Ugh.

I've never met Bill. We've communicated a few times. I have met Herb,
presented with, even eaten with him--yes, I broke bread with a linguist,
gasp! Both strike me as extremely bright, generous contributors to this
list. I look forward to their postings, and I'm sure they'll bring much to
the ATEG gathering.

On the other hand, Ed, you're a bully and an ass! KISS that.

Jeff

Dr. Jeff Wiemelt
Associate Professor, English
Director, The SLU Writing Center
Southeastern Louisiana University
Hammond, LA 70402

----- Original Message -----
From: "Edward Vavra" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Monday, April 18, 2005 12:49 PM
Subject: Craig & Amy * I wish you well.


> Craig,
>      I admire your post about working at the conference to address the
scope, sequence, and assessment problems, and I wish you well. It will be
interesting to see how you address the questions. My sense is that current
assessment addresses errors because it cannot address anything else. The
terminology in the textbooks is not standard, so assessment tests cannot,
for example, ask students to identify clauses, participles, or even parallel
constructions. And, as much as they will not like it, I would suggest that
you take care in considering the desires of people like Bill and Herb. They
are, after all, linguists * a definite minority in the educational world as
a whole. Most of the college English professors I know would seriously
disagree with what they have proposed. Most of the professors (of
composition) that have discussed the question with me have said that they
would be pleased if students could simply identify the subjects, verbs, and
clauses in their own writing.
> Ed
>
>
>
>     The conversation is becoming enormously rich and productive.
>       I have worked out a fairly firm plan with Amy Benjamin to devote
> half of  a full day of the ATEG conference (Friday afternoon, July 15,
> prime conference time) for a working group to address these issues and
> make at least draft proposals.  (A working group on scope, sequence,
> standards, and assessment.) As part of that, certainly, we can encourage
> people like Bill and Herb to tell us what they would like incoming
> students to know.  It would be interesting to ask the same question of
> writing teachers; what  should students know on entrance to college that
> would make your job easier.  I would love to see a presentation or two
> on language acquisition, though I think we can do a better job than most
> at keeping clear the difference from having the language and being aware
> of the language and how that awareness might be put into practice. I
> think we shouldn't limit ourselves to formal views of the sentence, but
> should encourage a functional perspective as well (rhetorical and
> functional approaches), and it would be interesting to think about how
> that might be integrated into a K-12 curriculum.  Ultimately, I think we
> need to address head-on the failure of the current NCTE policy and the
> dire need for quick and radical replacement.  We should make sure we
> find approaches compatible with writing as process pedagogy and with
> egalitarian (democratizing) social practices.  We should take a position
> on standardized, error focused testing, which demeans both writing and
> grammar. If anyone knows of ideal articulations of any of this or model
> programs currently in place, we should hear about that as well.  If
> someone was interested, they could trace down what's happening in
> England or Australia or New Zealand, where reform seems to be much
> further along.
>     In short, there's a whole lot of work to do, and everyone is welcome
> to come and/or make proposals.
>
> Craig
>
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