Herb,
    I recommend the Longman Student Grammar as a highly interesting text
based on those explorations (Biber et. al.) when I first ordered it, I
got a phone call from one of their editors who was surprised I was
using it outside of ESL. I use it in a third year class I have
developed for the Linguistics Department: Writing, Reading, and
Language. It's a Writing Intensive course (students need to take an
upper level writing intensive course for graduation)that explores the
usefulness of knowledge about language for reading and writing. We
take a genre centered approach, not only exploring the language
features of different genres, but writing within those genres as we do
so. The overwhelming consensus among those students is that knowledge
about language is extraordinarily useful. I tend to get good student
reviews when I teach, but this course is exceptionally well received.
We do a lot of grammar, but it is not at all focused on error. It
seems to me that reducing grammar to error is the main reason it loses
interest. It also distorts the subject considerably in the process.
    Jane mentions passive voice in scientific writing. It helps to know
that the passive is not just a stylistic option, but that there are
highly functional reasons for its increased use in scientific
contexts.
    Treating the passive as an error not only drains interest, but
distorts language in the process.

Craig



> Geoff,
>
> I suspect your question is a decade or two away from having a good
> methodology and content that are based on the study of discourse.  Douglas
> Biber, in several books and a lot of articles, investigates how different
> genres use different grammatical features and constructions.  I don't know
> if anyone has made a serious attempt to base a grammar pedagogy on his
> sort of analysis and his findings, but it strikes me as one of those areas
> where a team of writing teachers and linguists could make some interesting
> progress.
>
> Herb
>
> From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar
> [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Geoffrey Layton
> Sent: Monday, August 08, 2011 8:35 PM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Losing their interest?
>
> This has been a great discussion - but there's one little thing missing -
> GRAMMAR! My guess is that as soon as Mike Rose's "Goddess Grammatica"
> pokes her head in the classroom door (I always picture her as Elmira
> Gulch/Wicked Witch of the West/Dorothy Hamilton in Oz), all of the
> "children" (don't all students turn into fearful little children at the
> thought of having to deal with grammar?) run away terrified. How do we
> bring grammar into this discussion without "losing them"?
>
> Geoff Layton
>
> ________________________________
> Date: Mon, 8 Aug 2011 17:10:16 -0700
> From: [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>
> Subject: Re: Holding their interest
> To: [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>
> Herb & Geoff,
>
> I think that one of the advantages of the They Say/I Say text is that it
> opens an opportunity to have students investigate issues before they take
> a position. Of course, all that depends upon how we actually use the text
> in the classroom.  I like your idea of having the students explain the
> history of an argument or issue and not express an opinion. Craig's mantra
> (on another recent e-mail) is profoundly logical. However, it seems to me
> that eventually, they need to examine the arguments & histories of issues
> and think about/examine where they stand. Hopefully, they will think
> before they leap.
>
> Question for those of you who use the text: Do you use the basic text only
> or the text that includes readings on various issues?
>
> Paul D.
>
> "If this were play'd upon a stage now, I could condemn it as an improbable
> fiction" (_Twelfth Night_ 3.4.127-128).
>
>
> ________________________________
> From: Geoffrey Layton <[log in to unmask]>
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Sent: Mon, August 8, 2011 4:57:24 PM
> Subject: Re: Holding their interest
> Herb -
>
> Your comments are not at all tangential. They get straight to the heart of
> what I consider to be an essential debate about the role of argument in
> the freshman comp (or any comp) classroom - the "great arguments" -
> abortion, evolution, gay marriage, gun control, wars in every age and era
> (but particularly Iraq, Afghanistan and Vietnam along with Palistine and
> the entire Middle East), torture - all of these and more are indeed, what
> evoke (and provoke!) student interest. But they are also what cause chaos
> in the classroom (or, as you mention, the dinner table).
>
> The only way I've been able to deal with this problem - allowing students
> full participation in debating these issues (in the context of their
> writing assignments and class discussion) while keeping the lid on the
> chaos - is to follow the path that Stanley Fish lays out in his excellent
> book "Save the World on Your Own Time." His injunction is quite simple -
> nobody, including the teacher, can take a personal position. The pedagogy
> is designed to show students how people argue and why the arguments are
> effective, not taking a position and defending it.
