Ed,
Nice clarification. I absolutely agree with you. Paul's emendation that
this skill be an _entrance_ requirement for high school is well-received. I
have never taught at that level, so I have to defer to the judgment of
others. All I know is that I came out of the seventh grade knowing
subjects, verbs, and clauses.
John
-----Original Message-----
From: Edward Vavra [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Tuesday, January 20, 2004 4:29 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: college-bound grammar
John,
Nice question. Before I explain my own specific position, let me note
that I would be thrilled if ATEG could come to any agreement, even if it
does not accord with my own view. Should such an agreement be achieved, it
would fall upon me to try to make the KISS Approach meet the agreement.
What I would propose, more specifically, are main and subordinate
clauses. This would include coordinated main and coordinated subordinate
clauses, but I'm not sure I see the necessity for teaching "relative."
Almost all subordinate clauses can be discussed in functional terms of
adjectives, adverbs, and nouns, and it seems to me that "relative" is a
sub-category of adjectival clauses. Note that I do not object to teaching
relative clauses ? I'm just saying that they would go beyond the minimum.
Why do I want main and subordinate? First of all, when I asked the
group about main and subordinate in "He thought she would be a good
president," if I remember correctly, most of the linguists said that the
whole sentence is the main clause. I agree, and so would, I would suggest,
Hunt, O'Donnell, and Loban. Thus, subordinate clauses are parts,
sub-assemblies of main clauses. From here I go in two directions. First, the
problem of errors. Many errors, fragments, comma-slplices, run-ons, are
clause boundary errors. Thus students who can identify main and subordinate
clauses will be able to understand the errors, and why they are errors, etc.
(Yes, I know that not all fragments are errors, but the point is that
students would be able to discuss such questions intelligently.) From the
perspective of errors, the ability to recognize subordinate clauses enables
students to recognize (and discuss) a subordinate clause fragment when it
occurs.
The other direction is style. Hunt, O'Donnell, Loban, etc. discussed
"T-units," but a T-unit is a main clause, defined as including all the
attached subordinate clauses. In other words, students who can deal with
main and subordinate clauses can literally analyze their own writing and
match what they find against the results of these researchers. When my own
students do this, some of them find that they use very few subordinate
clauses, and no subordinate clauses with subordinate clauses. Others find
that they have subordinate clauses within subordinate clasues that are
within subordinate clauses. (In other words, they write extremely
complicated sentences which are sometimes difficult to read.)
In sum, I am suggesting the subordinate / main distinction because
students who understand it, and can identify such clauses, can do a great
deal with that knowledge, both in terms of errors and style. I hope this
helps.
Ed
P.S. I admire what Bill McCleary is suggesting in his proposal, but I'm
wondering what, if any grammatical terms students would be expected to be
able to use. I would love to see the curriculum for grades 4-9 developed in
detail, but I can't picture what he has in mind. In one sense, that
curriculum could deal exclusively with linguistic principles, and totally
exclude analytical ability on the part of the students. Which is more
important, that students be taught morphology, or that they be taught to
identify subjects and verbs? Does what Bill is proposing include both? That
would be great.
>>> [log in to unmask] 01/20/04 02:20PM >>>
Ed,
You wrote: "Many years ago, at an ATEG conference, I suggested that the
group pass a resolution to the effect that every high school graduate should
be able to identify the subjects, verbs, and clauses in a typical passage
written by a high school student."
I couldn't agree more with you. I request one point of clarification: When
you say "identify . . . clauses," do you mean being able to identify a
dependent clause from an independent one or do you mean something more
specific (subordinate, coordinate, relative, etc.)?
John
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