I wish people would stop ascribing ideas to me that I am not proposing. 
I never said that we shouldn't teach middle schoolers grammar, or that 
middle school students shouldn't have certain analysis skill goals. I 
was talking about _strategizing for the immediate reality_, in which 
many school districts may be operating within severely limited resource 
environments. I really meant triage!

Of course I hope we can do better, and work on helping kids at every 
level. And maybe we will! It's not impossible, especially for schools 
that have favorable resource situations. Individual people may be more 
interested in middle school than anything else, and they should work 
away. I, personally, am interested in all levels, but am working right 
now at the college level because I am most familiar with students' 
abilities at that level. As Ed notes, I need the help of teachers of 
particular grades to work with them.

One poster suggested grammar teaching starting in kindergarten. There is 
no need or justification for teaching grammar in kindergarten. The 
ability to think and talk metalinguistically is too variable across 
children that age. I would go so far as to say it would be safe not to 
teach grammar until fourth grade, but I believe enough children _can_ 
start handling it from first grade on, so that is something to discuss.

As to Ed's problems with terminology, reading the text at the link he 
gave was very instructive. It is indeed a mess out there. But the 
immediate situation of particular teachers _may_ be simpler. In 
California, there is a set of state-prescribed standards for K-12 
students. This set of standards is the linchpin for everything else -- 
CA even required textbook publishers to revise their 1997 language arts 
materials so as to conform to the new standards, and we got new sets in 
1999. Standardized tests in CA are based on the standards, so I am 
assuming (I will soon find out if wrongly) that the books use the 
terminology that the tests use. Every language arts curriculum includes 
lots of practice for the standardized tests, which I again assume uses 
the same terminology as the tests themselves. So a teacher needs to 
study the way the terminology is used in the tests, and teach that kind 
of terminology (although technically wrong uses of terminology are a 
problem in this sense).

Now, not all CA schools are wealthy enough to afford the new textbooks. 
And I doubt that all states have a curriculum as tightly integrated as 
CA. But if a teacher is fortunate enough to be in a CA-type situation, 
there is at least an immediate and pragmatic answer to the terminology 
question. People are misconstruing my posts as though I approve of these 
tests and agree that we should only teach to the tests; nothing could be 
farther from the truth. But the tests are not going away any time soon, 
and, again, test scores are how you get attention. And, also once more, 
you can teach more than is tested.

Just about all the teachers on this list have the same big problem: 
their students don't have enough good previous grammar instruction to go 
far enough in those teachers' classes. We all want the students to come 
up to too high a speed in the time we have with them. That's why, in the 
present environment, I made my "tough toenails" comment -- we are stuck 
with the way things are right now, and have to accommodate it and work 
to change it at the same time. The long-term goal is to get grammar 
instruction going earlier, have it be more consistent, and have it 
happen in every or nearly every grade. We are not going to get there 
tomorrow.

For the last time, I want Ed to lay off linguists and stop 
second-guessing our wishes. I myself would like to _formulate_ grammar 
standards for K-16. I do have grammar standards for my own courses; 
they're listed in the course objectives on my course web pages. As Ed 
recommends, I do want to start having my students parse their own 
writing. As of now, I certainly do have them learn to identify subjects, 
verbs, and clauses. I gave my rationale for teaching other linguistic 
subjects in a recent post. What I didn't say was that I have proposed a 
junior-level course in _just English grammar_ (not phonology; morphology 
is an essential part of grammar, because it includes things like tense 
and number). It is not likely to be approved. Do you know why? Our 
college doesn't like us offering "remedial" classes!!!!! They prefer to 
just blame the high schools and let students graduate with no 
understanding of language.

I also think people are a little murky on what exactly "linguistic 
terminology" is. Here are some linguistic terms: subject, direct object, 
clause, pronoun, reflexive pronoun, imperative, complement, relative 
clause, tense, present tense, past tense, singular, plural, noun, verb, 
adjective, adverb, preposition, conjunction, participle, infinitive, 
progressive, perfect, prepositional phrase, comparative, superlative, 
negative, passive, active, question, prefix, suffix, root, compound word ...

Most of these terms have definitions in linguistics that are close to 
the traditional ones, though in some cases the traditional ones are too 
wrong or useless to tolerate.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Johanna Rubba   Associate Professor, Linguistics
English Department, California Polytechnic State University
One Grand Avenue  • San Luis Obispo, CA 93407
Tel. (805)-756-2184  •  Fax: (805)-756-6374 • Dept. Phone.  756-2596
• E-mail: [log in to unmask] •      Home page: 
http://www.cla.calpoly.edu/~jrubba
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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