I have just read through much of this thread after lurking for months &
months. I am writing just to add my 2 cents on the status of grammar
instruction and its improvement.

It sounds to me like LOTS of progress is currently being made -- Connie
Weaver's contribution has had real effects on how teachers approach the
teaching of grammar: Positive effects have been to connect it to writing;
the questionable effect from my perspective and from that of many others on
this list who disagree with me on a lot of other things [take breath here]
has been to downplay the importance of a theory of language, or an
understanding of how language works more generally, on literacy learners.
Connie's approach to CHANGING grammar instruction, using the writing of the
student population to work out curricular choices district-wide, SHOULD make
a huge contribution if/when it spreads.... I think Harry Noden's
contribution, which has had less effect so far, will be enormous when more
teachers know about it. Harry has come closer than anyone else (not
necessarily intending to!) to bringing Halliday's conceptual understanding
of how language works to teaching/learning grammar for the purposes of
writing, here in the U.S. My students have found the "slot" notion helpful,
at least conceptually  -- the finer discriminations & interrelations need
sentence-pattern exercises, at least. The discussions on this list are a
huge contribution.

I suppose it does not make much sense to argue here again for more
consideration of systemic functional grammar as a 'lens' -- even in
Australia, where it has had real influence on curriculum and pedagogy, there
is no hard evidence that it has been helpful in the ways it has been used.
It's also flawed by many lights -- aren't all theories? Still, I hope that
the vocabulary for functional terms grows a bit more elaborated both in
teacher education & in schools. And idealistically, I'd like to see ever
deeper understanding of language _as our means for making meaning_ in talk
as well as writing -- that is, ultimately, to aim for showing students not
how sentences work but how meanings happen (a much more difficult, complex
problem than how to talk about grammar to help students revise their
writing). Understanding how MEANINGS are made cuts across ALL domains of
knowledge; it guarantees a more critical understanding of subject matter. I
suppose i'm arguing for semiotics over grammar.

So that's it. My 2 cents.

Judy



Judith Diamondstone  (732) 932-7496  Ext. 352
Graduate School of Education
Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey
10 Seminary Place
New Brunswick, NJ 08901-1183