This message was originally submitted by [log in to unmask] to the ATEG I am replying to part of Ed Vavra's message (as follows): > Burkhard, > Perhaps part of the problem here is that we are > thinking in terms of different audiences. Could you tell > us what you teach, and to whom? Those of us who > are teaching grammar and writing to American middle, > high school, and Freshman college students appear to > be looking for a simple (not simplistic) way of teaching > students how words function in sentences, i.e., how > words syntactically relate to each other. We hope (and > believe) that if students understand this, they will better > understand how the words in their own writing (and > reading) interrelate. Most of us are not interested in > linguistics, or even grammar per se. Ed, I realize that you know much more about the membership of ATEG than I do, so maybe your generalization above is a fair one. However, as a not-very-active ATEG member and avid reader of this forum (except when it degenerates into discussions of whether commas belong inside or outside of quotation marks), I would like to dissent from your statement that "most of us are not interested in linguistics, or even grammar per se." It certainly does not characterize me, nor does it seem to characterize others who have contributed some very worthwhile things to the discussions that go on here. As a linguist who is also the father of middle and high school students who are forced to study grammar, I am appalled at what is taught to my children in the name of "grammar" and even more appalled to think of the profits that so-called grammar textbook authors and publishers are raking in because high school students in NW Iowa are forced to spend so much time rote memorizing traditional grammar terms and other minutiae of written language usage. You seem to be interested in the "utility" of what is taught to students, especially with reference to their writing. I feel more concerned with (a) the "truth" of what is taught [does it fit coherently with the facts of our language?] and (b) the skills of critical thinking that may be developed (or stifled) by what is taught about languages and how they work. Ergo, for me linguistics must play an important role in informing the teaching of grammar at the secondary and tertiary levels. Are ATEG people who think this way about grammar instruction only a tiny minority? Mike Medley ********************************************************************** R. Michael Medley VPH 211 Ph: (712) 737-7047 Assistant Professor Northwestern College Department of English Orange City, IA 51041 **********************************************************************