I quite agree with Johanna about her first and second points, regarding
children's subconscious use of grammar and their developmental patterns.
Incidentally, when I got children in grades 1 through 6 write both a
narrative and a persuasive piece, I found that many of the first graders used
the subordinating conjunctions "when," "because," and "if."  Would all of
these have occurred with some frequency if the children had written just a
narrative piece?  I doubt it.  Thus my own informal research is part of what
tells me that we must be very, very cautious in drawing conclusions about
patterns that seem to be developmental.  So much depends upon various
factors, like genre, motivation to write, preparation for writing, and THE
INDIVIDUAL.  I'm remembering, too, Walter Loban's work, and the vast
differences from children in the "low" language arts groups, compared with
those in the "high" groups.

Johanna, I don't understand, though, why you think an analytical, all-purpose
grammar should be taught from at least middle school on.  I'm sure you know
that decades of research suggest (1)  that the grammar isn't learned very
well by a majority of students'; (2) that what's "learned" isn't well
retained by a majority of students; and (3) that grammar knowledge seems to
be even less often applied to actual writing.  I get the impression that you
want to go back to doing the same old thing that hasn't worked well for a
majority of students, though you'd perhaps emphasize functional grammar
rather than traditional.  Can you explain how I'm misunderstanding you, or
how you justify arguing for teachers teaching, year after year, what has had
limited benefits, or at least has benefitted relatively few students (like
us)?   (You've probably addressed this issue previously, but sometimes I've
skimmed or skipped the postings.)

Students seem even less motivated to learn grammar than they were when I
started teaching, quite a while back.  Oh, sure, we can get them through our
college courses in grammar for teachers, but do we really know whether they
understand the grammar well enough to teach it, except by following a
teacher's manual?  I worry about this.  Students who understand the concept
of "sentence," for example, usually don't have the faintest idea why someone
else would have trouble grasping what is and isn't a sentence, grammatically
speaking.  Of course I try to help them understand such things, but I always
wonder how many of my students will be/become good at teaching the concept to
others.  Guess I'm the listserv pessimist--perhaps in part because I listen
to and talk with my students as equals about learning and teaching grammar.
What I learn from most of them isn't especially encouraging.

Speaking of publishing companies, I think one major reason textbooks ignore
kids' subconscious knowledge is, as I've said before, that publishers get
nervous about doing anything other than the traditional grammar that's been
taught for decades, even centuries.  It's not practical (lucrative) for them
to consider what kids do and don't know subconsciously.  Another major reason
they ignore such information is that they have to provide teachers with
something to teach, day in and day out (yes, I REALLY mean this). For
whatever combinations of reasons, when people like us are promised we will
have control over the materials, we may sign on the dotted line, but later
balk when told we have to do the same-old, same-old.  The solution?  The
companies pay some 23-year old English major, fresh out of college, to write
the books with our names on it.  These ghost writers don't necessarily know a
darned thing about language development or teaching  students, but what the
publishers really want is someone with a good grasp of traditional grammar
who will mostly copycat the other grammar texts and, most important, who will
have no qualms about doing what they're told.  Those of us who know about
kids' subconscious knowledge of grammar and who know the research on
developmental patterns simply aren't allowed to draw upon that knowledge,
even though it was our knowledge that led the publishers to offer us a
contract in the first place.  Other friends of mine in the field of reading
have found the same thing:  that working with the publishers of textbook
series is a dangerous game, because you lose your intellectual integrity,
with regard to that project.

Connie Weaver

Johanna Rubba wrote:

> Ed asks how preschool language acquisition is relevant to school-age
> grammar instruction. As Connie notes, I believe it is very relevant.
>
> (1) It tells us which structures, more or less, children can already
> produce and understand at school age. This provides a benchmark for
> measurement of future development, for instance in the very kind of
> research Ed is interested in. It can give us a jumping-off point for
> early grammar instruction. There would be little use, for example, in
> teaching about a subordinate conjunction like 'unless' before kids are
> developmentally ready to handle it (I understand that 'unless' comes in
> rather late).
>
> (2) I believe it is essential in evaluating language arts/grammar
> materials. For example, children of school age reportedly have mastered
> inflectional morphology (tenses, plurals, comparison) and some
> derivational morphology. Yet early-grade grammar materials are filled
> with worksheets and multi-choice tests that ask children to
> supply/choose the correct verb form, plural form, etc. What are these
> worksheets trying to do? Clearly, they would be repetitive busywork for
> standard-speaking kids who already know this morphology. For kids from
> nonstandard-dialect backgrounds, the worksheets are sending the message
> that their language is wrong, since they are likely to pick a wrong
> answer a lot of the time. There is no context explaining that the
> (written) language of school might be different from the language they
> are used to; there is no consideration of the fact that children in the
> same class from different backgrounds will be challenged differently by
> such materials.
>
> In general, language arts materials** mostly ignore the vast store of
> subconscious grammar knowledge children bring with them to school. This
> is, I believe, because the people who write grammar materials either
> don't know about this knowledge or don't
> want to pay any attention to it in developing their materials.
>
> **I am speaking of the major publishers' packages that are out there, at
> least in CA: Hougton-Mifflin, Scott Foresman, McGraw-Hill, etc.
>
> This contributes to the constant confusion in materials between knowing
> how to label and analyze grammatical units (metalinguistic ability) and
> the ability to produce grammatical language (linguistic ability).
>
> I believe it is also important to research children's metalinguistic
> abilities and establish benchmarks for these. The research I have read
> and anecdotes from at least one teacher indicate that children aren't
> ready for much metalinguistics until they are 8 or 9, that is, 3rd-4th
> grade. On the other hand, a recent Syntax in the Schools had an
> interesting article about starting with babies -- using metalinguistic
> labels from early on. Clearly children's developmental timeline in this
> area should inform grammar instruction.
>
> All that said, I agree with Ed that a band-aid approach isn't something
> I'd support. Rather than viewing grammar as a corrective, fix-it tool, I
> believe we should view it as an analytical, do-anything tool --
> knowledge that can help people understand how texts work or don't work
> by being able to analyze any text grammatically and discuss the language
> in the text with a conventional metalanguage. This is clearly a
> long-term proposition -- we must start by middle school at the latest, I
> feel, and have systematic grammar instruction every year right into high
> school and maybe even college. For the situation we are in right now, a
> corrective approach may be the best we can do in some circumstances,
> when people are getting too little grammar, too late.
>
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> 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
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~