Gretchen,

Don't be hesitant to get involved in the conversation.  We aren't
necessarily the old experts.  Some of us are just "old."  We need your
input.  We learn from your experience.  I went back to the secondary English
classroom for five years largely to learn what you already know.  I'm too
tired to do it again, so I must depend upon you and your colleagues to
inform me.  In turn, I will tell the teacher candidates what you have told
me.

Some suggestions in regard to your query.

1) Have a plan.  You've looked at my text on the internet.  It is mostly for
you.  It would be extremely dry for middle schoolers as it stands, but the
important elements are there.  Follow a sequence that makes sense to you and
which fits with what your students already know.  Try to include at least a
quick minilesson on each of the major grammatical constituents,
elaborations, transformations, etc. during each school year.  Create a
series of lesson plans and learning packages that will accomplish this.  Go
to class each day with an anticipatory set that includes the possibility of
that grammar inclusion.  Don't be too disappointed if your plan falls apart
sometimes.

2)  Never teach grammar without a context beyond grammar.  If your school
allows it, don't hold "grammar class."  Include the grammar teaching in
other disciplines (science, social studies, math, literature).  Use the
writing that is done for that class (Yes.  Make them write paragraphs and/or
essays in math.)  as a matrix for your grammar study.  Nearly any writing
done by the students in any discipline will provide you ample material for
the examination of grammatical structures.

3) Don't go on and on about it.  Limit your discussion of grammar (with a
stopwatch if necessary) to ten minutes a day.  If you don't get it all done,
there is another day.

4) Remember that your students, if they are native speakers of English,
already know just about everything you are teaching about grammatical
constituents.  They just don't know what to call them or how identify them
in a sentence.  What you are teaching in systematic grammar is mostly naming
of parts.  Beyond that, you have studied with Connie Weaver.  She has told
you that only the editing aspects of writing are improved by knowledge of
grammar.  She has also taught you about minilessons, and I assume you have
her book ("Teaching Grammar in Context").  Use it to help students
understand problems that occur because their native dialects of English do
not mesh precisely with standard English (subject/verb agreement,
pronoun/antecedent agreement, plural markers, etc.).  Also, use it to help
your students understand the logic of punctuation in standard English.

5) Always remember to respect  the dialects your students speak.  These are
delightful, complete, effective language systems that are important parts of
their lives.  The assumption that, when they use their own dialects, they
are speaking badly is one of the major impediments to their learning of
standard English.    In fact, you can use samples from the various dialects
your students bring with them to help them understand the interesting
grammatical contrasts among them.  They should never think that standard
English is superior to their own dialects, only that it is important for
them to master it along with other life disciplines and skills.  Embedding
it in those other disciplines and skills reinforces its importance in the
curriculum.

Keep in touch,

Jeff Glauner
Park University

> 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]