I think that psychologists wouldn’t
describe people as either “left-brained” or “right-brained,”
since almost everyone has two functioning hemispheres. But your point is sound that
some people (like you and me) really take to drawing sentence diagrams, and
some others don’t. I teach a course to English majors that is heavy on
tree-diagrams. Some are whizzes at it. Others not so much. Fortunately, I’ve
found that almost everyone without a learning disability can pick up on them
with practice, and they can be a great way for students to visualize the
structure of sentences.
You are absolutely right, however, in
saying that all teachers must gear their instruction to the actual students in
front of them, must make adjustments for the abilities of individuals, and must
NOT expect all students to be like us.
Dick Veit
________________________________
Richard Veit
Department of English
From:
Sent: Monday, November 20, 2006
1:21 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Right vs. Left Brain in
Teaching Grammar
I'm a new member (so new that my check
hasn't even come back). I learned about ATEG when I read The War Against Grammar by David Mulroy.
As an adjunct teaching mostly
developmental English and first-year writing courses at college in the
I have a hypothesis, and I'm wondering if
anyone has read or heard anything related to it. (You may have discussed
this before.)
Here's my idea: From what I've
observed, most K-12 language arts teachers and English faculty seem to be right
brained but the traditional method of teaching grammar is left brained. I
happen to be left brained (I was a math major until I was a senior), and I
enjoy teaching grammar and diagramming sentences. I think the
"traditional" step-by-step approach should work well with
left-brained students, but right-brained teachers find it boring and don't want
to learn or teach grammar that way. Maybe we need two methods of teaching
grammar--or more--to suit different learning styles.
Elizabeth Clark