Bill McCleary writes:

"  Most schemes of the process approach include a stage on editing. In
line with the
basic theory behind the process approach--that teaching should occur
during the writing
process--grammar (however one defines that term) would be taught
primarily during the editing stage.
The usual advice is that the teacher pick out a couple of the most
prevalent errors and teach about
those. "

And he later writes on various non-traditional " modern approaches to
correctness. "

These are two things I see as problematic with grammar instruction --
the 'fix-it' approach of only talking about grammar when editing, so as
to 'clean up' 'incorrect' output. This completely glosses over the
coherence function of sentence grammar. It also keeps grammar in the
anxiety-producing 'approach to correctness' territory. Part of the
reason grammar instruction is often ineffective is that it feels
arbitrarily demanding and punitive to students; it focuses on what they
don't do 'right' instead of the uses they are making of grammar during
the entire composing process. Being reserved for the editing phase, it
looks entirely 'after the fact' to the writer. It appears to be divorced
from meaning -- an exercise in conforming to somebody ELSE'S idea of
English, not the writer's native idea. But the writer was making
grammatical choices as soon as she began to compose, even beforehand,
when making organizational decisions about content. Students aren't
taught the reasons why their 'errors' occur, or why they're considered
'errors' in the first place (in many cases, they are only considered
errors because they display a change in standard English grammar that
hasn't become accepted by the relevant authorities yet). Fix-it grammar
makes writing and grammar less appealing to students; it lessens their
confidence in themselves as writers; it gives them a false self-concept
of being linguistically incompetent. This too often carries over into
self-doubts about intellectual ability.

Students can learn to follow formal English rules in editing without
this motivation-destroying baggage. My students report feeling much
better about grammar when they understand why certain things are
considered 'error'. This doesn't lessen their understanding of the
necessity of following the rules -- in other words, they don't come away
with the idea that 'anything goes'. If anything, they feel a little more
confident about their language abilities.

Grammar can be much more deeply integrated into the writing process than
just as an editing 'clean-up' procedure.

Does anyone else share these feelings?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Johanna Rubba   Assistant Professor, Linguistics
English Department, California Polytechnic State University
One Grand Avenue  • San Luis Obispo, CA 93407
Tel. (805)-756-2184  •  Fax: (805)-756-6374 • Dept. Phone.  756-259
• E-mail: [log in to unmask] •  Home page: http://www.calpoly.edu/~jrubba
                                       **
"Understanding is a lot like sex; it's got a practical purpose,
but that's not why people do it normally"  -            Frank  Oppenheimer
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