Thanks for the update, Craig! It seems ATEG still has its work cut out for
it in convincing NCTE to recognize the value of teaching grammar and other
features of language explicitly as an integral part of the language arts
curriculum. It's good to know that a scope and sequence plan can still be
hammered out by a group not related to NCTE (although I'm sure ATEG members
and the discussions here can still be of immense value to that endeavor).
When the day arrives that NCTE endorses grammar teaching, there will likely
be a scramble for as many articulated plans as possible!
John Alexander
Austin, Texas
On Sat, Dec 13, 2008 at 10:35 AM, Craig Hancock <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Richard,
> Scope and sequence is in a bit of hiatus. This might be a good time to
> talk about the reasons for that and the difficulties around doing that
> through ATEG.
> My own frustration dates back to two conferences ago, when I thought we
> would make great progress on scope and sequence at the conference. My plan,
> which I thought was agreed on by the conference committee, was to break into
> subgroups and have people make suggestions about what might be covered. We
> could have a sub-group making recommendations about Standard English,
> punctuation, and so on, focusing on the knowledge about language that wold
> be most helpful and useful. I was hoping people would then feel a vested
> interest in the project. There was resistance, though, from different
> sources. Some people questioned whether ATEG, as a sub-group of NCTE, should
> be taking a position on grammar at odds with our parent organization. That
> conflict of interest has been a constant issue in ATEG, and I don't fault
> anyone from bringing it up. One result was that we largely used our time to
> construct a position statement asking NCTE to endorse the systematic
> teaching of grammar. The position statement, which I thought was very
> thoughtful and nicely written, was simply tabled at the NCTE convention. In
> other words, ATEG tried to work through official channels as a sub-group of
> NCTE, ibut was stymied by those who feel they know more about this than we
> do and who, in effect, control our existence as an organization.
> The other problem came from those at the conference, including the
> leadership, who feel that scope and sequence already exists and that we have
> no need to construct one. My own tendency has been to lobby for new ways of
> looking at grammar, but ATEG has long been an organization made up of people
> with fairly conservative (not regressive, not by a long shot) views. This
> was hard on me because I felt I had a lot invested in the project, but would
> be asked to shut out from the conversation the new possibilities in grammar
> that excite me the most.
> But let me give a more friendly view of that. Many of us involved in the
> project have written books on the subject, and you can't really do that
> without engaging the issue in ways that you feel invested in. What happens
> if the group advocates a scope that doesn't fit those views? I sometimes
> feel I am shooting myself in the foot every time I move on in my thinking
> because I have a 2005 text that now constitutes an older position.
> This might be a way of saying that those of us who know the most tend to
> have an investment in particular approaches. For ATEG as a whole, those
> approaches have probably already been written.
> As many of you know, much of the conversation about scope and sequence was
> worked out by the New Public Grammar group. I have never wanted that group
> to be in conflict (to compete with) ATEG. So at that point, I didn't even
> feel comfortable airing these frustrations on the NPG list. I was, and still
> am, nervous about creating a rift in the public grammar community. I didn't
> want anyone to feel I was trying to pull people away from ATEG.
> The unfortunate result has been that Scope and sequence hasn't moved
> forward for some time. A few of us have been in discussion about starting it
> back up again as we restart talk on the NPG list.
> NPG has the benefit of being separate from NCTE. It can take a strong
> contrary perspective and not feel uncomfortable about that.
> It can also maintain friendly relationships with ATEG without the
> necessity of ATEG endorsing its views.
> I apologize if I have misrepresented anyone's views or anyone else's
> views about the history of the project. I don't think of it as anyone being
> at fault. These are very predictable difficulties given the nature of the
> project.
>
> Craig
>
>
> Richard betting wrote:
>
>> Janet, Craig, et al. continued
>> One of the reasons I tend to believe in the innateness of some
>> grammatical structures is that children can understand the kinds of
>> sentences that have been used in recent posts. For example, a first grader
>> will understand this exchange: "If you continue to behave badly, you will
>> not get a present" leads, later in the day, to "That you won't get a present
>> is very obvious." Another example results in the prepositional phrase as
>> subject. "He said that he would leave at nine" might lead to "For him to
>> leave at nine means that we'll have to finish our project quickly." I got
>> those kinds of sentences and explanations from my study of generative
>> grammar forty years ago. Transformations. The second called the T For To
>> transform.
