Gretchen,

What a delight to have you join the conversation!  You may find it interesting
to know that in my undergrad/grad course in grammar for teachers, I have
actually developed a sequence of about 22 grammatical concepts that I've been
having my students teach to classmates as mini-lessons.  As students sometimes
point out, I seem to be violating my own principle in doing this, since the
mini-lessons aren't all in the context of the students' immediate needs as
writers.  I point out I am trying to help them learn a wider range of
grammatical concepts for teaching editing skills and stylistic options.  Thus
I'm "covering" grammatical concepts much more than my book would lead you to
think--or to use Martha's metaphor, I'm working on the planks so that these
teachers and teachers-to-be don't fall through the cracks.  Furthermore, we
spend considerable class time looking at literary and student writing models (a
la Noden) and working on these aspects of grammar in their own writing.  Even
so, most students have difficulty making the transfer, even with small group and
individual help.  Maybe I need to teach ALL these concepts in the context of my
students' own writing?  But of course that hit-and-miss approach has other
pitfalls, as Martha too has pointed out.

I was intrigued by a recent posting suggesting that not only do children learn
to understand and speak a language more readily than adolescents and adults, but
they also find it easier to develop the metalanguage for talking about
language.  Is this supported by research?  Another issue that intrigues me:  I
find that students who are really good in math are usually good at grammatical
analysis.  Have any of the rest of you noticed such a connection or read
research on it?

Connie Weaver



Gretchen Lee wrote:

> In a message dated 6/20/2000 9:03:57 PM Pacific Daylight Time,
> [log in to unmask] writes:
>
> << Much of our debate about whether to teach grammar has centered on its
>  utility, on whether it is a means to other ends such as improved writing
>  skills. >>
>
> Hello,
>
> With great fear and trepidation, I take er, keyboard in hand.  I have taken
> heart lately from several mentions of getting teachers at the middle school
> level involved in grammar education.  Here's your chance - a living breathing
> (trembling) middle school language arts teacher.
>
> I've followed this thread with great interest.  I've taken workshops from
> Connie Weaver and Harry Noden and loved them, read Ed Vavra's stuff with
> great interest, and limped along through some transformational theory.  I
> read and enjoyed Jeff Glauner's website.  I have no formal grounding in
> grammar of any ilk (except for traditional school grammar of the 50s), but
> I've subscribed to this list for about a year.
>
> I taught "traditional" school grammar for four or five years, and I was upset
> by seeing it not transfer to my kids' writing skills.  I stopped that and did
> research.  Weaver, Noguchi, Krashen, Noden, and lots of others. We tried
> sentence combining, and I saw some improvement, but not enough.  I've been
> workshopping writing recently, using minilessons as Connie Weaver suggests,
> but I'm frustrated at the hit-or-miss aspect of it all (almost certainly
> because of my implementation).  I loved Image Grammar, and I did see a lot of
> transfer, but I'm still unsatisfied at the "big picture." Probably the
> shortcomings are mine, but the frustration remains.
>
> What's a middle school teacher to do?  My goals are to help my students write
> better.  I know that not all linguists/grammarians think this should be the
> reason to learn grammar.  Some kids (who go on to teach English, I'm guessing
> - I loved it!) like grammar for grammar's sake.  But, to use a cliche, what
> do I do on the first Monday of the new school year?  And the Tuesday,
> Wednesday, and Thursday after that?
>
> How do I teach grammar to improve writing on a middle school level in an
> integrated fashion that works without boring my kids into unconsciousness?
>
> I'm happy to take advice from all corners. This subject has fractured our
> middle school faculty more than once.  What advice would you all give an
> in-the-trenches middle school English teacher about teaching grammar?
>
> I appreciate any advice and apologize if this post is not on target for this
> list.  I just feel very frustrated, and I'm coming to the experts.
>
> Thank you,
> Gretchen Lee
> Old Orchard Upper School
> Campbell, CA
>
> [log in to unmask]