I don't think you are wrong about things getting worse as they are getting
better.  When Michael Kischner and I did a pre and post study of student
writing in descriptive paragraphs for our grammar class (which involves
diagramming syntax and then practicing the structure in sentence combining
exercises with an emphasis on how different phrasings affect meaning and
depend on context), we found that some students were actually making more
punctuation errors at the end of the quarter than they were at the
beginning--and we teach the punctuation along with the syntax.  but a closer
look showed that those same people were also writing more "complex"
sentences than they were at the beginning of the quarter.  Some had moved
only from very simple, uncomplicated sentences to compound sentences, but
they had moved, and this punctuation problem seemed to be a result.  I would
have loved to have had the students for another quarter to see what happened
next. Would progress continue without focused teaching and learning?

Edith Wollin
North Seattle CC

> ----------
> From:         Susan Witt[SMTP:[log in to unmask]]
> Reply To:     Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar
> Sent:         Thursday, June 22, 2000 12:48 PM
> To:   [log in to unmask]
> Subject:      Re: Public grammar, Private grammar
>
> At 6/22/00, Brock Haussamen wrote:
>
> >Whew. What a great discussion.
> >
> >I have been thinking of the split betweeen traditional and linguistic
> >grammar more and more in terms of public versus private, . . .
>
> I think that you have some neat points here, and perhaps this does explain
> parts of the splits.
>
> There is one thing left out here, though -- and this often gets left out,
> overlooked, ignored, or considered not part of the equation -- although Ed
> and others have commented on it briefly, it doesn't get picked up on
> nearly
> enough -- and this is the idea that as children move from one level of
> complexity to the next, they begin to make mistakes that weren't there to
> begin with.  They are starting to see possibilities, but don't yet have
> the
> ability to work with them appropriately.  Bereiter and Scardamalia noted
> this in the overall organization of essays, but did not apply it to the
> sentence level.  If this is true, then an overemphasis on correctness
> could
> actually discourage children from stepping from one level of complexity to
> the next.  Insisting that a child who is beginning to walk not do it until
> she can do so without falling would not encourage her to learn to walk --
> making mistakes is part of the process of learning.  The trick is to
> figure
> out how to help children work through this process, instead of getting
> stuck in the mistake area.
>
> I'm thinking that this is partly a function of understanding how sentences
> work, but also of understanding some deeper concepts such as cause/effect,
> finer distinctions of time, etc., as well as developing the cognitive
> ability to hold multiple sets of ideas in their heads at the same time
> they
> are working with them.  I'm also thinking that it is possible to provide
> tools for them that support this process.  However, if we only view it in
> terms of teaching them the correct way of doing things, we are not so
> likely to help them with it.
>
> On the other hand, maybe I am wrong about this.
>
> Susan Mari Witt
>
>
>
> 240 ERML, MC-051
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>
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