Scott, I am a secondary teacher who went through a program that didn't teach any formal grammar (UI, Iowa City, Iowa). However, when it came time to job search, I found that my ticket in was my assertion that I probably could teach a grammar class if I had to. Guess what: I had to.
During my first semester, I was assigned three huge sections of advanced grammar to juniors who knew almost no grammar, even though I hadn't received any instruction since middle school myself. I was thirty at the time, so middle school was way back in my history and memory. I survived, barely, by cramming before every lesson from the Warriner's textbook the school used for the course (I still have the same book, copyright somewhere in the `90's)and the "Idiot's Guide" that had been required but not used in one of my education courses. After seven years I find that I actually know what I'm doing, I can explain things without cramming, and I'm the grammar resource for many of my colleagues.
However, every year I find that teaching grammar in a vacuum, without much grammar instruction going on after middle school in our district, isn't really helping my students enough. It's giving them a vocabulary and a basic understanding, but it doesn't seem to stick with them or carry over much into their own writing. Every year, I've changed the way I do the course, sometimes drastically. For three years, I attempted to have them write their own "grammar guide" so that, as authors and editors of a work they could take along to college, they may actually gain a deeper understanding. I found that didn't work to my satisfaction either, so I have gone to a portfolio of writing in combination with a final exam. I recently joined ATEG for some fresh ideas.
I agree that postsecondary institutions ought to teach pre-service teachers formal grammar for the very real day when they may be asked to teach it to their students. Those same institutions should spend time helping teachers figure out the best way to teach that grammar to students. I struggle constantly to decide what my students really need to know to write well. Ideally, I think students ought to learn grammar in concert with writing once they have studied the basics enough to understand the vocabulary. We shouldn't give them doses of grammar like castor oil, but rather encourage their understanding of the way grammatical structures are useful and interesting tools for our writing (I do like Noden's approach in his Image Grammar). Of course, I say this, but I am as guilty as anyone of ignoring or giving little attention to grammar when I'm teaching a literature class.
My department's curriculum needs to be revised so that more grammar instruction goes on throughout secondary schools in the most constructive way possible. I've found several references to helpful materials by reading ATEG postings, and I hope to continue getting these good ideas. Thanks to you all for sharing your knowledge and your questions.
Tawnua Fell
Mount Vernon High School
-----Original Message-----
From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Scott
Sent: Saturday, September 08, 2007 2:15 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: ATEG Digest - 6 Sep 2007 to 7 Sep 2007 (#2007-103)
I have encountered secondary school English teachers at conferences who
considered grammar as a worthless hold-over from the days of grammar school.
I was arguing the point and describing my personal experience as a freshman
college student in Freshman English in a writing-based curriculum that
stressed recognition and avoidance of grammatical errors (1st quarter),
usage errors (2nd quarter), and rhetoric/description/argument (3rd quarter).
A careful listener in the group, who had been taking notes while I was then
identified himself as an assistant professor who had been desperately
seeking such a curriculum for his university freshman program. Upon
learning what school I had attended, his face sank and he responded, "That's
where I teach now." Apparently the standards at the school had dropped in
the decade since I attended in the'50's.
If teachers do not learn grammar in school, how can we expect them to teach
grammar. Florida required a course in advanced grammar for its English
teachers. I just reviewed the synopsis of a History of English course that
quickly ran through the history of English and its grammar so that the
students could spend the second half of the course on the equality of their
dialects and on the English spoken in the rest of the world. A note to the
course assured students that the course met the FL requirement for advanced
grammar. Imagine the fun that these students will have if their school is
so backward and normative as to require them to teach grammar.
Scott Catledge (I never met a sentence that I could not diagram).
Date: Fri, 7 Sep 2007 19:03:44 EDT
From: Bev Sims <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: Silly, rewarding grammar period
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Gretchen,
How delightful to read your e-mail. You, obviously, have made learning
parts of speech fun. That's terrific! I think you have a book in you
here--many need to learn from what you are doing. I have found that my
students almost crave learning about parts of speech and other
"grammar-type" things. I'm wondering if it is partly due to teachers before
steering away from such teaching, and the kids know they are missing out of
something. I don't know, but I DO know I like your enthusiasm and theirs.
Keep up the good work. Teddy
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