I totally agree with Ed that "high school graduates should be able to
identify the subjects, verbs, and clauses in a typical passage written by a
high school student." I would say that a middle school graduate should be
able to identify the subjects, verbs, and clauses in a typical passage
written by a middle school student, too -- in fact, I think this was my
point, which Ed seems to disagree with. High school is rather a late time in
a student's life to be getting training in identifying subjects and verbs
for the first time -- they should have had that training in elementary
school (that was a major point of my response to Cynthia)! Maybe if the
student teachers you mention had learned the fundamentals earlier, they
would not have felt so lost later on.
It seems that the cycle of not being educated early enough is
self-perpetuating. It also seems (to me at least) that the interests of this
group (ATEG) are clearly focused on breaking that cycle so that prospective
teachers arrive at college without the need for remediation in basic
sentence structure! We are exceedingly interested in opening the dialogue
with the K-8 community, not only with college professors and linguists .
High school should be devoted to expanding the basic skills learned in
elementary and middle school, so students are prepared to read and write
texts with more sophisticated language than they dealt with in their earlier
years - you know, real literature, and meaningful compositions.
For the record, I came from a school system that did a poor job with these
basics; I am largely self-taught in grammar due to my involvement in
theatre. Later in graduate school, I had one required course in linguistics,
but I did not come out of it feeling the same way as the students Ed
mentions; why that is, I am not sure, but I suspect it has to do with
personal interests and self-study -- I found the subjects of linguistics,
the history of the language, and grammar fascinating, so I jumped into them
with both feet and all at once. I realize that this was my good fortune and
is not necessarily what we can expect of everyone.
There are no easy answers or glib responses that will solve these problems;
on the other hand, giving up on a group so devoted as ATEG is because not
everyone agrees, because there are no simple answers, or because not
everyone has the same vision won't fix a *&!@ thing!
Paul E. Doniger
----- Original Message -----
From: "Edward Vavra" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Tuesday, January 20, 2004 1:15 PM
Subject: Re: college-bound grammar
I have to disagree with Paul when he said that Cynthia's question was
addressed to the wrong group. Cynthia wrote:
"Is grammar really so scarcely taught in most US high schools? If it is
not taught much, I would be interested in hearing from high school teachers
the rationale behind such a curriculum."
Paul, in part, responded:
"The problem, as I see it, is that the question is directed at the wrong
group. Grammar is either rarely taught or poorly taught in the elementary
and middle schools - and many who DO teach it there feel obligated to do so
in secret!
Paul's post was followed by Jan's:
"I keep coming back to the fact the many teachers were never taught grammar
themselves."
I would strongly suggest that many of the teachers of teachers on this list
do not teach their student teachers the grammar that those teachers really
need, i.e., the ability to identify subjects, verbs, clauses. It is easy to
blame the "anti-grammar" group, but I would like to defend them. A student
teacher from Virginia once called me to ask for help. She had taken a
required course in linguistics, and passed it, but she could not identify
most subjects, verbs, and clauses. She didn't know how to "teach" clauses
because she could not even recognize them. Whose job is it to teach the
teachers, and what should teachers be taught? Is that not a question that
this group should address? (If not this group, then who should?)
Many years ago, at an ATEG conference, I suggested that the group pass
a resolution to the effect that every high school graduate should be able to
identify the subjects, verbs, and clauses in a typical passage written by a
high school student. That suggestion was rejected, primarily because, it is
my belief, many members of ATEG wanted to continue teaching the advanced
linguistics that they teach. They realized that such a resolution might
affect, seriously, the content of their courses.
Cynthia asked for the rationale behind not teaching grammar in the
high schools. I would suggest, once again, that it is the confusion, within
this group and elsewhere, about precisely what grammar should be taught. In
essence, the response of this group appears to be "grammar," whatever
"grammar" may mean.
In another post, John Crow noted:
"Ed: My original posting concerned grammar pedagogy. You chose to respond,
for the most part, by introducing an issue that was, at best, tangential:
how to treat phrasal verbs. The phrasal verb question attracted much
interest and generated some _very_ enlightening discussions; my pedagogical
question fell by the wayside until Johanna picked it up and dusted it off.
I found it interestingly ironic that you, the person who decries the
preponderance of this type of discussion on this listserv, were responsible
for this linguistic detour and that, as you would have predicted, the
grammar question got a lot more play than the pedagogy question."
If I remember correctly, I introduced phrasal verbs as an example of what
this group prefers to focus on instead of focusing on pedagogy. If irony
implies a gap between what is expected and what actually happens, then I'm
not sure that I would consider what I did ironic ¯ as John points out,
it's what I could have predicted.
I don't see the pedagogical problem itself as very troublesome. It would
take a little time to enable students to identify prepositional phrases,
subjects, verbs, clauses in their own writing, but it is not a difficult
thing to do. The problem is that this group is not interested in the
problem. I can't keep track of all the grammar textbooks, but has anyone
found one that leads students into analyzing (and discussing) real
paragraphs from their own or their peers' writing?
I think Cynthia's question (and Jan's response) was right on target for
this group. If I am wrong, can this group now agree that high school
graduates should be able to identify the subjects, verbs, and clauses in a
typical passage written by a high school student?
Ed
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