I agree.  What is impossible is for the whole syntactic structure to be
taught in one quarter while you are also trying to teach composition.  All
students can learn it and enjoy learning it as several of us have witnessed
in our own classes.  I also agree with those who suggest a history of the
language course for teachers.  I know how much that background has helped my
own teaching and I can see the gaps for the grammar teachers who don't have
it.

Edith Wollin

> ----------
> From:         Kathleen M. Ward[SMTP:[log in to unmask]]
> Reply To:     Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar
> Sent:         Thursday, November 18, 1999 4:14 PM
> To:   [log in to unmask]
> Subject:      Re: Labeling the parts
>
> I've read this over a couple of times and I guess I am missing something.
>
> Why CAN'T most students learn basic grammatical terms?  If you start
> them young and keep building, in a consistent way, from, say, grade
> two up, it seems to me that, by the time they are high school
> seniors, they will be able to identify sentences, phrases, and
> clauses.
>
> It's scarcely rocket science.  I'd also like to point out that all
> kids are regularly expected to be able to do much more difficult
> things than pick out a pronoun.  I'd submit long division as one
> example.
>
> And I must say we did expect all students to know something about
> grammar, for years and years, until the sixties and seventies and
> "language arts should be creative and fun every minute." Has
> something changed in students that now they can't learn grammatical
> rules now, when they did up to the mid-sixties?
>
> What am I missing?
>
> Kathleen Ward
>
>
>
>
>
>
> >
> >But is that really possible? Could the majority of a student body,
> through
> >the course of elementary, junior high, and high school, really learn and
> >retain enough grammar to be able to read and understand the rules as
> given
> >in a college handbook?
> >
> >I will restate my opinion (which I have given before in other venues)
> that
> >they cannot. Perhaps a few students can, but not the majority. And thus
> we
> >must find another way to get the rules across. (I will allow for the
> >possibility that a simplified grammar such as Ed's might do the trick,
> but
> >even that remains to be seen.)
> >
> >What do you think?
> >
> >Bill
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >William J. McCleary
> >3247 Bronson Hill Road
> >Livonia, NY 14487
> >716-346-6859
>