Precisely correct, Bill, regarding the need for precision in
terminology. Harris was imprecise in the way he described what he was
doing, and Tomlinson pointed that out in his 1994 article-that one could
not tell whether Harris meant that he was "formally teaching (some kind
of) grammar" or "teaching formal grammar" or what. In fact, Harris was,
in his "grammar" group, teaching what we would call "formal,
drill-based, parts-of-speech grammar." But it is very difficult to tell
that from reading his dissertation.
This is in general the case-that is, such imprecise terminology-in
almost all of those older dissertations, especially those in the 50s and
earlier. It is often almost impossible to tell what they mean by what
they say, something that Braddock's report laments (and even Hillocks
does too, 25 years later).
You are right about Fred Kemp, and I'll pass along your greetings.
Tim
Tim Hadley
Research Assistant, The Graduate School
Ph.D. candidate, Technical Communication and Rhetoric
Texas Tech University
________________________________
From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of William McCleary
Sent: Tuesday, October 04, 2005 10:07 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Braddock's "incorrect conclusions"
Tim,
Hi again. Thanks for clearing up what you meant. I would add to your
remarks that it was also Harris, not the writers of the Braddock report,
who omitted the crucial qualifying phrase about time being taken away
from composition.
As is often the case, problems of interpretation can arise when writers
do not clarify what they mean when they say they are or are not teaching
grammar. "Teaching grammar" can refer to anything from drill-and-kill to
teaching correctness in the context of students' own writing. It is
probable that everyone who teaches composition could be said to take
time away from composition to teach grammar; it all depends on what one
means by teaching grammar.
Bill
PS: My best to your fearless leader, Fred Kemp. He's one of the few
people I know that could have put together such an enlightened and
cohesive program as you have at Texas Tech.
Hi Bill,
Bill,
Well, actually, I think both Braddock and Hillocks state that it
is "formal grammar" that they are opposed to. But they don't always
define what they mean very clearly, and I don't think there is any doubt
that Braddock's statements (and later Hillocks's as well) were
understood by many to include the condemnation of much more than just
formal, drill-based grammar.
However, I probably should have explained better what I meant by
"incorrect conclusions."
It's really fairly simple: Harris misrepresented his own 1962
dissertation by claiming that his "non-grammar" group studied no
grammar, when in fact they did--they studied what we would call
"functional grammar." This has been pointed out in articles by Bamberg
(1978) and Tomlinson (1994). Further, the non-grammar group was coached
in avoiding the errors that would be looked for on the posttest
analysis, in effect seriously compromising Harris's research. So, the
results Harris claimed for his research were at best tainted, if not
completely non-valid. This point was also made, in slightly different
terms, by Martha Kolln in her 1981 article "Closing the Books on
Alchemy."
Braddock then took Harris's claims and built an entire
anti-grammar empire on them. I still read articles that cite how Harris
"once and for all" proved that teaching grammar is harmful to students.
These statements are not being made by people who have read Harris's
dissertation, but by people who have read Braddock's one sentence. But
Mellon (1978, "A taxonomy of compositional competencies") strongly
disputes the contention that taking time away from writing practice to
work on grammar is harmful to students' writing. And there are many
other studies that suggest that increasing the frequency of writing does
not improve the quality of students' writing, all suggesting that
Harris's secondary conclusion as well was incorrect.
So my question is, if Harris's claims were based on compromised
research (and they were), and if subsequent studies have invalidated his
conclusions, how much faith can we have in them? That is what I meant by
"incorrect conclusions."
Now, having said that, I agree about the superiority of
functional, contextual grammar teaching over non-contextual, drill-based
grammar teaching, and am not suggesting a return to drill and kill. I
understand, and agree with, the need for an emphasis on writing in the
composition classroom. But why can there not be both? It is being done
here at Texas Tech, for instance, where students in freshman English
write more than they probably do in almost any other program
anywhere--about 50 documents (roughly 3-4 per week) during the semester,
including 12 major drafts, all totaling (the 50 documents) about 20,000
words, give or take--and grammar is taught as a part of every classroom
session. Students write a lot _and_ they get some grammar instruction.
Does it help their writing? Well, that's the subject of my dissertation.
Stay tuned . . .
Tim
Tim Hadley
Research Assistant, The Graduate School
Ph.D. candidate, Technical Communication and Rhetoric
Texas Tech University
-----Original Message-----
From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar
[mailto:[log in to unmask] <mailto:[log in to unmask]> ] On
Behalf Of William McCleary
Sent: Sunday, October 02, 2005 11:48 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Hostility toward grammar teaching
Tim,
Which incorrect conclusions of the Braddocks and Hillocks report
are
you talking about? Their main conclusion, that teaching grammar
has
no beneficial effect on composition, still seems valid to me. It
is
true that the grammar being taught was usually old-fashioned,
taught
in isolation from the actual practice of composition, or focused
more
on usage and mechanics than basic grammar, but that was how
composition was often taught in those days.
It is their second comment, that teaching grammar may be
"harmful" to
students, that receives the most complaints from proponents of
grammar. But even here the complaints are not all that
justified.
What they actually said was that the time spent on grammar was
taken
away from the actual practice of writing and for that reason
might be
harmful to students' progress in learning composition.
As for why some college composition teachers are so opposed to
grammar in the composition classroom, you need to go back to
what
used to be done in many composition classes and, indeed, in some
entire composition programs. That was the intense focus on
errors in
composition and the related attempts to use the teaching of
grammar-as-syntax and grammar-as-correct-usage. We had a long
battle
to get rid of that approach to composition and to focus
attention on
actual writing instead. If you even suggest that you are
interested
in going back to grammar, those who remember the battles are
bound to
look at you with horror. You would need to explain pretty
quickly
that you are not proposing to go back to the old methods but to
try a
modern approach.
The same unhelpful use of "grammar" was, by the way, also the
main
approach to teaching composition when I began teaching secondary
English in 1961. I did it for 3 years (if I remember correctly)
until
personal observation led me to conclude that this was going
nowhere.
I have never gone back. I have occasionally tried introducing
some
lessons on both kinds of grammar, because it does, after all,
seem
intuitively obvious that some knowledge of grammar or some
lessons on
the mistakes students make would work, but I quickly
rediscovered why
I had abandoned them in the first place. One often forgets that
what
is intuitively obvious (the world is flat) often turns out to be
untrue. As someone pointed out earlier, you do not need to teach
any
formal lessons in grammar (of either type) to teach composition
successfully.
Bill
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