Let me thank Judy for her answer to my question about what "high
modality" and "low modality" might mean.  Given the following, I assume
the "high" refers to a high degree of truthfulness, believability,
probability and low to a low degree...

Judy Diamondstone wrote:
 > Bob, I'm sure you are familiar with modal auxiliaries.  . . .
> Technically, these words express the "mood" of a verb. In plain English,
> they express the speaker's attitude toward what is being said (how truthful
> is it? how believable? how likely is it to be so?) and the speaker's
> understanding of his or her relationship to whoever is being addressed (is
> the speaker in a position to demand? suggest? allow?)  . . .

I understand why one might want to talk to 11-12 year olds about being
respectful to the elderly.

> If it isn't obvious yet what this has to do with kids interviewing elders,
> I'll say what I saw in the video: the kids were paying attention to the
> language they used that showed more or less respect for others and more or
> less confidence in the questions they asked.

This topic is about metalanguage.  I wonder why any teacher of 6th
graders needs to introduce the word "modality" if she is interested in
teaching about politeness.  I don't understand why the word "politeness"
is not sufficient for such discussions.  If the issue is about
probability or belief, again I do not understand why those words are not
sufficient.

I do not want to be misunderstand.  Recognizing how a speaker/writer
signals modality is important.  If the hearer/writer misses a crucial
signal, an entire text can become incoherent.  Let me give an example.

A week ago, Ann Coulter wrote a particularly stupid column about the
incidents in Central Park in which women were attacked by groups of men,
soaked by water, had cloths ripped off, groped and perhaps worse.   You
can find it here:
http://www.jewishworldreview.com/cols/coulter061900.asp

Half way through the column she notes that the NY Times has charged that
the police were negligent.  Coulter writes:

        It's a sensory overload to have The New
        York Times suggesting the police aren't being
        aggressive enough. Consequently, I've been lost in
        a reverie imagining what the Times' news story
        would be if the police had reacted with somewhat
        greater zeal.

        I'm pretty sure it would go like this:

If the reader misses the meaning of the last sentence with WOULD, the
rest of the column is incoherent.  Coulter imagines that one of the men
assaulting the women had been shot by the police and writes how that
would have been reported in the Times.  I had people read that column
and not understand Coulter's imaginary news story.

At the college level, I have found that one of the characteristics of
students who are having difficulty with the readings is an inability to
recognize the way the writer signals her beliefs about a particular
claim.  For such students, entire texts make no sense because the writer
says X in one place and just the opposite of X in another.

I have no idea how these these signals are taught to native speakers.
There are many things I like about Whole Language, but when some of its
proponents (I don't want to suggest that all supporters of Whole
Language make this claim) say that language should never be broken down
into parts because it is no longer language suggest that these kinds of
signals should never be taught.

This issue shows knowledge about grammar can inform teachers about
difficulties their students are having and suggest points of teaching.

Bob Yates