>> A comment and a question. The naming of parts: are word groups phrases
>> or clauses, participial phrases or clauses and should we call them one- or
>> two-object verbs? Are these transitive or intransitive structures, finite or
>> non-finite verbs, and are these adjective, qualifying, complementary or
>> appositional clauses or phrases? Are they complex transitive, di- or
>> bi-transitive? Will R & K diagrams help explain them and will students be
>> able to distinguish form from function? Are participles and infinitives
>> parts of speech? Why or why not? How many parts of speech are there, anyway?
>> And finally, what is the relationship between the naming of parts and
>> improvement in student speaking and writing? Do teachers consciously and
>> consistently make those connections between theory and practice? Are
>> students being asked to write and speak and are they creating portfolios of
>> written work to demonstrate their competence? And are they participating in
>> the assessment process?
>>
>> I would bet that the majority of middle school/high school English
>> teachers would not be able to define and explain the terms that have been
>> discussed, to say nothing of doing so from the perspective of more than one
>> grammatical approach. That is not to criticize the teachers themselves so
>> much as to ask about the educational process shat enabled them to get where
>> they are without an adequate knowledge of the English language that they
>> spend so much time teaching. In order to have an ADEQUATE (minimal)
>> background in English, what courses should/must all language arts teachers
>> have? Could we agree on the required courses? Do current textbooks (for
>> teachers) meet the content requirement we might create? Is anyone still
>> working on scope and sequence?
>>
>> Is the current discussion helping create a consensus on these and other
>> issues that we should be helping decide? Unfortunately, perhaps, the end
>> result seems to be that each person will create his/her own curriculum. If
>> English teachers don't take the opportunity now, someone else will, as
>> NoChild evolves and insupportable standards (like the naming of grammar
>> parts) are created. So much to do, so little time.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On Dec 12, 2008, at 3:13 PM, Spruiell, William C wrote:
>>
>> Janet, Craig, et al.
>>>
>>> There are a number of traditional grammars that would call the 'me' in
>>> 'Joe baked a cake for me' an indirect object. In Latin, the pronoun
>>> would be in the dative case, and "indirect object" started out as a
>>> label that meant, basically, "dative object, as opposed to accusative
>>> object."
>>>
>>> There's a major stress point in the traditional system, though -- the
>>> noun that normally goes with a preposition is usually called "the object
>>> of the preposition," and it can't be *both* an indirect object and the
>>> object of the preposition (keep in mind that the traditional approach
>>> always asks, 'what word does this go with,' so you have to say either
>>> 'the verb' or 'the preposition' with one of these). Some earlier
>>> grammars dodged this by considering the prepositions themselves to be
>>> case-markers, but then ran into the fact that English has a LOT more
>>> prepositions than Latin has cases. One group of later grammars ruled out
>>> the version with the preposition as an indirect object. Another group
>>> treated it as an indirect object, but only in cases where the
>>> preposition-ed version could be paraphrased as the prepositionless
>>> version (so no indirect object in 'Joe finished off the lutfisk for
>>> me'). Some early generative approaches considered the prepositionless
>>> version as being made out of the preposition-ed one, so in a sense there
>>> were no ditransitive verbs (I said "early" here because I'm sure about
>>> those; I'm not sure about what the current way to deal with the
>>> construction is).
>>>
>>> Whatever you do with it, it's a bit of a mess. Since specific grammars,
>>> particularly older ones, usually adopt one approach but don't mention
>>> that there are others, I think it's important for teachers and students
>>> to know there *is* a history of disagreement over this. I end up
>>> imagining someone writing a state test and thinking there is, and has
>>> always been, exactly one approach here, and creating a major problem.
