Dear All,

In the context of Johanna's  cogent, and careful description of her vision of the goals of the 3S committee, I'm a bit baffled as to why Ed continues to think the committee is trying to foist "advanced linguistic conceptualizations" on anyone. Nothing could be the further from the truth.

It is true that the mission of the 3S committee, is, in part, to examine what is currently being taught by way of grammar in the schools, and to propose some amendment of that approach based on INSIGHTS about the nature of language and language learning which stem from linguistic scholarship of this century. However, Ed seems to assume that doing so necessarily involves foisting off "advanced conceptualizations" of grammar on teachers.  That would be not only a very bad idea -- it would be sure to fail. And frankly, this committee and this project is herculean, and none of us wants to invest this kind of time into something which won't have tangible, successful results. So, I
think we're all acutely aware that school teachers must be able to use the system we describe, and do so pretty readily.

Ed suggests that we " need to begin at the beginning ¯ what constructions are most useful for discussing style, etc., and how can we most efficiently teach them such that students can USE them to discuss language (not just know them for tests). "

But this seems to be taking the constructions of language out of the very context of their occurrence, fragmenting the whole that constitutes a sentence or a text.  You indeed could end up with a whole bunch of disjointed parts that way, and no conception of how the parts work together to create sentence, text, rhetorical effect.

Thus, as I teach using Morenberg's, "Doing Grammar," we start yes, at finding a small number of basic verb types, as described by the phrasal chunks which occur around them. Following the insights of linguistics in a very user friendly way, students learn that these are basic building blocks of language -- that while the language may at first appear dizzyingly vast, instead, we can see that we have a small number of basic structures that keep getting recycled ...

Thus, the very simple sentence pattern

John bakes cookies

gets sculpted and recycled

     so that it can do the job of a direct object: "I expect that John bakes cookies."
     so that it can be a relative clause:  "I was talking to John who bakes cookies."
     so that it can be a gerund clause: "Baking cookies is a great snowy day activity."
                                        or a gerund variant:   "John's baking cookies is inspiring."
     so that it can be a 'for-to clause:   "For John to bake cookies is inspiring."


My experience is that students find it MUCH easier to start at the basic building blocks (notice BASIC, RUDIMENTS, Ed) of what makes a sentence-- the sentence patterns -- and then look to see how those familiar legos have been changed/sculpted/whittled, in order to do different kinds of jobs in a sentence.  Students are relieved.  And starting at the basic sentence types, learning how language works, gives them a sense of anchor and ability to make sense of whatever comes before them.

Thus, I have extensive emails from a technical editor from NASA who found our grammar class gave her the tools to diagnose really weird technical sentences she previously had no handle on.

As for mountains of terminology becoming burdensome. As Johanna pointed out, for those who object to 12 parts of speech vs. 8 -- what if there really are 12 -- and what if it works better.  The case about the contrast between a noun and a nominal is a case in point. Far from confusing students, the contrast of being a noun in shape vs. doing the job characteristic of some other type of part of speech, these are lifesavers to students.

Thus, I believe Martha mentioned recently the analysis of "college" in

"the college dorm"

Well, 'college' is clearly a noun (it occurs in positions like 'the college', and can be possessivized, and pluralized, and can take relative clauses, etc.), but it's doing a job more usually associated with adjectives (the dirty dorm/the new dorm, etc).  My experience is that students have historically been very confused, wondering 'how could 'college' BE a noun in one sentence, and an adjective in another???"

thus, distinguishing form and function (shape and job) actually lets students unbind a confusion, and hence is EASIER to remember. They come to understand that the word 'college' IS a noun. It has the shape (morphology) and freedom of occurrence in the sentence accruing to nouns. BUT   H E R E, while BEING a Noun, it is doing the JOB of an Adjective.  There are different systems for annotating the contrast between form and function. But drawing the distinction turns a light on for students. It's an aha moment for them.


As to why morphology should be included in the study of language in the schools? In addition to Johanna's very good reason (that kids come to school already knowing a lot of morphology -- (roots, prefixes, suffixes, plural, tense, possession, comparison, etc. and yet our texts seem to teach it as if they don't know it...), I would note another one...

Morphological processes of derivation (turning verbs into nouns -- explore --> exploration, inquire --> inquiry, etc.), are one more important way that we can sculpt basic sentence patterns so to produce language-chunks that can work in yet OTHER sentences.

Thus,
Janet invented the mouse trap.

can be sculpted so that whole sentence can do the job of subject as follows:

The invention of the mouse trap was brilliant.


Of course, student writing  or technical writing can be filled with long, and convoluted sentences that are tough to unpack. But if the writer/editor knows the MECHANISMS by which our basic sentence patterns can get sculpted so to become other.... then they can readily work backwards to find the underlying patterns involved, and hence unpack the example, to rework it more clearly.

Thus, a student who knew about basic sentence patterns, and derivational morphology (word structures) might be able to reason as follows:

    (i) ah, 'tion' -- that's  a noun suffix. so the root here was a verb, in its previous incarnation.
        The earlier sentence looks like this:     __________ invent ______

    (ii) 'of the mouse trap' -- ok, prepositional phrase. When a verb morfs into a noun, it can take what came after
        it as a prepositional phrase...
        so we've got    ________ invent(ed?) the mouse trap.

