People are misunderstanding my posts on dealing with high school
students, as well as concerning standardized tests.

My ultimate goal -- my dream -- would be a solid, continuous grammar
education starting as early as kids can handle it all the way through to
college.  This is the long-term goal; in the very short term, we have
populations of high school students who could really use some grammar
instruction before they go to college. Achieving the long-term goal
depends on converting the current stakeholders and powerbrokers in state
governments, school administrations, textbook publishers, parents, and
teachers themselves. The quickest way to do that is to provide, as soon
as possible, teaching strategies and materials that will help students
master whatever material is on the standardized tests, which we can
oppose as much as we want, but they are there right now and we have to
deal with them. Plus, if the materials we provide do indeed help kids
get better test scores, _people will start paying attention_.  You can't
convince people by saying ""we think it's better".

My remark about the tests: We can probably easily incorporate the tested
standards (where they are developmentally reasonable) into a broader
grammar curriculum. But I tell you, if we don't show any concern with
providing the outcomes these stakeholders seek, they will continue to
ignore us.


Johanna Rubba, Associate Professor, Linguistics
English Department, Cal Poly State University
San Luis Obispo, CA 93407
Tel. 805-756-2184 ~ Dept. phone 805-756-2596
Dept. fax: 805-756-6374 ~  E-mail: [log in to unmask]
URL: http://www.cla.calpoly.edu/~jrubba
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