I'm sorry to receive your letters . It must a mistake making between us, if
I had a pop e-mail address. Sorry for my poor english expression.
----- Original Message -----
From: Johanna Rubba <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Monday, May 29, 2000 6:12 AM
Subject: horror stories ...
> I'm sure it's true that many students misremember what they were taught,
> but I'm also sure it's true that there are a lot of writing teachers out
> there that give bad advice, or at least exaggerations of good advice. A
> comp teacher at my school whom I respect very much recently showed me a
> handout he had created based on someone's hatred of sentences with the
> verb 'to be'. This handout said, I quote nearly exactly, 'every time you
> use the verb 'to be', you lie'. There is actually some kind of writing
> ideology out there that would like to rid the language of the verb.
> Where does this stuff come from?
>
> Manual writers and teachers use these prohibitions in part, I think, to
> make their lessons stick (humans seem to respect -- and recall? --
> absolute rules a lot more than 'use minimally' or 'use with care'). But
> absurdities such as the above shouldn't be happening. Until a
> scientifically-sound approach to teaching about language structure is
> incorporated in schools, however, they will continue to happen.
>
> There is also a wide disparity in how much college writing programs
> 'believe in' grammar instruction. Those that don't, or that discourage
> it, won't be holding their teachers to high standards in this area.
> Several of my worst students (as regards their use of formal English in
> writing) have wound up being tutors in our college's writing lab. Maybe
> these students only performed badly in _my_ courses ... I can only hope.
>
> I'm also wondering if teachers who don't know grammar terms and concepts
> are providing bad models. I've seen and heard students on numerous
> occasions use grammatical terminology in a seeming random way, as if one
> could make the terms mean whatever one wants. 'Passive tense', 'tense in
> the noun' have appeared in our department on answers to MA exam
> questions about linguistics. Do students toss around terminology from
> other disciplines with equal license? (probably)
>
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> Johanna Rubba Assistant Professor, Linguistics
> English Department, California Polytechnic State University
> One Grand Avenue . San Luis Obispo, CA 93407
> Tel. (805)-756-2184 . Fax: (805)-756-6374 . Dept. Phone. 756-259
> . E-mail: [log in to unmask] . Home page: http://www.calpoly.edu/~jrubba
> **
> "Understanding is a lot like sex; it's got a practical purpose,
> but that's not why people do it normally" - Frank Oppenheimer
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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