To add to Ed's post ...

I teach sixth grade language arts.  Grammar is part of of the
curriculum.  My text [which Bill has agreed to rewrite .... :)  ]
covers writing in Part I (chapters 1-13), and grammar in Part II
(chapters 14-27).  I tried that chronology my first year and discovered
that many students couldn't write a sentence.  I changed direction and
started with grammar  -- nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs and then
prepositions (4 pages).  This is what the book says:  "Prepositions
help a reader or listener understand the relationship of one word to
another.  A preposition relates a noun or pronoun to another word in
the sentence."
Two of the four pages on prepositions talk about distinguishing between
prepositions and adverbs.

I knew I was in quicksand.  I dashed around and discovered Ed's site.
Now, mind you, students still have difficulty identifying verbs in
their own writing but I have far fewer instances where a student
identifies the verb as that "action word" contained within a
prepositional phrase.

I am still working on it and I will review Johanna's materials (she has
offered to help as well!).  But Ed's approach simple and understandable
for my students.  The approach works with real text -- from current
event articles to the essays of my students.

Marcia Alessi
Los Angeles
On May 9, 2005, at 11:09 AM, Edward Vavra wrote:

> Jan & Paul & Others,
>
>     I definitely believe that the teaching of grammar can be harmful.
> As it is usually taught, it consists of isolated, often
> incomprehensible definitions and "rules" for avoiding errors. Students
> hate it; teachers hate it * and thus it is harmful.
>
> Paul asked, "How do we teach function without teaching terminology?"
> We can't. We need terminology, but the terminology that we need is
> much more basic than what is taught in most grammar textbooks. We also
> need to make that terminology almost automatic for our students. In
> order to do that, we need to teach students how to recognize subjects,
> finite verbs, clauses (or whatever other constructions) in whatever
> the students read or write. That cannot be done in a year, and it will
> require a fundamental shift in the way we look at teaching grammar. At
> the first ATEG conference, speaker after speaker rose to explain how
> they taught the parts of speech * the speakers ranged, if I remember
> correctly, from middle school teachers to college instructors.
> Obviously, something was not (and still is not)  working.
>
>      Note again that this group cannot even agree that, for example,
> seventh graders should be able to identify the subjects and finite
> verbs in typical writing of seventh graders. Without some basic
> agreement, no teacher can even attempt to build on what students are
> expected to know when they enter a classroom.
>
> Ed
>
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>
>
Marcia Alessi
Language Arts & Social Studies
Sixth Grade
St. Paul the Apostle School
Los Angeles, California

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