From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of john whicker
Sent: Friday, October 19, 2007 12:55 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Patrick Hartwell's Article

Janet,

Thank you for the links; I found them very interesting if somewhat disheartening.

The most intriguing aspect of the grammar study is that two out of the three studies they found to be worth mentioning were 30 + years old (The (in)famous Elley study and the less well known Bateman and Zidonis study). The third study (Fogel and Ehri, which received the highest quality rating) was from 2000 gives some indication that teaching grammar may help improve writing (something strangely dismissed and downplayed by the researchers).

The disheartening aspect of the study is that, ignoring the study they themselves rate higher in quality than either of the others as well as the minimal positive results found in the Bateman study as inconsequential, they choose to conclude that "there is no high quality evidence to counter the prevailing belief that the teaching of the principles underlying and informing word order or ‘syntax’ has virtually no influence on the writing quality or accuracy of 5 to 16 year-olds." It seems to me, based on the fact that they could find only three studies worth mentioning and two of those showed some positive if not conclusive indications that grammar instruction might improve writing, that the researchers should have concluded that there is no conclusive "high quality evidence" to SUPPORT the prevailing belief that the teaching of grammar has no influence on the writing quality either. The real implications of this research seems to be that there is an incredible dearth of quality evidence on the question. Rather than acknowledging this, the researchers choose to do as Elley and Braddock and so many others have done before and make the ridiculous assumption that a lack of evidence to support teaching grammar proves that it is ineffective. If such conclusions are taken as valid, then the opposite assumption can also be made: the lack of high quality evidence to support the prevailing belief of the anti-grammar crowd is evidence that teaching grammar does improve writing. This assumption might even be the more rational considering how many researchers have tried and failed to put the final nail into grammar's coffin. The sheer volume of bad studies, and the very questionable nature of even those considered to have "high to medium" or "medium to high" quality should hint at some positive aspect of the teaching of grammar that resists all efforts to banish it completely.

These of course are far from good reasons to teach grammar, but they follow the same logic as the continued argument that if there is no high quality evidence showing improvement then no improvement occurs; having no conclusive either way is not evidence against. The real implications of this research is that quality research needs to be conducted less we continue to simply rehash old and questionable studies.

The findings on sentence combining also simply come to the same conclusions made thirty years ago, and will likely be treated in the same way.

At the risk of being cliché, "the more things change the more they stay the same".

John Whicker

Utah Valley State College