Herb,
I've seen similar kinds of things. There's an irony to the situation.
The people focusing only on short-term measurables have learned some
assessment techniques but don't bring any deeper scientific or
philosophical perspectives to bear on the questions of why they're doing
assessment in the first place, and what kinds of distortions specific
assessment regimes can cause. But, of course, it takes time to develop
deeper perspectives, and they're notoriously hard to assess via a quick
and easy multiple-choice test.
Bill Spruiell
-----Original Message-----
From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of STAHLKE, HERBERT F
Sent: Tuesday, September 01, 2009 3:22 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: knowledge vs. skill
I agree on the importance of general, broad education, but we're in a
culture that wants to assess, by quantitative means, everything schools
do, and it's difficult to make the case to assessment-bound sorts that
knowledge is in itself good, that it doesn't have to have immediate,
quantifiable benefits.
We had a long argument about that on our campus at Ball State over a
state-driven, Teachers College supported unit assessment plan. How does
one quantify the learning gained from and the benefits derived from
reading Jane Eyre or Lord of the Flies? Are students better off or not
for having read and struggled with Catcher in the Rye or The Wasteland?
Herb
-----Original Message-----
From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Spruiell, William C
Sent: 2009-09-01 14:29
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: knowledge vs. skill
If students' implicit knowledge of dependent clauses were readily
accessible, they wouldn't have nearly as many problems with the
punctuation rules that are keyed to dependent clauses. But they do have
problems with punctuation, and I've found that I can't address some of
those unless I define dependent clauses in some way.
There's an additional issue involved here, of course. How much of what
we view as standard curriculum in a K-12 environment has practical
application to *every* student's daily life? Should we stop teaching
chemistry in K-12 because it doesn't help you cook? Viewing grammar only
in the context of composition is, in many ways, analogous to viewing
chemistry only in the context of cooking. Our school system -- all our
school systems -- have as a founding assumption that knowing how the
world works is a good thing, and language is part of that world.
Bill Spruiell
Dept. of English
Central Michigan University
-----Original Message-----
From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar on behalf of STAHLKE,
HERBERT F
Sent: Tue 9/1/2009 1:52 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: knowledge vs. skill
I agree that students, and all speakers, know their languages and
therefore their grammar. But much of that is not knowledge they can
make explicit, and unfortunately a statement like students don't "need
to be taught what a dependent clause" is confuses these two types of
knowledge. Our question is how much of the knowledge that native
speakers have of their language needs to be made explicit so they can
use it to explore options for constructing meaning and for revising
their sentences.
In today's New York Times Online, Stanley Fish has the second of two
articles dealing with this question of what students need to know. He
starts, in the first article, with a broader curricular question, but in
the second he focuses directly on what student writers need to know.
You can find the second article, with a link to the first, at
http://fish.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/08/31/what-should-colleges-teach-part
-2/. The comments on the two articles carry on an interesting debate
about the teaching of writing much like debates we've had here.
Herb
From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Geoffrey Layton
Sent: 2009-09-01 13:06
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: knowledge vs. skill
A subject dear to my heart. An example - students don't have to be
taught what a preposition is (or, for that matter, its object); they
don't even need to be taught what a dependent clause it - THEY ALREADY
KNOW! There are few students who would create a sentence that read: "I
put the pencil the table" or "I put the pencil on." Very early on,
students learn how to stick a "because" between "I don't have my
homework" and "the dog ate it (or now, the computer crashed)." The key
to learning grammar is usage based on the creation of meaning, not the
naming of things. So instead of the fairly useless excercise of
meditating on the definition of a phrase or a clause (it always amazes
me how much time this list can spend on issues that we expect our
students to be able to resolve effortlessly), students can struggle with
how to use clauses, phrases, appositives and even modals (whatever they
are!), to create meaning intentionally.
Geoff Layton
Scott wrote:
Obviously, I can write correct English without knowing what a modal is.
We should aim for competence - not mere knowledge.
N. Scott Catledge, PhD/STD
Professor Emeritus
history & languages
Craig Hancock wrote:
Should a student know what a "phrase" is, for example? Or is it enough
for them to use phrases? Modals? And so on?
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