>>>
>>> The "infinitive with understood subject" (For NP to V") presents even
>>> more of a terminological muddle. From what I've seen, one approach is to
>>> just call the whole thing a specialized kind of infinitive construction,
>>> treating the For....to... sequence as a kind of discontinuous marker, a
>>> bit analogous to either...or; others give one label to the 'for' part
>>> and another to the 'to' part. I cheat, and call the part introduced by
>>> "for" 'subject-ish'.
>>>
>>> Bill Spruiell
>>> Dept. of English
>>> Central Michigan University
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> -----Original Message-----
>>> From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar
>>> [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Castilleja, Janet
>>> Sent: Friday, December 12, 2008 12:12 PM
>>> To: [log in to unmask]
>>> Subject: Re: Clause or Phrase
>>>
>>> Yeah - I meant 'me.' What I was really trying to get at is whether or
>>> not people ever call 'for me' in 'Joe baked a cake for me' an indirect
>>> object, since it seems to be doing the same thing as 'me' in 'Joe baked
>>> me
>>> a cake.' I had learned that prepositional phrases can't be major
>>> sentence elements like subjects and objects, but that seems to be
>>> substantially more complex.
>>>
>>> 'For me to criticize him would be foolish.' Here 'for me' seems to be
>>> the subject of the infinitive clause. I know that 'for' constructions
>>> introduce some non-finite structures, but can we still call them
>>> prepositions?
>>>
>>> I also wondered whether people use the term 'retained object
>>> complement.' I like it, but I think my students feel it goes way beyond
>>> what anyone should be required to know.
>>>
>>> My state, Washington has teacher tests. We use Praxis by ETS. Students
>>> are required to take a basic skills test, which we require students to
>>> take before entering our teacher ed program. Then, if they get an
>>> endorsement such as ESOL or bilingual education, they have to take a
>>> test for that. These are the tests that my students are preparing for,
>>> and the test really asks them questions about grammar.
>>>
>>> Examples:
>>> My sister and I always loved sledding down the hill
>>> behind our house.
>>>
>>> The underlined word in the sentence above is an
>>> example of
>>>
>>> (A) a conjunction
>>>
>>> (B) a participle
>>>
>>> (C) a gerund
>>>
>>> (D) an adverb
>>>
>>> We went to a restaurant, and dinner was cook very bad.
>>>
>>> The underlined words in the sentence are an example of an error in
>>>
>>> (A) question formation
>>>
>>> (B) relative clause formation
>>>
>>> (C) passive formation
>>>
>>> (D) command formation
>>>
>>> Now I'm careful to use words like 'gerund,' which I didn't used to use,
>>> because I know they see it on the test.
>>>
>>> Janet
>>>
>>> -----Original Message-----
>>> From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar
>>> [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Craig Hancock
>>> Sent: Thursday, December 11, 2008 4:53 PM
>>> To: [log in to unmask]
>>> Subject: Re: Clause or Phrase
>>>
>>> Janet,
>>> These are wonderful questions. Much of what I would say Bill covers,
>>> so
>>> I'll add a few sidenotes. I have struggled through the same questions
>>> and feel a little more settled in my thinking.
>>> I think it's so much more important to describe the structure than it
>>> is to put it in the "right" category. So looking closely at these
>>> non-finite structures and saying they usually are missing a subject
>>> (not always) and aren't grounded with finite verbs is probably the most
>>> important thing. My students seem OK with saying we'll call them
>>> clauses, but traditional grammar calls them phrases. I end up doing
>>> somewhat the same thing with "gerund" as a term. I don't like it, but
>>> it's out there, and it helps to at least point out what the word refers
>>> to for the people who use it.
>>> I start out with "the elements of the simple clause", so I cover
>>> postnominal modification with prepositional phrases first and say there
>>> are other word groups in that slot that we'll cover later. That seems
>>> to work for me. I sometimes postpone restrictive and non-restrictive
>>> modification until later as well. Appositional phrases also fit in that
>>> slot, but I don't bring them in right away.
>>> I think you mistakenly ask about "Joe" as indirect object in your
>>> cake
>>> sentence. My guess is you meant "me". I like the multi-functional
>>> analysis of functional gramamr for that one. From that view, the
>>> transitivity system helps us represent the world. The clause gives us
>>> processes and participants and circumstances andestablishes participant
>>> roles. We also have systems in place for construing that event in
>>> different ways. In passives, for example, the direct or indirect object
>>> gets shifted into the grammatical subject slot without changing their
>>> real world roles. ("The cake was baked by Joe. I was baked the cake by
>>> Joe." In both these cases, Joe is obviously still doing the baking.)