>
> In practical terms, the phrase I've found that pays is one that I picked
> up from Ralph Cintron, a remarkable rhetorician at UIC - "What must be in
> place for . . . ?" So applied to the issue of evolution, the question
> becomes "What must be in place for someone to reject evolution?" Put this
> way, I think that putting the people who reject evolution as simple-minded
> Bible-thumpers or emotionally dependent children is a bit too severe as
> this devolves into ad hominem reasoning.
>
> Geoff Layton
>
> ________________________________
> Date: Mon, 8 Aug 2011 16:37:09 -0400
> From: [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>
> Subject: Re: Holding their interest
> To: [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>
> Thanks to all of you for one of the most interesting and thoughtfully
> argued threads we've had in a while.
>
> I have a question that may be tangential to this topic, or at least a
> narrower focus.  I should say first that while I have taught both ESL
> writing and Freshman writing, I am not a writing teacher, and threads like
> this always leave me with a lot of respect for those who perform these
> tasks and perform them well.
>
> When I've taught writing, I've often been encouraged to avoid topics like
> abortion and creationism vs. evolution because it's so difficult for
> student writers to separate themselves from the issues and from the social
> consequences of taking a position.  As an example of this, I had dinner
> with my oldest son last night, and we got to talking about a good friend
> of his at work.  She is well educated, well read, and has thoughtful views
> on a lot of topics.  Evolution came up recently in one of their
> conversations, and her response was, "Oh, I don't believe in evolution.
> The evidence for it is not very strong."  My son was surprised at her
> reaction.  She comes from a Southern Baptist background but is no longer
> connected to that or any other denomination, so her reasons for rejecting
> evolution, and she confirms this, are not religious.  I suggested to him
> that perhaps the reason for her position was a matter of social identity.
> Her family and the community she grew up in are devout and accept the
> biblical creation story literally.  Rejecting evolution is a matter of
> family identity.  She can become a backslid Baptist, and that's
> lamentable, but for her to accept evolution would be to reject her family.
>
> In a case like this, a position on evolution or creation or abortion is
> not an intellectual stance; it's a matter of cultural and social identity,
> and that makes it very hard to think critically about it.  I've found in
> UG classes where we deal with dialectology the notion "social class"
> sometimes gets rejected out of hand as Marxist, and no amount of
> discussion will shake that position.  This is also one of those defining
> stances.
>
> Is a writing class the place to get students to question such elements of
> their identity and look at themselves more critically?  How does one go
> about this?
>
> Herb
>
> From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar
> [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Geoffrey Layton
> Sent: Monday, August 08, 2011 1:14 PM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: Holding their interest
>
> Seth -
>
> Thanks for the reference. This thread fits with a project on academic
> discourse that I'm trying to develop. Perhaps one characteristic that
> Graff proposes that might be different from the Rogerian model is his
> insistence that - after all the listening and understanding -
> writers/academics must finally take a position that differs from that of
> their interlocutors/respondents. For example, in his book "Clueless in
> Academe," he offers significant criticism of Deborah Tannen and the views
> she expresses in her book, "The Argument Culture: Moving from Debate to
> Dialogue." As he puts it, "Perhaps the most telling refutation of Tannen's
> thesis is the confrontational quality of the book itself. . . Tannen
> enacts the behavior she objects to" (89). Similarly in "They Say," Graff
> advances a method that will enhance the ability of students to argue, not
> diminish it. His "listening and understanding" component, as I understand
> it, is presented not as a way to be non-confrontational but rather as a
> means to make sure that the resulting argument is telling and effective,
> much the same way that he demonstrates his understanding of Tannen's
> position in order to methodically destroy it.
>
> To return to the theme of the thread - "Holding their interest" - perhaps
> this discussion will help hold student interest by showing them that in
> order to develop a powerful argument for their position, they must first
> thoroughly understand the point of view of the person with whom they
> disagree - and, more interestingly, in order to have something interesting
> to say, they must find an area where they do disagree.
>
> Geoff Layton
>
>> Date: Mon, 8 Aug 2011 11:41:33 -0500
>> From:
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