>Bill, I've been remiss at keeping up with my ATEG LIST reading.  But I've
>enjoyed "catching up" on this thread.  I agree with almost everyone's
>reasons why grammar is disliked and overlooked.  Teacher education.  Little
>relationship of grammatical labels to grammatical concepts.  A difficult
>subject to learn.  Hasn't helped writing skills.  Etc.
>
>BUT English teachers can't seem to kill grammar.  It comes back.  The
>monster repeatedly crawls out of the vat of acid that should destroy it.  I
>think the reason is that, deny it or not, English teachers are at core
>language teachers.  After all, the title is not literature teacher.  You
>simply can't teach standard English-written or spoken-if you don't
>understand how your language works.  You can't read a handbook if you don't
>know the difference between a phrase and a clause, a restrictive modifier
>and a non-restrictive modifier. And you certainly can't help students to
>become better writers if you don't understand how to help them write more
>effective sentences, more coherent paragraphs, more detailed papers (as
>well as teaching them about the writing process).  I could now wax poetic
>on the need for teachers to understand the differences (formal,
>sociological, and historical) between, say, Black English and standard
>English.  But I'll forego that.

>>On the other hand, having resided in English departments as a student and
>faculty member since the early 60s, I also understand the politics of
>curriculum development.  Curriculums are damned hard to change.  It's  hard
>to convince colleagues to give more time and space in a curriculum to
>courses that aren't within their own expertise.  As Bill noted in one of
>his messages, Teacher Ed curriculums are already pretty full.  Partly
>that's the fault of state-mandated requirements; partly it's the fault of
>departments restrained by their own rigidity.
>
>I haven't suggested any solutions, but I'm sure that grammar and language
>teaching are issues that English departments and education programs must
>face.  So I'm glad to see public discussions like this one.  It's a
>beginning.  Thanks, Bill and the rest of you.  This is a worthwhile thread
>to keep up.  Maybe we can make this the subject for the millennium.  Max
>
>Max Morenberg
>English Department
>Miami University
>Oxford, OH 45056

Max, I'm glad you brought up the issue of reading a handbook and whether it
can be done "if you don't know the difference between a phrase and a
clause, a restrictive modifier and a non-restrictive modifier." This is
another issue that I've given much thought to.

On the one hand, I can (almost) agree that a secondary English teacher
ought to have considerable knowledge of language, including grammar. The
teacher ought to understand rules in the handbook and be able to explain
them to students. Furthermore, I would expect that in most cases a person
majoring in English and intending to become a secondary English teacher
should have whatever it takes to be able to learn and apply such concepts.
As I said before, I'm not sure what it takes, but certainly a strong
sensitivity to, and interest in, language must be part of it. [The "almost"
above comes from the fact that I do know secondary English teachers who
have no interest in, and possibly no talent for, grammar. One of my best
friends in college got a D in the required grammar course (no doubt a
"gentleman D") and could no more parse a sentence than solve a quadratic
equation. But his ability in literature was very strong.]

On the other hand, the real issue here is who else besides secondary
English teachers can be expected to develop the knowledge to understand
that handbook. Should all elementary teachers learn how? Even those whose
primary interests lie in social studies, science, or math? Is it something
that ALL people should know, which would mean that it should be a standard
part of the elementary and secondary curriculums?

If all students (or even most students) cannot be expected to know and
understand the grammatical terminology, there is very little sense in
requiring all students to buy a handbook. The handbooks do explain concepts
and give examples, but that seems to be of little help.

Take, for example, the fall of last year. (This is an incident that I
remember vividly, though I won't promise that I remember the details
correctly.) I'm teaching remedial composition, and it's an EOP class--which
I mention to explain that these students are in remedial composition
because they come from crappy schools, not because they're dumb. And we're
doing a bit of peer editing. Right away, two students get into a dispute
about "everyone" as in "Everyone took their rain coats with them." I'm
called upon to referee, and since it's a small class and everyone is
listening to the dispute, I have everyone get out the handbook (Hacker, 2nd
ed) and look up the rule. I have to tell them where to look, of course,
because they don't know the name of the problem. We go to Rule G3-a: "Make
pronouns and antecedents agree." Well, some students have heard of
pronouns, but what's an antecedent and what does the word "agree" mean in
this context? The book explains: "The antecedent of a pronoun is the word
the pronoun refers to. A pronoun and its antecedent agree when they are
both singular or both plural." The book has two examples, one labeled
"singular" and the other "plural," and in both examples there's an arrow
from the pronoun to its antecedent, though the book doesn't say that that's
what the arrow is for.

First I go over singular and plural to try to pin them down. In the process
I foolishly use the word "noun" and am called upon to explain that as well.
Then I tackle "agree," pointing out that the pronoun "her" has to be
singular because the word it stands for ("doctor") is singular. Someone
asks what I mean by "it stands for," so I run through the concept of a
pronoun--which, it is now evident, some students may have heard of but no
one really understands. Finally, I'm back to the concept of "antecedent,"
so now I explain that "doctor" is the antecedent of "her." This news is
greeted by blank looks, so I take advantage of the fact that "antecedent"
is one of the few grammatical terms with meaningful word parts and I run
through the meaning of "ante" and "ced," together with multiple examples of
the uses of these morphemes in more common contexts. I remind students that
they probably did study word parts in junior high (several students nod)
and that they are going to be encountering many technical words in college
that will be easier to understand and remember if students will take the
time to analyze them.

Of course, we're not done yet, for now I've got to go to the second part of
Rule G3-a to deal with indefinite pronouns. But at that point I'll end my
story.

So we have the story of a constantly receding goal. To explain z, I have to
explain y, and to explain y, I have to explain x, and to explain x . . . .

Now, you might say that this was a ridiculous situation. Students, even
from poor schools, should have come to college with enough background to
understand the rules as stated in the handbook.

But is that really possible? Could the majority of a student body, through
the course of elementary, junior high, and high school, really learn and
retain enough grammar to be able to read and understand the rules as given
in a college handbook?

I will restate my opinion (which I have given before in other venues) that
they cannot. Perhaps a few students can, but not the majority. And thus we
must find another way to get the rules across. (I will allow for the
possibility that a simplified grammar such as Ed's might do the trick, but
even that remains to be seen.)

What do you think?

Bill






William J. McCleary
3247 Bronson Hill Road
Livonia, NY 14487
716-346-6859