I don’t know if this adds to or detracts from the current conversation, but Ronald’s post with the twenty sentences has me thinking.  I am coming to this conversation as a college “professor” who is trying to prepare future teachers for the world in which they will work.  In the end, I have a relatively firm grasp on “teaching literature” and “teaching writing,” but I am very uncomfortable with “teaching grammar” (and I recognize that the word “grammar” here no longer cuts it).  And so I am very interested in all that is happening on this list.

 

Right now, my thinking in this area is centered around two basic concepts: knowledge and disposition (and I would like to apologize here for my lack of field appropriate terminology).  We can debate the nature of the knowledge of grammar (and not having formal training beyond my undergraduate linguistics requirements, my knowledge cannot approach the knowledge of this list), but unless our students possess the appropriate disposition for learning “grammar,” the knowledge we provide goes in one ear and out the other (by the way, we like to assume that this problem rests alone with grammar instruction when current reality tells us that a similar problem exists with literature/reading instruction and writing instruction; reality also tells us that this problem exists within education in general crossing all disciplines).  Quite simply, we can teach very specific concepts to our students, but unless they care to learn and use that knowledge, the methods we employ are ineffective or unsuccessful.  And so I can use a sentence like (or any that Ronald posted):

 

Everyone walked to their car after the game

 

and I can point out the problem(s) with this sentence, and my students can understand what I have told them, but they will continue writing and speaking with the same error.  It seems that only with an appropriate “critical experience” will they begin to dispositionally understand the relevance of the concept and avoid committing the same error.

 

Which brings me to a quick personal story.  I was raised by a mother who, generally speaking, used the language correctly and appropriately (I understand the potential socio-political aspect of this, but that is another issue), and so I, generally speaking, used the language correctly and appropriately.  It wasn’t until my second year of teaching High School English that, in my memory, I had my first real “critical experience.”  In a faculty meeting I made a statement in defense of a certain policy (I don’t remember now the specific statement or the policy I was defending), and an English colleague immediately responded by correcting the mechanical structure of my sentence (he did not address the policy... would this be and ad grammarian fallacy?).  I was embarrassed.  From that moment I began to consider what I said and how I said it.  The point here is that it was only after I began to dispositionally care about how others would respond to my writing and speaking that I began to internalize the “descriptive” rules of our language.  Once I cared, then this carried over into my speaking and my writing.

 

And so, it seems that we need to begin developing “critical experiences” for our students in addition to philosophies, approaches, and methods for teaching grammar.  But, I would argue, we need to develop “critical experiences” that empower rather than disempower.  Although my experience in that faculty meeting proved monumental and, in the end, helpful, I chose not to speak further that day in the defense of the policy.  I was just embarrassed.

 

On another note, it is nice and interesting to proclaim platitudes like “devoting classroom time to the study of grammar does not influence student writing,” but I believe that in the appropriate environment where students dispostionally care about how they say or write something, they will learn whatever we are teaching.  I understand and believe to an extent the concept of teaching grammar within the context of student writing.  But if we are to believe that we can foster an appreciation for literature and composition, we should also believe that we can foster an appreciation for language and how it works. It seems that any breakdown in our philosophy of teaching grammar might also reveal a breakdown in our philosophies of teaching literature and writing.

 

Rob

 

___________________

   Robert Lockhart

 

 Assistant Professor, English Education

         Curriculum and Instruction

               A301D Ginger Hall

          Morehead State University

         Morehead, Kentucky  40351

              Office: 606.783.2834

                Fax: 606.783.5044

  http://people.moreheadstate.edu/fs/r.lockhart/

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