Wow!  You and I do see some things from a nearly opposite perspective, Ed.  You
seem to subscribe to a behaviorist school of learning, judging by your comments on
teaching grammar.  I, on the other hand, subscribe to a constructivist view, with
learners needing varying amounts of direct instruction in order to construct
concepts (like the concept of "sentence") for themselves.  This difference, I
think, at least partly explains why you don't see child language acquisition
research as relevant, while Johanna and I do.  I'm confident we could demonstrate
that children in schools where grammar isn't taught at all continue to use
increasingly sophisticated syntactic structures, if they read a lot, and if they
read varied material (not just all the books in the Hardy Boys series, for
instance). In fact, I have some informal evidence on that, but not enough to write
up as qualitative research.

This fall, I think I'll do a teacher-researcher kind of project.  The first night
of the semester, I'll have students in my Grammar for Teachers class write a short
story in response to a chosen picture from a picturebook, The Mysteries of Harris
Burdick (the book has one intriguing picture per page, plus a possible story
starter).  Then, at the end of the semester, I'll have the class write in response
to another picture from the book, after having worked with Harry Noden's Image
Grammar for several weeks.  Could be interesting, even though it would be an
extremely limited "study."

Connie Weaver
Western Michigan University



Ed Vavra wrote:

> Lots of interesting questions/comments to respond to.
>
> First, I disagree strenuously with Connie's comment: "But I think the most
> important thing is for school systems to assess the "grammar" needs of their own
> students, based upon writing samples, and plan teaching experiences based on
> that assessment." How does one define "Grammar needs"? Is it the errors students
> make? Is it a lack of sophistication in their writing? How is one going to
> define this? From my perspective, what Connie is asking for leads to a
> "band-aide" approach to teaching grammar. It also leaves the decisions about
> what is an error and what is good style in the hands of the teachers. What I am
> arguing for, on the other hand, is an approach that would enable students to
> understand and discuss ANY sentence in English. Once they have this ability,
> students will understand what is and what is not an error (and what kind of
> error it may be). They could also understand all of the most important aspects
> of style -- clause length, placement, variety, verbals, parallel constructions,
> etc. But if we are going to give students this, the easiest way to do so is
> systematically. Unlike Jeff, I propose starting in third grade, not first, but
> as I suggest in the description of the KISS curriculum, if we begin in third, it
> will not take much class time each year, and it can be integrated with what
> students read and write.
>
>      Next, I agree with Bob Yates -- I have serious questions about grammars
> that are built on five, seven, ten, or twenty "basic patterns." First of all, I
> find the sheer number of options confusing. (And I think that English teachers
> do too.) How can there be such a variety in the number of "basic patterns"?
> Second, I have found every such book that I have looked at very limiting. They
> focus on teaching the patterns, and not on analyzing real texts. (Please note
> that I am not saying that the people who propose them shouldn't do so. Rather,
> I'm saying that every such text that I have seen focusses on teaching students
> some basic grammar, rather than on how to use grammar to analyze ALL texts.)
> This is, by the way, one of several questions to which I will be devoting a
> specific "Guest Book" on my web site. I'm hoping to set up several such books
> (now that I'm learning how to make them) such that teachers' comments about them
> can be collected in one place. The books should be ready within a week. (I was
> going to work on them this morning, but it's 5:28 a.m., and I need some sleep.)
>
> Last, at least for now, I'll turn to Johanna's question about human subjects.
> First of all, Johanna, you are lucky to have a school to work with. Since (yes,
> "since," although I could use "because" here) I no longer teach teachers, I have
> to ask specific schools. They haven't been interested primarily because of the
> work involved and the problem of parents' permission. I'll be interested in
> knowing how that works out for you. What you really want is a sample from
> everyone in the class, such that you do not miss the weaker students, i.e.,
> those who might most be helped by the results of the study. (The parents of the
> better writers will probably be less likely to object.) Then, of course, there
> is the problem of deciding on what the writing sample will be. Primary here is
> selecting a topic/prompt that does not evoke explanations of personal family
> problems. (You might want to post your plans for that on this list to get
> feedback before you invest the time into collecting the samples.) We know that
> mode (narrative, expository) affects syntax.
>      To be honest, however, I haven't tried very hard to get sample over the
> last few years. I've been working out what it is that I want to look for, and
> how the analysis will be done. As I'll try to show when I post the Aluminum
> study, there are a lot of things to consider. That reminds me, if you can, get
> permission to post the samples on the web. One of the things I am going to argue
> in the Aluminum study is that almost all the previous research is suspect
> because the writing samples are not available for review. There are major
> questions about how the researcher defines and identifies various constructions.
> In the Aluminum project, I am putting out three copies of each students'
> "revision" -- the original, a copy with "idea units" identified, and a copy with
> all the syntactic constructions I am counting identified. That way, even though
> some people may not agree with my decisions about what is what, at least they
> will know what the originals are and what I counted. Did you know that Mellon,
> for example, defined clauses differently than Hunt did? As a result, their
> results are not really comparable, but without the original texts, it is
> impossible to determine how the difference in definition affected the results of
> their studies. Good luck with your project.
>
>    I know I said that the preceding was my last subject for today, but I just
> remembered -- I wasted a fair amount of time today reading some research on
> language development in pre-schoolers. If I remember correctly, there are people
> on this list who have said that such research offers guidance for us. With very
> few exceptions, I don't see it. Would the people who advocate studying this
> stuff please explain what it offers. Don't just give us bibliographical
> references. Today, for example, I learned that four and five year olds
> comprehend relative clauses with inanimate direct objects before they comprehend
> relative clauses with animate direct objects. By the time they are six or seven,
> they comprehend both. For the life of me, I can't understand how this is
> relevant to the grammar that we should be teaching in the schools.
> Ed V.