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"Then how should I begin
"To spit out all the butt-ends of my days and ways?
    "And how should I presume?"
 
     Eliot's "Prufrock" has always seemed to me to be
about the frustrations of attempting to communicate.
The world grows complex, and I grow old. Several
people questioned my questioning Burkhardt about
what students he teaches. The assumption behind my
question is that there is (should be?) a common
minimal core of grammatical concepts, labeled with
agreed-upon names, which could become part of a
description of what grammar should be taught in our
schools. And, although I appreciate the participation of
linguists in the group, my sense is that they will want
more terms -- and more complicated concepts -- than
the K-12 curriculum will be able to handle.
     As an example of the problem, I remember George
Oliver refering to infinitives as "clauses." While this
may be totally acceptable in some linguistic theories, it
would confuse my students to no end.
     I am also wondering if we can work our way toward
a description of what grammar should be taught in the
K-12 curriculum, at what level, how, etc. My own ideas
are sketched out on my website at
www.sunlink.net/rpp, and sooner or later I will be
attempting to add more detail to that description. What
I am asking for is competition. Certainly those people
teaching grammar to future teachers ought to be able
to address the question of what grammar belongs in
the K-12 curriculum, at what level, etc.
     If we are all going to focus exclusively on what we
want to teach in our own courses, and if we cannot
agree on some common terms and concepts, we
cannot expect anyone outside of ATEG, including
State Departments of Education, etc., to look to us for
guidance about grammar's place in the curriculum.
     Am I right in the preceding paragraph, or am I just
crazy?
Ed V.