Caroline (and others in the trenches),

I like the Nike ad:  Just do it!

At whatever level you are teaching in the classroom, a nine-month school
year is time enough to incorporate a simplified systematic grammar matched
to the language sophistication of the students you are teaching.  You don't
have to find more than ten minutes per day to do it.  The whole language
movement (which has its strengths and weaknesses) provides the matrix for
teaching any age- and experience-appropriate discipline in a
multidisciplinary context.  In the perfect world, the previous teacher will
have taught some systematic grammar to your students.  If you do it for your
students this year, next year's teacher will have an easier time of cycling
through it again at the next level.  But, whatever the situation, you can do
it, and it doesn't have to be the excruciatingly painful and time-slurping
exercise in frustration that caused NCTE to ban grammar from the classroom.
It can be interesting and even fun for students.

Jeff Glauner
Park University


-----Original Message-----
From: Dr Caroline Chesebrough
To: [log in to unmask]
Sent: 6/26/00 9:05 PM
Subject: Re: D. Mulroy's posting

        As a classroom teacher I also face this problem. Children have
not
been taught these basics.

        Caroline