    (iii) hmmm... when you take a verb and sculpt into a noun, sometimes you lose part of the sentence.
    here, the subject is lost. We don't know WHO invented the mouse trap. Hmmm....

Of course, this is trivial and simple. But this kind of reasoning comes, I believe, not from starting with "what structures are interesting in style, etc." but from the basic functioning of our sentences and texts. And once we understand the machine as it works, the application comes readily -- whether it is style, editing, advertising, whatever...


thanks folks,

rebecca wheeler




EDWARD VAVRA wrote:

>       The problem that I see with Michael's comment (below) is that it confuses ends and means. The question is not should we enable students to appreciate the aesthetics of language, but rather how can we help them to do that. In part, we conceive of the object of those aesthetics differently. Many members of this list see the beauty of the grammatical conceptualizations themselves ¯ hence they want 12 parts of speech, nominalizations, etc. I'm simply saying that I don't believe that this approach will work. Loading students with grammatical concepts does not give them enough time to internalize the concepts and USE them to even begin to appreciate the beauty of good syntax.
>      Many high school teachers cannot even identify subjects and verbs ¯ even fewer can identify the clauses in the sentences that their students read and write. Most of these teachers were taught what subjects and verbs are, and they were probably even taught clauses. What happened? I'm suggesting that they were
> 1.) not required to master those concepts ¯ to use them as tools in analyzing and discussing real texts, and
> 2.) not shown how the various constructions interrelate with each other to create the style of texts.
> Thus I am suggesting that we need to begin at the beginning ¯ what constructions are most useful for discussing style, etc., and how can we most efficiently teach them such that students can USE them to discuss language (not just know them for tests). In the chapter on "Style," in Teaching Grammar as a Liberating Art, for example, I explore the style of several famous passages, all in the limited terms presented in the KISS Approach. It is, I would suggest, this type of aesthetic appreciation that will be most interesting and most important to most teachers and their students.
>      Ultimately, any academic field has an aesthetic beauty. The principles of mathematics and physics are ultimately aesthetic. But most of us, myself included, cannot appreciate them because we do not have the basic concepts of math or physics mastered well enough. Thus, we may have some appreciation of both math and physics, but we do not want to study the advanced details. From my perspective, the 3S committee is trying to move students right in to the advanced appreciation of grammatical conceptualizations. It won't work.
>
>      By the way, I want to thank Martha for her kind comments about the chapters on natural language development in Teaching Grammar as a Liberating Art. Should you be interested, please do NOT order the book. I am preparing to put the entire thing on the web where it will be available for free.
> Thanks,
> Ed
>
> >>> [log in to unmask] 01/28/00 08:45AM >>>
> Ed Vavra wrote:
> >1. Should students be able to identify the subjects and verbs in
> >what they read and write?
> >    1.a all of them? why?
>
> >     2. just some of them? why?
> >2. Should they be able to identify the clauses?
> >3. Are infinitive phrases to be counted as clauses?
>
> >The preceding questions come, I suggest, from a different "vision"
> >than Johanna's.  In my work with students, and in my discussions
> >with teachers, the primary grammatical problem is that students (and
> >many teachers) cannot control clauses --subordinate or main, nor can
> >they identify them (which would enable them to study them to come to
> >understand how they work). To resolve this, and many related
> >problems, twelve parts of speech are not necessary, nor is
> >morphology, nor is a distinction between nouns and n
>
> With all due respect to the sincerity with which you hold your
> beliefs, Ed, and to the earnest efforts you are making to help
> teachers and students, I feel that your vision is narrowly
> utilitarian.  Having been thoroughly schooled in a liberal arts way
> of viewing the world, and believing that we will ultimately serve
> our society better by giving  children a genuine liberal arts
> education, I would urge the 3S Committee to continue working on a
> program that transcends this kind of utilitarianism.  Just as I want
> children to marvel at how caterpillars become butterflies, to wonder
> at the structure of a brain cell, to delight in music and art
> produced by the human family in earlier centuries, take joy in
> reading the adventures of Tom Sawyer or Don Quixote, so I want them
> to appreciate and understand some of the fantastic intricacies of the
> languages they speak--yes speak--and write.  Let us not surrender
> language study to a lowest common denominator of "study clauses so
> that you know how to manipulate them in ways that will please certain
> authorities on what are acceptable configurations for clauses."         If
> I have misrepresented your position, Ed, I am open to being
> corrected.  I think you have raised a valuable question about
> "visions."  We ought to clarify our assumptions and visions for each
> other and you have begun that process.  In the end, 3S will have to
> decide how or whether to accomodate visions such as the one you
> bring to the table.
>
> R. Michael Medley, Ph.D.
> Director, Intensive English Program
> Eastern Mennonite University
> Harrisonburg, VA 22802
> Office: (540) 432-4051
> Home: (540) 574-4277