At least we’re talking about teachers who know what a
passive is. I have found repeatedly that teachers who mark something in a
composition as passive don’t know what a passive is themselves and have
incorrectly marked the offending sentence. Often the presence of a “be”
verb is enough for a teacher to call the sentence passive. But I’ve
seen pairs like the following treated as active and passive respectively:
Jack gave Marie a ring.
Marie received a ring from Jack.
In the second sentence, Marie is Patient, not Agent, and passive
subjects are also typically patients, so any sentence with a Patient as subject
is called passive and marked wrong, as well as wrongly.
Herb
From: Assembly for the
Teaching of English Grammar [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Lee
Davis
Sent: 2009-02-05 19:59
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Recognition of passives
I’ve been following this thread with
great interest. Today, I received an essay from a basic writing student (first
year) with these sentences:
Shooting games were not allowed to be played
by me until I became a teenager…I do not plan to play video games half as
long as I did last semester, so I will improve my grades. Priorities have been
shuffled around, and video games have been moved down to the bottom of the
list.
My sense is that the student wanted to
prioritize “shooting games” and “priorities” and
“video games,” so he began sentences with these noun phrases.
Having done so, he limited his options and stumbled into passive constructions.
How would folks respond to this writer,
specifically to these sentences? We are in the third week of the
semester. The student is unable to identify nouns and verbs.
Lee Davis
-----Original Message-----
From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar
on behalf of Edgar Schuster
Sent: Thu 2/5/2009 2:19 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Recognition of passives
Karl and other interested parties,
Unfortunately, I no longer
have the questions, but I'm fairly certain
that each one simply asked the students
"Which one of the following
sentences is active/passive" and the
answers contained three of one
type, one of the other. It was quite
straightforward (or intended to
be). No tricks were involved. Here
are the specific Sept and June
percentages of correct answers:
Sept June
37 46
53 57
75 72
43 41
42 40
Clearly, the third
question must have somehow been easier than the
others, but I have no idea why. But all of
them except the first show
virtually no change from September to
June. That was unsettling.
The curriculum was designed
by the English teachers themselves, and
they had determined that recognizing the
difference between actives
and passives should be mastered by the end of
tenth grade. As to how
the teachers introduced the passive-active
distinction, I am not
certain but a good guess would be that they had
the students read the
textbook (most used Warriners) and gave them
exercises. (BTW, Craig,
test your students sometime; you might be
surprised by the result. I
know I was when I tested my Penn State juniors
and seniors.)
In this district, for what
it's worth, virtually all students were
white; the largest minority was
Vietnamese. However, the families
were basically middle middle class---neither
poor nor wealthy.
If there were consensus about
the importance of knowing the passive/
active distinction and if we were to take it
seriously, it's clear
than Ed Vavra is on the right track: we'd
better start a lot earlier
than tenth grade.
Ed S
On Feb 5, 2009, at 11:13 AM, Karl Hagen
wrote:
> Ed,
>
> That's an interesting experiment.
>
> Would you be able to share with us more details
about the items you
> used to
> test the students' understanding, such as
their wording, and how the
> teachers
> actually attempted to introduce the passive
during the year? (I
> would also be
> interested in the summary statistics, but
that's probably too far
> off the
> purposes of the list.)
>
> Regards,
>
> Karl
>
> Edgar Schuster wrote:
>> A couple of decades ago in September, I
tested an entire tenth grade
>> class on their ability to recognize
passives---nearly 500 students in
>> all, at a reasonably good suburban
Philadelphia high school. I used
>> five multiple choice questions with
four possible answers for
>> each. (I
>> believe that means that a chance score
would have been 25
>> percent.) In
>> September, the result was 50.0 percent
correct. Recognition of the
>> passive was supposed to be a
"Mastery" objective for tenth grade
>> English. I tested the same
students at the end of the year in June.
>> The result was 51.2 percent
correct. The "gain" was not
>> statistically
>> significant.
>> At a later time, teaching junior and
senior college business majors
>> at
>> Penn State, it was clear to me that
they could not recognize
>> passives.
>> I conclude by quoting Ed Vavra, When
and how (and we might add, "by
>> whom?") can passives be
effectively taught?
