Craig's message arrived just after I posted, but I agree with him
almost completely (but not about the "blue" states). The enemy is us. I
have argued for years that since ATEG cannot agree on one set of
terminology, the Assembly should officially develop two, three, four?
specifically defined, clearly identifiable groups, each of which should
develop a specific "grammar program" (comparable in many ways to KISS in
the sense that terms would be specifically defined, and a sequence of
instruction would be suggested). As long as this group continues the
babble that we see in the explanation of various sentences, the public
and the teachers and the politicians will justifiably ignore us.
Ed V.
>>> [log in to unmask] 04/01/05 1:34 PM >>>
I'm going to be a little bit of a gadfly on this one, not quite
ready to fall into the lets blame everyone but ourselves mentality.
(Not
that the blame isn't telling.)
First of all, I am surprised at how comprehensive the Washington
list is. The students who arrive at my college don't routinely use
commas for nonrestrictive modifiers or use the passive in effective
ways. The unanswered question is how much students need to KNOW in
order to do that, or in order to talk about it meaningfully when they
don't, and that's left off the list entirely. Presumably, some people
will grill and drill and others will hope that it rubs off in a whole
language environment; we have no consensus on how to get from point a
to
point b in our current climate, so how can we expect the schools to be
clear about that?
Most people, including, I think, the majority on ATEG, think of
grammar as learning the parts of speech and avoiding error. We
simply
differ on how to go about that. Progressive educators think it will
happen naturally if students are allowed to read and write, and thus
seem to be avoiding accountability in this test happy time.
Conservative educators worry that students will be allowed to get
away
with things if we aren't careful to penalize their mistakes. At the
moment, they seem to hold court, though teachers happily ignore this
in
the kingdom of their own classes, especially in the blue states. How
can we expect to make a difference if the only disagreement is in how
to
get there or in what order?
We don't have a consensus, even on our own list, in favor of wide
scale exploration of language in the public schools. We think
behavior
is important, not knowledge. We still seem to hold to the untested
assumption that kids learn their native language naturally, so
there's
no benefit in paying attention to it except to correct mistakes. We
seem
divided primarily between grill and drill exercises and minimalist
grammar at the point of need, with no clear, consistent voice calling
for a rich exploration of language. If we did, we could devise tests
on
what students actually know, not on how they behave, and the whole
enterprise could be raised to a much more sophisticated level. Give me
a
kid who knows what a clause is or what is meant by "nonrestrictive
modification", and I can talk to her about choices in her writing. At
the moment, I'm not getting that.
What does a student need to know to negotiate nonrestrictive
modification? Does that mean a noun is no longer a thing, but a
category being reduced? Shouldn't any kid coming out of a public
school
know about that?
If we took a vote on the statement that "students don't need to
know
about grammar; they just need to use it correctly," wouldn't most of
us
say "true"?
We have met the enemy, and the enemy includes us.
Craig
Stahlke, Herbert F.W. wrote:
> To add to Ed's concern, let me note that even when reasonable
> linguistic content has been written into language arts standards, as
> it has in Indiana, it can be socially constructed out of existence,
> which has also pretty much happened. Standards mean nothing without
> the will and understanding on the part of educators to implement
them
> even in the fact of public, school board, and PTA incomprehension.
>
>
>
> Herb
>
>
>
>
------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar
> [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Edgar Schuster
> Sent: Friday, April 01, 2005 8:31 AM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: Washington
>
>
>
> Johanna's message about how standards get adopted is on the money,
but
> I wanted to add that sometimes the will of the English teachers on
the
> committes is subverted by political forces over which the teachers
> have no control. That is how the Pennsylvania standards came to
> include the crowning absurdity that "students [by eleventh grade]
> spell all words correctly"; that is how diagramming became mandatory
> in Virginia; and, I'm told, that is how some of the specific
> "masteries" came into the California standards.
> When I was on the PA committee, forty-plus English teachers on the
> Writing Assessment Advisory Committee sent a petition to the five
top
> education officials in the state, including the Sec of Ed himself.
It
> was TOTALLY ignored.
>
> Ed Schuster
>
> To join or leave this LISTSERV list, please visit the list's web
> interface at: http://listserv.muohio.edu/archives/ateg.html and
select
> "Join or leave the list"
>
> Visit ATEG's web site at http://ateg.org/
>
> To join or leave this LISTSERV list, please visit the list's web
> interface at: http://listserv.muohio.edu/archives/ateg.html and
select
> "Join or leave the list"
>
> Visit ATEG's web site at http://ateg.org/
>
To join or leave this LISTSERV list, please visit the list's web
interface at:
http://listserv.muohio.edu/archives/ateg.html
and select "Join or leave the list"
Visit ATEG's web site at http://ateg.org/
To join or leave this LISTSERV list, please visit the list's web interface at:
http://listserv.muohio.edu/archives/ateg.html
and select "Join or leave the list"
Visit ATEG's web site at http://ateg.org/
|
