I don't think that most people are really talking about returning to the way
things used to be taught; they are saying that grammar/syntax does need to
be taught.  Some have referred to old misrepresented studies that show that
learning grammar does not make better writers; I suspect that a study of
composition  the way I was taught it would show that teaching composition
did not make better writers either.  Those of us who have discovered what
Martha calls rhetorical grammar have found a way to teach grammar that also
improves student writing.  I think that this approach can do for grammar
study what the writing process has done for composition. There will be
variations on this the way there are variations on the writing process.  To
make headway, we will need to organize summer Syntax/Grammar projects the
way the process people organized summer Writing Project classes.  Agreeing
on terminology would be a big step forward in this process.  Hopefully, the
ATEG groups can get this accomplished. (yes, I know that I used hopefully in
ways that will make some of you shudder!)

Edith Wollin
North Seattle Community College
> ----------
> From:         William J. McCleary[SMTP:[log in to unmask]]
> Reply To:     Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar
> Sent:         Wednesday, November 24, 1999 9:53 AM
> To:   [log in to unmask]
> Subject:      Re: Grammar in the Curriculum
>
> I'm afraid I must apologize to Ed. He asked me a while back to take
> another
> look at his system of pedagogical grammar, and I did so. But then I didn't
> get around to replying; now I've forgotten most of what I wanted to say.
> I
> do remember thinking that I'd like to try the system myself--although how
> I
> would do that I can't say; I don't have a captive audience of youngsters
> to
> work with. I also remember thinking that the terminology still (it seems
> to
> me) gets in the way. But then, I've begun to have a "thing" about
> terminology.
>
> I also feel somewhat like Ed about this organization. At one time I was
> strongly considering volunteering to edit the newsletter. I love to do
> newsletters and was at one time doing five academic newsletters at once.
> But I decided not to  volunteer to do Syntax in the Schools because (1) I
> don't feel compatible with the majority of the members of ATEG, who seem
> to
> wish for a return to the old days of teaching schoolbook grammar at every
> grade, and (2) I don't feel that anyone is doing any research that would
> answer the questions that face us and that could be published in SIS.
> There
> are some darn good reasons why the teaching of grammar has virtually died
> out in many schools, but we don't have many people addressing them.
>
> It could be, of course, that the work is being done but is published
> elsewhere; one does not get much credit toward tenure or promotion for
> publishing in a newsletter instead of a journal. It could also be that
> doing the necessary work calls for a person with a broad and deep
> background in linguistics, pedagogy, stylistics, sociolinguistics, etc.,
> and such birds are rare.
>
> To understand the dimensions of the problem, perhaps a little personal
> history would be in order.
>
> You may remember that the secondary English curriculum is usually
> visualized as a "tripod" of language, literature, and composition, but one
> problem with this metaphor has been that the legs of the real English
> curriculum behind the tripod have never been of equal length.
>
> When I began teaching English in the early sixties (teaching ninth grade),
> better than half of our curriculum was devoted to language. This consisted
> of syntax, mechanics/usage, vocabulary, and spelling. We used a spelling
> book with one lesson a week, the usual 20 words per week of vocabulary, an
> "English" textbook (the standard grammar/comp textbook), and a weekly (or
> monthly--I can't remember) publication from Scholastic that included much
> material about mechanics/usage. The material on syntax was entirely
> inadquate, so I wrote my own supplementary stuff.
>
> Literature came entirely from a hardback anthology such as still exists
> today. Schools did not yet order class sets of paperbacks. Literature was
> not strongly emphasized because most of us teachers came out of the
> historical/biographical tradition of literary study, and our secondary
> school anthologies were not compatible with that approach, except in the
> junior and senior years, which were devoted to American and English
> literary history. We did not know how to teach the New Critical/analytical
> approach that came into popularity later in the sixties.
>
> Although composition was included in the "English" textbook, it was hardly
> taught at all. By and large, teaching composition was equated with
> teaching
> correctness of writing anyway, which we imagined that we were already
> doing
> through the mechanics/usage exercises in the textbook and the Scholastic
> publication. No one had been taught how to teach composition; indeed, no
> one had been taught any composition theory at all. The textbook included
> the usual modes of discourse approach, as ubiquitous yet useless then as
> it
> is today. In what I discovered was unusual at our school, I did try to
> teach composition, using the theory I had learned in journalism, but since
> we made so little money in those days I had to hold a second job and
> didn't
> have time to grade papers. It's hard to teach composition if you can't
> grade papers.
>
> Today, as you already know, the situation is much different. Based on what
> I saw during observations of student teachers, the dominant leg of the
> tripod, even in junior high, is now literature. Not only do English
> teachers get a heavy dose of literature during the college English major,
> but they have been taught some techniques of reading literature that are
> worth teaching; they have access to class sets of paperback novels, plays,
> and collections of short stories; and they use approaches such as thematic
> units and reader-response theory that can make literature more interesting
> to students. In other words, the literature curriculum is much richer than
> it was when I began teaching, though I did adopt the thematic approach in
> the mid-sixties.
>
> Composition has continued to be a step-child, with continuation of the
> modes of discourse and a small addition of writing about literature.
> However, this has radically changed in the last couple of years with the
> coming of the standards movement. Writing is a major part of the
> standards-based tests, and many schools are being forced to give their
> teachers substantial, realistic in-service training in teaching
> composition. And teachers are rewriting their curriculums to include more
> composition.
>
> The teaching of language has suffered during these changes--and some would
> say that it was high time. I don't know when I last saw a spelling book. A
> few schools have adopted vocabulary textbooks, but most teachers get their
> vocabulary words from the literature they are studying. There is still
> some
> teaching of mechanics/usage, but I have seldom seen much being taught
> about
> syntax. (Ironically, I have seen more of this kind of grammar taught in
> elementary school. In some schools sixth grade is included in the junior
> high, so that's how I have seen it.)
>
> Some schools still have those "English" textbooks of grammar/composition,
> but I saw more of them in storage than in students' hands.
>
> In theory, there is plenty of room for the study of language and
> composition within literature. The thematic unit is often referred to as
> the INTEGRATED thematic unit, which means that language and composition
> would be integrated with literary study. But too often this integration is
> left for the teacher to do, for there are few published units that do a
> good job of integration. Teachers try to integrate vocabulary by pulling
> words from the literature, but they end up replicating the
> 20-words-per-week of unrelated vocabulary that so justly died out in the
> past. Likewise, style in literature could be integrated with a study of
> syntax, but again, teachers would have to do that themselves. I don't
> think
> most do. When I tried it with college students, there was panic in the
> streets.
>
> This post has gone on too long, so I'll quit now. But we should see that
> anything that ATEG wants to do about returning the serious study of syntax
> to the schools must be done in the context of what is going on in schools
> today. There is no possibility of returning to the fifties, and that's
> probably just as well. ATEG needs to adopt a realistic program and locate
> (or develop) professionals who are doing work that could help in
> developing
> the needed new approaches. Otherwise, nothing much is going to happen.
>
> Bill
>
> William J. McCleary
> 3247 Bronson Hill Road
> Livonia, NY 14487
> 716-346-6859
>