>>> This can also give us a way to put different information in the usual
>>> given slot and in the clause ending slot we usually use for new
>>> information. "Who was the cake for?" "The cake was baked for me."
>>> "What did Joe bake you?" "Joe baked me a cake." "Who baked the cake?
>>> "The cake was baked by Joe." Students seem to enjoy putting a clause
>>> through its various permutations and then reflecting on how that
>>> "construes" the process. We can also say something like "Joe baked all
>>> night", or "Joe baked with great care", not because we have stopped
>>> understanding that "baking" means you bake something and are probably
>>> doing that for some sort of beneficiary, but because those elements are
>>> not always in focus. Even categories like "transitive" and
>>> "intransitive" and "di-transitive" and "complex transitive" can be used
>>> to talk about the verb itself as well as about the structure of a
>>> particular clause. Is "Joe baked all night" intransitive? I think
>>> that's easier to understand if you realize the process hasn't changed,
>>> but certain aspects of it are simply not in focus for the statement.
>>> I have found that most state tests for students have no real
>>> knowledge
>>> content to them. Even the phrasing of the standards is something like
>>> "Can puncutate sentences," never anything like "can identify a
>>> participle phrase" or "Can differentiate compound sentences from
>>> compound predicates." Even the SAT simply asks students to pick a
>>> version that seems more effective or more correct. It never asks for
>>> terminology. Language, at least for students, is treated like a
>>> behavior.
>>> Are there teacher tests in your state?
>>>
>>> Craig
>>>
>>> How would you analyze this: Once upon a time, there was a prince named
>>>
>>>> Joe.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Do you analyze a prince named Joe as a noun phrase with a participle
>>>> phrase modifying the noun head, or as a participle clause? I've
>>>>
>>> always
>>>
>>>> called these non-finite constructions reduced clauses or participle
>>>> clauses, but I have run into a problem. In my grammar class for
>>>> pre-service teachers, I start with noun phrases. When I teach noun
>>>> modification, I want to teach students about post-modification, but
>>>>
>>> they
>>>
>>>> really don't know anything about finite and non-finite verbs yet, nor
>>>>
>>> do
>>>
>>>> they know much about clauses. So this semester, I decided I would
>>>>
>>> just
>>>
>>>> call them participle phrases which modify nouns. But then I was in
>>>> trouble when we got to clauses because I wanted to call then reduced
>>>>
>>> or
>>>
>>>> non-finite clauses. By that time, the students knew enough to say
>>>>
>>> "Hey
>>>
>>>> wait a minute! Didn't you just tell us those were phrases?" At least
>>>>
>>> I
>>>
>>>> know they were listening in October.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Also, do you call 'Joe' a retained object complement, or is there a
>>>> better way to label this?
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> How about this: Joe baked a cake for me. Can I just go ahead and
>>>>
>>> call
>>>
>>>> 'Joe' an indirect object? It means exactly the same this as Joe baked
>>>>
>>> me
>>>
>>>> a cake.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> This is an on-going problem for me, because, even though I try to
>>>>
>>> teach
>>>
>>>> them a pretty straight forward descriptive-structural-functional view
>>>>
>>> of
>>>
>>>> syntax (Quirk et al is my bible), with a little discussion of
>>>> prescriptivism thrown in so they'll know what to expect when they get
>>>> into the schools, I find that frequently there is more than one way to
>>>> analyze a given structure. This disturbs my students. They want to
>>>> know the 'right' way, and it better be the way that it is gong to show
>>>> up on the subject area test they have to take. Do you think there is
>>>> any consensus on the 'best' grammar approach to teach pre-service
>>>> teachers? This is not a trivial issue, since they have high-stakes
>>>> tests (for themselves and their students) principals and parents in
>>>> their futures.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Comments?
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Janet Castilleja
>>>>
>>>>
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