I've read this over a couple of times and I guess I am missing something.

Why CAN'T most students learn basic grammatical terms?  If you start
them young and keep building, in a consistent way, from, say, grade
two up, it seems to me that, by the time they are high school
seniors, they will be able to identify sentences, phrases, and
clauses.

It's scarcely rocket science.  I'd also like to point out that all
kids are regularly expected to be able to do much more difficult
things than pick out a pronoun.  I'd submit long division as one
example.

And I must say we did expect all students to know something about
grammar, for years and years, until the sixties and seventies and
"language arts should be creative and fun every minute." Has
something changed in students that now they can't learn grammatical
rules now, when they did up to the mid-sixties?

What am I missing?

Kathleen Ward






>
>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