From: Edward Vavra [mailto: [log in to unmask]]
To: [log in to unmask]
Date: Fri, 18 Aug 2006 12:20:29 -0400
Subject: Re: The Purpose of the ATEG List

David,
It would be fine with me if they put the documents on the ATEG site, but I normally revise them for every semester. They are on-line. Links to them are at:
http://home.pct.edu/~evavra/kiss/wb/LPlans/Start_MiddleSchool.htm
The links on that page are coordinated with links to the tentative course schedules.
The materials for ENL 001 are probably better than those for ENL 111, simply because in the 001 course I can spend more class time on grammar/sentence structure. As the ToC for the 001 course indicates, there are 18 pages of instructional material, followed by 28 exercises (two exercises per week). In approximately a third of the exercises, students will be analyzing a paragraph from one of their own papers and then working in small groups to check and discuss their work. This is a new arrangement for this course, and my sense is that it will be more efffective because the students will be spending more time on direct application to their own writing.

The objectives in the 111 course are broader and include more work on style and logic, but much of the work has to be done out of class--we simply do not have class time to spare. Here again I am limited to 28-30 lessons/exercises, simply because i'm working within a fifteen week semester and some classes only meet twice a week. My experience has been that those students who study and do the initial exercises can get a fairly decent grasp of the questions related to style, logic, texture, etc.
I still have some changes to make to the 111 materials before our semester starts on Monday. If anyone is interested in using or adapting these materials, I would be very interested in discussing what works and what doesn't.
Ed

>>> [log in to unmask] 8/9/2006 9:48:37 AM >>>

Ed, Will those MS Word documents be available on the ATEG website? I'm sure that I'm not the only Interested teacher . Peace, David Brown ESL/EFL teacher Long Beach, CA USA --- On Tue 08/08, Edward Vavra < [log in to unmask] > wrote: From: Edward Vavra [mailto: [log in to unmask]] To: [log in to unmask] Date: Tue, 8 Aug 2006 16:03:52 -0400 Subject: Re: The Purpose of the ATEG List Peter, You raise an important distinction between a sequenced (K?-12) plan for teaching grammar and the immediate concerns in a single course. It is something that I have struggled with for years. I have a very reduced instructional sequence for my college composition courses, a sequence in which students learn to identify S/V/C patterns, prepositional phrases, and clauses, ideally in their own writing. Those students who do the assignments begin to understand such problems as the "it's/its" distinction, simply because "it's" is always an S/V pattern whereas "its" is not. They also can improve on S/V agreement errors because they learn to identify the subjects and verbs. Finally, comma-splices, run-ons, and fragments are all clause-boundary errors, so the approach enables students to understand (and sometimes actually) avoid these errors as well. Teaching this in the context of a writing course is difficult--there i! s too much else that needs to be covered, but ! I have found this approach to be both intellectually honest and more effective than simple exercises, for example, that are aimed as S/V agreement errors. Those exercises usually fail to help because the sentences in the exercises are much simpler than the sentences that students actually write. This semester I will also be teaching two sections of remedial writing, and in that course I plan on spending one-third of the class time on this type of exercises. (In the normal Freshman comp course, I usually spend less that 15 minutes a week, on average.) I'm currently in the process of redoing the materials for both courses, but they will be available on the web, for anyone who is interested. Each course packet is a separate MS Word document. Ed >>> [log in to unmask] 8/6/2006 2:35:20 PM >>> I found Craig Hancock's recent post about the discussion on this list very helpful in understanding what this list is "about," but it also left me with a question. Apparently, ATEG has agreed on "knowledge of grammar" is the prime goal and that the development of a recommended "scope and sequence" for grades K through 12 or perhaps through 16 is the way to accomplish this goal. I find the arguments for this position impressive, and, if I knew more about the approach, would endorse them enthusiastically. I do worry a little that the project may become encumbered with too much terminology, too many new terms in place of more familiar (if less accurate ones), and too much depth of analysis. But perhaps these concerns will prove to be unwarranted. However, as I have made clear in earlier posts, my concerns are different. I am not opposed to the emphasis on "knowledge of grammar" as a goal for long term instruction in the school system. In fact, I agree that its success will go a long way toward solving the problem I am concerned about: that the writing of many adults I teach at my community college is marred by serious and frequent errors in grammar, punctuation, and usage. A long-term project to emphasize "knowledge of grammar" in our schools will not help this generation of students, and it is they that I am focused on. In the few weeks I have to assist them, I need to focus on helping them reduce the error in their writing (and, of course, work on other large writing issues like focus, coherence, development, and organization--but on this list I want to focus on the grammar issues). To make progress on this task, I think my goal should be developing a minimalist grammar--emphasizing those terms and concepts that are helpful in mastering control over the conventions of formal writing. What I hope to find on the ATEG list is others who would like to discuss strategies for doing this. I would like to discuss questions like the following. What would constitute such a "writer's grammar"? How might such basic concepts as subject and verb, sentence and independent clause be explained more clearly than the way they are in traditional handbooks, which my students find incomprehensible. How might students be encouraged to transfer whatever we can teach them about eliminating error into their own writing? However, I wonder if I've come to right place when I read Craig's observation that, "The Scope and Sequence I would like to help work on, the one endorsed by the ATEG conference, takes 'knowledge of grammar' as a prime goal. Once that is set in motion, then anyone who believes that conscious knowledge is not important or that traditional grammar already solves all our needs should simply work on a different set of goals or get out of the way." And later when he adds, " If someone interrupts to say that this is not important to them, so it shouldn't be important to us, or that traditional grammar never included it, then the work can't get done." Please note that I have no objection to Craig and others working on their goals, but I am startled by the suggestion that my having a different goal means I am "getting in the way" and "interrupting." The ATEG web site states that "ATEG, an Assembly of the National Council of Teachers of English, is a national forum for discussing the teaching of grammar, and welcomes all views on the role of grammar in our schools." If, in fact, it has been decided that this list is a place to discuss the "knowledge of grammar" goal and others are not welcome, I would appreciate that being made explicit. Peter Adams Peter Adams To join or leave this LISTSERV list, please visit the list's web interface at: http://listserv.muohio.edu/archives/ateg.html and select "Join or leave the list" Visit ATEG's web site at http://ateg.org/ To join or leave this LISTSERV list, please visit the list's web interface at: http://listserv.muohio.edu/archives/ateg.html and select "Join or leave the list" Visit ATEG's web site at http://ateg.org/

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