Dear Lawrence: Of course you can further the cause: You can join us at our ATEG conference in Minneapolis in July. We missed you last year. And by all means, present your method to us on the program. I know that Dave Sawyer would love to hear from you. We old timers will enjoy seeing you again. Martha > A recent posting from Joanna Rubba requested input on grammar teaching >from "the K-12 crowd." At our private boys school we admit into 7th grade >boys from many different school backgrounds. Since some have studied >grammar and some have not, we have to start from scratch. > I begin by pointing out that you need two things to make a sentence: >something you're talking about and what you're saying about it. I point >out how exciting it is that we have this power to join two ideas >together–"fuse" them–in this way, and that there are an infinite number of >ways of doing it. We start by finding this pattern in two-or-three-word >sentences. As we expand sentences–always making them interesting and when >possible choosing them from their own writing or from literature they are >reading–they see how subject and predicate can acquire modifiers, whether >single-word or prepositional phrases, and how, depending on the kind of >verb (intransitive, transitive, linking), they can be filled out >("complemented") with direct and indirect objects and subject complements. >Then come the verbals: gerunds, present participles and infinitives. By >the end of the first trimester, the students are comfortable diagramming >simple sentences, including sentences with prepositional and participial >phrases of all kinds. Their eagerness to put diagrams on the board and the >intelligent questions they ask about the logical relationships between >parts of a sentence is exciting to see and belies the notion that grammar >is dull. > We use a British form of diagramming in which the major sentence >units–subject, verb, direct object, indirect object, subject complement, >adjective and adverb modifiers, are placed in boxes and joined with >appropriate lines. This method is simpler, less sprawling than the line >diagramming of Warriner's and most American textbooks. It allows the basic >architecture of the sentence to stand out clearly. When students see how a >word in the adjective box can suddenly acquire a direct object because it >is a present participle, they say "Wow!" They are intrigued by the way the >hybrid parts of speech (verbals) expand the possibilities of including >information in a sentence without the need for any new grammar principles. > Since the sentences in exercises in many grammar textbooks are often >too >contrived, uninteresting, or few, I collect my own from novels, stories, >student writings. I sometimes have students imitate these sentences by >creating their own sentences on the same pattern. This helps them "try on" >styles of writing they might never have used on their own, expanding their >repertoire. Seventh graders are capable of writing sentences rich in >participial phrases, inversion, variety of length and structure, absolute >constructions, etc., though I would not claim this as a direct result of >grammar study except insofar as the latter raises consciousness of options. > In the second trimester of 7th grade we move on to complex sentences. >Since subordinate clauses are used as a single part of speech–adjective >(relative clauses), noun (usually direct object), or adverb (8 kinds)–and >since the pattern of verb-subject recognition has become automatic by this >time, they easily spot clauses. All they need now is to learn the typical >introductory words (conjunctions or pronouns) for each kind of clause. By >the end of the trimester they can diagram any kind of sentence, including >some quite challenging ones like these: > • There are people who don't want to hear what you have to say unless >it >is what they have already said to you. > • He said it was all up with him because if he did get saved, whoever >saved him would send him back home to claim the reward. (Twain) > • Prackle had several blond sisters of whom he was so proud that he had >on occasion caused a commotion when he thought they had been insulted. >(Steinbeck) > Again we use a simplified form of diagramming, writing each clause in a >rectangle followed by the Kind of clause (Adjective, Noun, Adverb, Main) >in a second (adjoining) rectangle, and its relationship to the rest of the >sentence (direct object, modifying a noun or verb, etc.) in a third. The >students feel proud that they can understand how such sentences are put >together since many college students cannot do that. > Somewhere along the line we throw in compound sentences, which are easy >since they are simply two or more simple sentences joined together, and we >learn the different methods of joining. They like to show off their use of >the semi-colon, which always provokes a discussion about how the parts on >either side of the semi-colon are related to each other, and whether the >semi-colon is or is not more effective than a period and two sentences. >Some of the authors we read in 7th grade use a rich variety of sentence >structures. We practice identifying simple, compound, complex, >compound/complex sentences in books and stories by Robert Louis Stevenson, >Twain, London, S. E. Hinton, Lessing, and others. Students come to see the >nobility of a finely constructed sentence that accomplishes several things >at once. In high school the tools they have learned to use in 7th grade >can be applied to ever more varied and developed texts as a way of >appreciating style. > I agree wholeheartedly with most of the contributors to this list that >contextualizing grammar (seeing it in connection with thought and its >expression) is the way to rescue it from the doldrums where it has >languished so long. It is an insult to children's intelligence to assume >they cannot be interested in how ideas are related and how the sentence >mirrors or embodies this relationship. > Thank you all for reading this. If I can further the cause in any way, >please let me know! Bon courage. > Fr. Laurence Kriegshauser, O.S.B. > Saint Louis Priory School > 500 South Mason Road > St. Louis, MO 63141