In a message dated 11/20/2007 1:00:02 P.M. Pacific Standard Time, [log in to unmask] writes:

Basically, everything I saw at NCTE this year points unquestionably to a rising interest in grammar.

I would agree with that. Unfortunately, some of the teachers I talked to are looking for help, not to help their students understand the way language works, but in an attempt to find the magic bullet that will raise test scores and save their jobs. I heard many horror stories about schools who aren't making their AYP numbers having gone "back to basics" in a big way - drill and kill worksheets both for language arts and math. They are being held responsible personally by their administration for their students' numbers, and they are desperate for something - anything - to help their kids pass those tests. Direct grammar instruction has that cachet for administrators - take all that messy, time consuming talk about language out of the room and use the time to fill out worksheets that drill "correct" language into their heads. Maybe then the scores will come up and the school will avoid being taken over.

I'm the assistant chair of the NCTE's middle level steering committee, and I personally know teachers who have quit rather than teach this way. One teacher told me of her school, where 16 special education students didn't pass the tests, and thus the whole school failed to make AYP. The anger and the despair in these teachers was disheartening in the extreme. In many ways it was a very sad convention. While there are signs in Washington the NCLB doesn't have the wholehearted support it once had, there wasn't enough momentum to pass even minimal changes. So it stays in effect as is.

I hope that the teachers I talked to are the exception, and lots of them are excited about returning to grammar because of what it adds to the conversation about language. That just wasn't my admittedly limited experience.