Using your suggestion, Geoff, I'm starting a new thread. I'm interested in learning more about your "six parts of meaning." I'm wondering how you would approach a situation that I once encountered. In a ESL teaching methodology class (coincidentally at WWU), I asked my students (all senior or grad students) if they could identify the problem with this sentence: "Horseback-riding is an exciting activity, however, owning a horse is expensive." The majority of the students thought that the sentence was grammatically correct. A few identified the problem but were unable to label it as a comma-splice. Could you (would you?) apply your six parts of meaning to this item, or would you need more of a context?
David Kehe
Bellingham, WA, where the high for the past week was 73 degrees
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From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar on behalf of Geoffrey Layton
Sent: Sat 7/24/2010 12:00 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: A listserv of their own - WE HAVE ONE, THANKS.
>Geoff, do you feel that the application of grammatical knowledge is not useful as a tool for improving students' writing?
>
> David Kehe
> Bellingham, WA
First of all, how's Bellingham? I haven't been there since my son attended WWU - I think it's one of the nicest places on the planet. You bring back fond memories.
Now on to less important stuff - it's difficult to give a brief answer your question, so perhaps we can start a new thread here, as the issue you bring up is highly relevant, as evidenced by the latest issue of English Journal in which Martha Kolln, who I see as the avatar of our group, leads off the issue with a letter calling on EJ "to let go of the grammar 'bogey-man'" (a recent EJ call for manuscripts specified that the "richness of the English langage" was somehow "beyond grammar"). Then irony of ironies, whose article should lead off the issue than one written by one of the creators of said bogey-man, none other than George Hillocks, Jr. himself, who can't help getting in a dig against grammar, even though grammar itself has really nothing to do with his article. He just can't seem to help himself. (NOTE TO GEORGE: THE BUTLER DID IT AND WHO CARES?).
So back to your question, to which I give the unqualilfied answer YES - and NO! Yes, grammar is important to good writing; in fact, good grammar IS good writing! But the problem is in the pedagogy. Does teaching the outdated eight parts of speech help produce good writing? My answer would be probably not. And this is where NCTE and EJ and George Hillocks can continue to play the "gotcha" game. I doubt that anybody on this list (well, perhaps other than our good buddy Brad to whom you have to give props for starting some very interesting discussions!) would argue for what EJ and NCTE and George continue to denounce (ANOTHER PS TO GEORGE - YOU MIGHT WANT TO QUALIFY YOUR ANTI-GRAMMAR RANT AS AN EXAMPLE OF THE LOGICAL FALLACY "RED HERRING" OR "STRAW MAN," BUT I DIGRESS). An example I use is the definition of a preposition and its object. I don't know any student I've ever had who doesn't know what a preposition is, or its object (and I've had at-risk innner-city students with severe educational deficiencies). Not one of them would ever say, "I put the book on"; nor would any say, "I put the book the table."
So what I've come to teach is what I call the "six parts of meaning," rather than the eight parts of speech. Each part of meaning - "who-what-why-where-when-how" - is created by using specific grammatical constructions. What this leads to is what I (and separately Martha Kolln in an address to an ATEG conference) refer to as "writing in the context of grammar." Martha's emphasis (taking the risk of mis-stating her position) is "rhetorical grammar"; mine is what I call "grammar for the right brain."
One thing I did notice in your post was your observation that grammar is a "tool" for improving writing; I'm prepared to go much farther than that and claim that rather a "tool" to produce good writing, grammar is writing itself; and so if it is writing that creates meaning, then we must conclude that it is grammar itself that creates meaning.
Geoff Layton
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