Paul,
I find your statement that you constantly come across "instances where
grammatical terminology helps my student actors discover meaning in their
scripts" a truly interesting angle on things. Could you post a couple of
quick examples to help me see what you mean?
Thanks,
John
On 7/25/06, Paul E. Doniger <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
> James,
>
> No one is suggesting that any English teacher "spend all day teaching
> parts of speech out of a grammar book." Such an assumption flies in the face
> of logic and good pedagogy -- not to mention that there are far too many
> poor grammar books out there. I certainly don't think that this is what Phil
> has in mind in his call for traditional grammar. However, we do need to
> teach our students about the language that, in a very large measure, defines
> their thought processes. Surely, being deeper critical and creative thinkers
> does have an impact on their skiils in writing -- and reading, speaking, and
> listening, too. Isn't that part of our job?
>
> Yes, it is difficult to help students negotiate sentence structure (and
> paragraph structure, etc.) if they don't have the requisite metalanguage to
> discuss such issues. Part of our task is to ensure that they develop such a
> language -- that is largely what is stimulating this never ending debate on
> terminology.
>
> As a teacher of English in a public high school, I am constantly trying to
> help my students make up for the lack of such terminology by reviewing what
> they should have learned whenever I discover a deficit (the basic
> terminology should have been ingrained earlier in their schooling than high
> school!), but I don't spend all day on it (I only get my kids for 40 minutes
> a day, anyway). As a teacher of theatre, I have constant instances where
> grammatical terminology helps my student actors discover meaning in their
> scripts. I don't know how I would solve some of their problems without these
> reference to grammar.
>
> Paul D.
> ----- Original Message ----
> From: James Bear <[log in to unmask]>
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Sent: Tuesday, July 25, 2006 11:40:59 AM
> Subject: Re: Traditional Grammar
>
> To say the war against grammar is phenom[e]nally stupid is taking a huge
> leap. Because what happens when we teach the whole of traditional
> grammar? If we have an English teacher that understands it, and if he/she
> can convey what he/she knows to students, what have we accomplished? Do
> we make better communicators? I doubt it. Maybe. But, those are two
> tremendous if's. Because as our language is, each of us comes away from
> everything with a slightly different understanding than the rest of us.
> What traditional grammar tries to do is defy that statement. Even if,
> though, we have a super-grammarian that understands all of traditional
> grammar well enough to be able to teach it, he will spend his entire
> school year trying to teach it to students. Will he? Possibly. If he
> does, however, what other things have been missed? I've known students
> who can ace every grammar test yet cannot string a sentence together
> --myself included perhaps.
>
> Personally, I teach high school English -- for a small part of the day.
> For the rest of the day I teach computer science. Life is a lot easier if
> we can spend all day teaching parts of speech out of a grammar book. I
> learned long ago, though, that students don't write or speak better
> because of it. Computer Science, on the other hand, where we can teach
> programming languages instead of spoken languages, is easy. I can go over
> the text book and give students tutorials and never give anything of
> myself. Those are the periods I feel like the C- student trying to avoid
> work. It's a lot more work to have students write and help them sort out
> where they failed to communicate. And at that time, it's true, I end up
> teaching some traditional grammar. It's tough to tell a student his
> sentence needs to be revised because his noun and verb do not agree when
> he does not recognize a noun or verb.
>
> To me, though, this is how we teach 'just what is necessary'. We learn to
> walk by walking. We learn to speak by speaking. We learn to write by
> writing. When we learn to walk, sometimes we fall down and we learn how
> to avoid it. The same holds true with speaking and writing. The problem
> is that with speaking and writing we sometimes don't know when we fall.
> That's where the English teacher fits in.
>
> Phil Bralich wrote:
> > And this is the point that grammar advocates need to make. You cannot
> do
> > s/v agreement without being introduced to subjects and predicates,
> > internal clauses (the man from whom mary got the books is/are here),
> > person, number, (throw in gender), participles, gerunds, a little on
> > tenses -- Each of these beg questions in other areas. In short the
> whole
> > of traditional grammar is required. This is also true of parallel
> > structure, the correct use of passive and so on. The whole is
> hopelessly
> > interlocked and when you are recommended to teach "just what is
> necessary"
> > for anyone of these, that means the whole of traditional grammar. This
> is
> > why the NCTE position and the whole of the war against grammar so
> > phenominally stupid. Its as those the whole field were taken over by C-
> > students looking to avoid work.
> >
> > Phil Bralich
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> >>From: Fay Sweney <[log in to unmask]>
> >>Sent: Jul 24, 2006 8:22 PM
> >>To: [log in to unmask]
> >>Subject: Re: Traditional Grammar
> >>
> >>The SAT always includes subject-verb agreement problems, just as Nancy
> >>Tuten's posting illustrates. One type is like Nancy's example, with
> >>prepositional phrases between the subject and verb which have have
> >> objects
> >>that are different in number than the subject. In another type there is
> >> a
> >>delayed subject, as in this practice question from "The Official SAT, a
> >>Teacher's Guide" published by College Board: "At the heart of the
> >> program,
> >>enthusiastically endorsed by the city's business association, is plans
> >> for
> >>refurbishing neighborhoods . . . ."
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>Fay Sweney
> >>701 Foster Ave.
> >>Coeur d'Alene, ID 83814
> >>208-664-2274
> >>[log in to unmask]
> >>
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> >>
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> >
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> >
> > --
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> >
> >
>
>
> James Bear
> Destination: Quietude
>
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