At 11:31 PM 1/10/00 -0600, Bob Yates wrote:

>There are many interesting ideas in Johanna Rubba's post.
>
>I agree with her that instruction in grammar does nothing to improve
>fluency in writing.

Although I agree that grammar as traditionally taught does nothing to
improve fluency in writing, I am not convinced that grammar instruction is
incapable of improving fluency in writing.  I think that helping students
gain control of specific types of structures can help direct their ideas to
use those structures.  (I do not think, however, that most grammar
instruction actually helps students gain control of specific structures.)
For instance, when a student becomes proficient in using structures that
express causality, then a whole new world of expression opens up to the
student, and the student will more likely to begin to discuss causality in
her writing.  When a student becomes more able to use phrases that qualify
or explain an idea, the student is more likely to expand his thinking and
composing in these directions.

Although the ability to understand a structure probably preceeds the
person's ability to use it, I think that as a person becomes more
proficient in using a particular kind of structure, the person's ability to
comprehend and think with that structure also increases.  In other words,
this is probably a two-way causal relationship.

However, composition instruction is more than grammar, just as algebra is
more than adding and multiplying.  Adding and multiplying will not teach a
student to do algebra, but the student will not get very advanced without
the ability to do these things.

Susan Mari Witt



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