This message  was originally  submitted by Martha Kolln ([log in to unmask]) to
the ATEG  list at
MIAMIU.ACS.MUOHIO.EDU responding to a message submitted by  Bill Murdick
([log in to unmask])
 
>As an ATEG member, I wish to put it on record that I oppose any
>"program of instruction" on sentences in the schools because I
>believe that such programs take too much time away from the reading,
>writing, and discussion of texts. Like Frank Smith, I believe that
>students learn sophisticated sentence writing and sentence grammar
>mainly from reading, and somewhat from writing; they learn almost nothing
>from lectures, regardless of how good the lectures are.
>
>I am not against mini-lessions nor am I against individual instruction
>on problems or opportunities on the sentence level, but programs of
>instruction tend to take over the whole course.
>
>I make this statement just to establish the multiplicity of views
>within this organization.
>
>        --Bill Murdick
 
 
Dear Bill and fellow readers:
 
I would like to take issue with the concept of the "teachable
moment"--those opportunities that present themselves and allow the teacher
to bring in a bit of grammar, a mini-lesson,  when the errors of the day
call for it.
 
It seems to me that English is the only subject in the curriculum in which
an organized explanation and terminology are disdained.  In every other
subject--from biology to industrial arts--we teach our students
terminology:  the names of our bones,the names of tools, the names of
sociological and psychological concepts.  Why?  So we can talk about them.
And why must we treat the study of grammar as strictly error-avoidance or
error-correction--the kinds of lessons that come up only now and then as
errors dictate?
 
When do we tell students about appositives, for example?  When do we
explain how appositives can help them avoid using "be" as the main verb?
When do we explain how to get modifiers in the noun phrase?  When do we
explain the idea of participial phrases in opening and closing positions,
depending on the focus?  When do we explain about known and new
information, about the end-focus position in sentences? About putting
adverbial information at the opening position when it serves as a cohesive
device?  And the forms that adverbial information can take?
 
And then there's the whole business about punctuation.  How do we explain
the idea of coordination and the use of commas?  Isn't that a grammar
lesson?
 
And when do we tell students that nouns are words that can be made plural
and possessive and be signaled by "the"?  And adjectives and adverbs are
very often words that can be qualified by "very."  When do we let students
in  on  the secret that verbs are words that can have an -ing and an -s
ending?  (Several people came up to me at Detroit and said, "I never knew
that.")
 
I am not advocating that all of this should be taught in one semester or in
one year--and thus take over the writing class.  I am, however, suggesting
that if we don't let our students in on the description of their language
(as we let them in on those other subjects) we are shortchanging them.
 
So let me emphasize again:  There's more to grammar than error-avoidance
and error-correction.  Grammar knowledge should be thought of as the
writer's tool-kit.  Our job as teachers is to help our students use the
tools.
 
In "The Ethics of Rhetoric" Richard Weaver compares using a  language to
riding a horse:  "Much of one's success depends upon an understanding of
what it can and will do."
 
Martha Kolln