Esteemed ATEGers,
 
I'm not up to speed on these curriculum issues, but I can testify that Martha is right about the history of the research into the connection between grammar and writing. In my dissertation research I have, with great effort and the angelic help of some wonderful reference librarians at numerous universities, gained access to some of the old dissertations that deal with grammar and writing issues, some going back as far even as 1917. What they reveal that is relevant to this discussion are two things:
 
First, especially in the 1930s and 1940s, a great deal of research was done that showed, in essence, that there was a major difference in effectiveness between teaching students "grammatical terminology," which was/is also referred to as "formal grammar instruction," and teaching what came to be called "functional grammar," which was defined, as the name implies, as grammar that helped students to understand how to write correct sentences. To us, looking back 60-70 years later, this may seem like common sense, but it was a big issue then. There was a fairly general consensus, I think, that the teaching of "formal grammatical terminology," removed from the context of actual writing (parts of speech, drill and kill, etc.), did not help students to write better, but--and this is important--there was also a fairly general consensus that teaching functional grammar DID help students.
 
A second factor that seems relevant is that the research of the time also had made a fairly strong statement--once again, along seemingly common-sense lines--that what applied to elementary-school children did not necessarily apply to college-age students. That is, some research had shown that younger children did not yet have the ability to learn, master, and more importantly, assimilate into their writing the grammatical principles they were being taught--but by the time they got to college, they did have that ability, and therefore would profit from instruction in grammar. This is an aspect of the discussion that we never hear about, eh? 
 
These two statements work together to produce a fairly serious indictment not only of Harris's 1962 dissertation but also of Braddock's/the NCTE's and others' seemingly wholesale adoption of Harris's statements as "gospel truth" regarding grammar teaching. Specifically, what Harris found--that teaching "grammatical terminology" was not helpful--had been known already for decades. Second, Harris's study was conducted with 12-14-year-olds, and therefore not at all generalizable to older students, most especially not to college students. 
 
However, the worst of all was the sweeping generalization that was made, resulting from an alarming disconnect between what was actually said in Harris's study and what everyone seemed to read into it. Harris did not deny that teaching functional grammar might be helpful; he only said that teaching formal, "grammatical terminology" was harmful. But the way Braddock's report presented it, and what everyone seemed to read, was that teaching GRAMMAR--any grammar--was harmful. That interpretation of Harris's dissertation was incorrect, and (as Martha said) immensely harmful, and it has stayed that way for more than 40 years.
 
Tim
 
Tim Hadley
Graduate Assistant, Graduate School Fellowships and Scholarships
Ph.D. candidate, Technical Communication and Rhetoric
Texas Tech University

________________________________

From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar on behalf of Martha Kolln
Sent: Fri 5/6/2005 1:55 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Bill's Curriculum Proposal


Dear Bill,


I must take issue with your curriculum proposal-"Proposal for Integrating Language Study in the Language Arts curriculum Grades 4-10"-for much the same reasons I have taken issue with the long-entrenched anti-grammar policy of NCTE.

You note in your introduction the "grave doubt that grammar as usually taught has any redeeming value . . . students don't learn much . . . don't retain much of the little they learn . . . and almost never learn enough to be able to apply it."  And although you admit that the "grammar strand" of the language leg of your tripod (the others being semantics and pragmatics) is a "vital strand, for one cannot discuss anything much about language, whether it be vocabulary or dialect or style," your plan, as I read it, includes little or no systematic grammar instruction-whether from the top down (starting with sentence patterns, for example) or from the bottom up (with word classes).  In other words, there's no organized scope and sequence.

I'm assuming that your assumptions-those grave doubts-are based on the oft-quoted conclusions of dozens of grammar research studies, which, in my opinion, attempt to prove not necessarily IF grammar study is useful but to show that it is not.  In my 1983 CCC article, "Closing the Books on Alchemy," I looked carefully at seven of those studies.  Some are downright silly; no subject in the curriculum can possibly be learned by chanting (except perhaps in music class)-and that's what was done in one of the studies:  "'The boy was most killed by an automobile' is wrong; 'The boy was almost killed by an automobile is right.'" (chanted in unison, no less).  I didn't choose those seven studies, by the way.  I was responding to a College English article, "Forward to the Basics," published in January 1978, in which the author, Dean Memering, cited those particular seven studies as proof that "if we know anything at all about composition, we know that students can't be 'grammared' into better writers."

(I understand that math has what is perhaps a comparable tug-of-war when it comes to memorizing multiplication tables.  Do you suppose that their two sides cite studies comparing students who have the tables in memory with those who don't?  Did it harm them, spending time on memorizing, I wonder?)

I have been criticized for not citing other, reportedly better, more valid, studies. Believe me, I have examined every research study on grammar I could find.  One of my main criticisms is with the conclusions.  The Harris study, for example-the one that provided NCTE with those damning words, "the harmful effect [of teaching formal grammar] on the improvement of writing"-compared two methods of teaching grammar, traditional and functional.  The conclusion in the NCTE's Braddock report of 1963 says nothing about the efficacy of the functional group.  Nor has anyone ever done research on applying the student's formal grammar knowledge to their work in the writing classroom. 

My answer to Memering's absurd statement that "students can't be grammared into better writers" is, "Who has tried?"  Certainly none of the researchers I have found.  Not one of those studies (including the highly touted New Zealand research) has compared a writing class without formal grammar (or even one with Constance Weaver style grammar-in-context) with a class where systematic grammar is part of the students' writing education.  The grammar groups in the published studies are never taught to apply their conscious grammar knowledge to writing.  The question seems to be, "Will grammar knowledge transfer automatically to writing?"  Not, "Can this grammar knowledge be applied to writing, and what's the best way to do that?"


So, Bill, when you express grave doubts and then add "there is much evidence to support this feeling," I hope you understand my skepticism.  But, for the moment and for the sake of argument, let's say that your conclusions are true.  What would happen if what students are taught in their grammar lesson-and I for one am advocating a systematic study of syntax-is then taken into their writing class and applied.  What would happen if they learned sentence patterns and their expansions-and then discussed those patterns in their literature and writing classes.  How would the middle school and high school language arts classes be different if the teachers and students had a common vocabulary for discussing paragraphing and revision and style?  For discussion the pros and cons of various free modifiers or the contribution to cohesion of parallel structure or the difference that a correlative conjunction would make to the rhythm of a particular sentence? Would that shared knowledge be useful?  Would students come to use their conscious grammar knowledge as a writing toolbox?  And, finally, wouldn't that foundational knowledge be of value in all of those other subtopics you list under Pragmatics and Semantics?

Unfortunately, these are moot questions given the grammar education of today's teachers.  Until our teachers gain knowledge and confidence about their own grammar abilities, neither your plan nor mine will become classroom realities.

My hope is that NCTE will see the light-and continue to move in what appears to be a pro-grammar direction (given the publication of Grammar Alive and their sale at last year's convention of a packet of grammar articles, which included Grammar Alive).  When NCTE recognizes the disastrous results its anti-grammar policy has had on English Education, perhaps our teacher-training institutions will get the message and all of those Grammar Awareness topics will become part of a future teacher's curriculum.  I'm all for promoting Language Awareness-but I don't intend to give up on the G word itself.  I would like to see ATEG go all out in promoting grammar education for those future teachers.


Happy spring,


Martha




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