. Whatever you come up with needs the support of ATEG
> before it can be an ATEG program. Scope and Sequence was
> enthusiastically endorsed at our last annual meeting (at the
> conference.) We have a go ahead to proceed, and we would like to carry
> out that mandate with the understanding that it will come back to
> conference for future approval. You need to follow the same route if
> you want to use ATEG as the umbrella.
>    Many of us are in public education, not working for the military. I
> suspect our daily realities are very different. You may benefit from
> seeing what we come up with and not assuming ahead of time that it will
> be flawed.
>    I will try to keep an open mind on what you are doing, but please don't
> slow down our progress and then criticize us for moving too slow.
>
> Craig
>
> This working at cross purposes may be what is bothering people, but as
>> nothing seems to be gettind done right now it may be the best place to
>> start.  The problem of reconciling the two once there were fully worked
>> out draft proposals is unlikely to be that difficult.  Or sharing
>> earlier
>> drafts according to a schedule may be good too.
>> ,
>>>two independent committees, which isn't precisely what you've advocated,
>>>would to easily work at cross purposes (is "cross purposes" an "ice
>>>cream" phrase?).  That there might be two groups working together and
>>>influencing each others work so as to arrive at a curriculum and
>>>certification standards seems reasonable.
>>
>>
>> Well read my review of the book in the last ATEG journal.  I pointed out
>> the places where it varies.
>>
>>
>> I've gone through the Houghton Mifflin web site for Honegger's book, and
>>>it looks pretty decent.  Given some of the things that he does with
>>>parts of speech, phrase structure, etc., I would not infer that it
>>>represents traditional grammar in the senses you have alluded to.  But
>>>in terms of presentation of structure it's not bad.
>>
>>
>> Phil Bralich
>>
>>>
>>>-----Original Message-----
>>>From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar
>>>[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Phil Bralich
>>>Sent: Friday, September 01, 2006 2:55 PM
>>>To: [log in to unmask]
>>>Subject: Re: Grammar Certification vs. scope and sequence
>>>
>>>>
>>>>Perhaps I left a step out of the argument.  I agree with many on this
>>>>list that we need a new grammar curriculum.  You and I differ on that.
>>>
>>>
>>>You are really missing the whole discussion here.  Scope and sequence
>>>are a part of any field's curriculum design.  Certification or the
>>>offering of degrees is the result of a curriculum having been taught.
>>>The development of a final test for certification naturally must be
>>>based on the curriculum that is offered by the school offers the
>>>curriculum.  However, the issues that arise in the splitting of a fields
>>>body of knowledge into a series for scope and sequence are very
>>>different from the issues that arise in trying to test that field's body
>>>of knowledge all-of-a-peice as a certifcation exam.  The issues are
>>>sufficiently different that not only do they suggest two different
>>>committees to develop them, they more or less compell us to create two
>>>committees.  This is what you keep missing here.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>>I'm not being intentionally dense when I say that I don't understand
>>>>what you mean by "... the entirety of traditional grammar is
>>>>inescapable."  Both "entirety" and "inescapable" are a little unclear
>>>to
>>>>me.
>>>
>>>Take a look at my review of Mark Honegger's _Grammar for Writing_ in the
>>>last ATEG Journal.  I made a similar discussion and pointed this out
>>>with more examples when I explained why I believed his book was very
>>>complete and that he had, in spite of protests to the contrary, provided
>>>the entirety of traditional grammar.
>>>
>>>
>>>Phil Bralich
>>>
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