At 6/22/00, Brock Haussamen wrote:

>Whew. What a great discussion.
>
>I have been thinking of the split betweeen traditional and linguistic
>grammar more and more in terms of public versus private, . . .

I think that you have some neat points here, and perhaps this does explain
parts of the splits.

There is one thing left out here, though -- and this often gets left out,
overlooked, ignored, or considered not part of the equation -- although Ed
and others have commented on it briefly, it doesn't get picked up on nearly
enough -- and this is the idea that as children move from one level of
complexity to the next, they begin to make mistakes that weren't there to
begin with.  They are starting to see possibilities, but don't yet have the
ability to work with them appropriately.  Bereiter and Scardamalia noted
this in the overall organization of essays, but did not apply it to the
sentence level.  If this is true, then an overemphasis on correctness could
actually discourage children from stepping from one level of complexity to
the next.  Insisting that a child who is beginning to walk not do it until
she can do so without falling would not encourage her to learn to walk --
making mistakes is part of the process of learning.  The trick is to figure
out how to help children work through this process, instead of getting
stuck in the mistake area.

I'm thinking that this is partly a function of understanding how sentences
work, but also of understanding some deeper concepts such as cause/effect,
finer distinctions of time, etc., as well as developing the cognitive
ability to hold multiple sets of ideas in their heads at the same time they
are working with them.  I'm also thinking that it is possible to provide
tools for them that support this process.  However, if we only view it in
terms of teaching them the correct way of doing things, we are not so
likely to help them with it.

On the other hand, maybe I am wrong about this.

Susan Mari Witt



240 ERML, MC-051
1201 W. Gregory
Urbana, IL  61801

Phone:  (217) 333-1965
Fax:      (217) 333-4777

[log in to unmask]