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