>>
>> Ed Schuster
>>
>> On Feb 4, 2009, at 5:55 PM, Edward
Vavra wrote:
>>
>>> Craig,
>>> First, the passives. Rarely, I
think, do we teach students to USE
>>> constructions. They do so
naturally. I'm amused to see your question
>>> followed by Scott's, to which I'll
try to reply separately. Remember
>>> that I'm working in what I believe
to be the current reality--most
>>> students are unable to identify
finite verbs. If they cannot
>>> recognize
>>> them in the first place, what good
does it do to "teach" passive
>>> voice. KISS introduces passives, as
a concept to be learned, in
>>> fifth
>>> grade, primarily with the objective
that students learn to recognize
>>> passive voice. Why? Because some
teachers will tell students never
>>> to
>>> use passives (silly, but that is
currently taught), and some
>>> instructors will tell students to
use passive voice. Unless students
>>> can recognize passives when they
see them, either "direction" is
>>> meaningless. It's my hope to
include exploratory exercises on
>>> passives
>>> (uses and abuses) in the upper
grades. Most of the
>>> "Practice/Application"
sections in the upper KISS grades have slots
>>> for an exercise on passives. See:
>>> http://home.pct.edu/~evavra/kiss/wb/LPlans/G10_WB1.htm#Practice_1
>>> Thus we agree, passives are
"important to discourse decisions."
>>> Where
>>> we may disagree is when and how
they can effectively be taught.
>>>
>>> I don't understand how you can
think that natural language
>>> development
>>> can't occur without instruction.
Isn't it obvious that the sentences
>>> of older students are more
complicated, especially in terms of
>>> embeddings, than the sentences of
younger students? Thus, for me,
>>> the
>>> question is the purpose of
instruction. I'd say that it is to help
>>> students better understand how
language works. In other words, the
>>> ability to analyze sentences
enables students to discuss (and thus
>>> understand) how passives, for
example, work. Or how deep embedding
>>> of
>>> clauses may cause problems for
readers. True, some people argue
>>> against formal instruction in
language, believing that it "just
>>> happens." But just because it
happens does not mean that it happens
>>> effectively, and just because they
are wrong does not mean that we
>>> have to be.
>>>
>>> Appositives -- as always, I argue
that unless students are taught to
>>> recognize the things in the first
place, instruction will not be
>>> very
>>> effective. Thus in KISS recognition
(identification) always comes
>>> first. But KISS also includes a
variety of sentence manipulation
>>> exercises and combining exercises
in which students are asked to
>>> combine clauses by using an
appositive, etc.
>>>
>>> My response to your last, and most
important question, is the entire
>>> KISS site. It is more or less laid
out at:
>>> http://home.pct.edu/~evavra/kiss/wb/LPlans/Overview_Levels.htm
>>>
>>> Ed
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> -----Original Message-----
>>> From: Assembly for the Teaching of
English Grammar
>>> [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On
Behalf Of Craig Hancock
>>> Sent: Tuesday, February 03, 2009
5:12 PM
>>> To: [log in to unmask]
>>> Subject: Re: Developmental phases
of grammar knowledge
>>>
>>> Ed,
>>> I would disagree with you on
passives, though I'm confused about
>>> why
>>> you would say you introduce it in
fifth grade but don't feel
>>> students
>>> need to learn it. Are you making a
distinction between the KISS
>>> program
>>> and your college teaching? In an
ideal world, wouldn't passive verbs
>>> (and their function) be a natural
part of the curriculum? They
>>> seem to
>>> me important to discourse
decisions. And students need to deal
>>> with the
>>> computer grammar checks, which
routinely underline them as wrong. I
>>> find them important to my own
understanding.
>>> I'm also troubled by the
routine assumption that language
>>> development
>>> occurs "without
instruction." Certainly, we are capable of
>>> learning all
>>> kinds of things from observing
what's going on around us, languaqe
>>> included, but this seems to me to
routinely downplay the possible
>>> kinds
>>> of interactions that would help
mentor the process. The argument
>>> against making language a major
part of the curriculum depends on a
>>> belief (I think mistaken) that it
just happens.
>>> When you say appositives
should be taught, do you mean recognition?
>>> Use? I like to make the point that
entities can be named over and
>>> over
>>> again, and that seems to help, at
least at the college level. George
>>> Will is more than just a well-known
columnist, so appositives
>>> (renaming) can happen forever. He's
also a passionate baseball fan,
>>> though that may not be relevant to
the context. And he's not an
>>> example
>>> I would use for my students. Maybe
Oprah? Perhaps it's the
>>> "cognitive"
>>> and functional recognitions that
matter the most. At least at the
>>> college level, students seem to get
it quickly.
>>> What knowledge about language
helps in discussions about putting
>>> language to work? Can we build that
knowledge about language as we
>>> mentor students into different
language worlds, including the
>>> world of
>>> school? I think those would be my
central questions.
>>>
>>> Craig
>>>
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