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last.updated 3.28.06

 

Grammar Issues

Purpose

After you get your teaching job you can anticipate sitting on a plane with a stranger who asks what you do for a living. After you explain that you are an English teacher, the person will ineviatably respond, "I guess I better watch my grammar." This situation demonstrates the public perception that the teaching of English is conflated with the teaching of grammar. This is understandable when grammar is the single issue that creates the most concern among language arts teachers. And the regulations created by NCLB and the SOLs makes addressing these issues more imminent. Yet, scholars disagree to what degree grammar should be addressed in the language arts class. Instructors and scholars have also developed many ways to address students' grammatical errors and challenge them to improve their style. For the next two class sessiosn you will work on establishing your position on the "grammar issue" and then articulating how you would put this philosophy into practice.

Before Class

  • Read Soven, Chapter 4 (65-108)
  • Read Hartwell, "Grammar, Grammars, and the Teaching of Grammar" [College English, 47.2]
  • Submit Unit Plan with Rationale to the instructor as a hard copy at the beginning of class.

Discussion–Hartwell

  • What issues, concerns, or questions did this reading raise for you about how you will approach the teaching of grammar?
  • What is Hartwell's argument? Do you agree? explain.
  • What are the five grammars? What is the purpose of making these distinctions? And how might you use these distinctions to teach grammar?
  • Should style be taught in grades 6-12?

Discussion–Soven

  • What issues, concerns, or questions did this reading raise for you about how you will approach the teaching of grammar?
  • How will you teach grammar? why? At what point in the students' writing process will you intervene at the word/sentence level?
  • For the previous questions, how do the SOLs influence your decision?
  • On page 68, Soven mentions how adult disengagment negatively affects student's language learning. As we have read elsewhere, language learning is just one of the aspects of literacy that this inattention affects. Why do you think Soven chose to raise this issue of parental inattention with this topic?

Presentations–Group 2

We will be the audience for teaching demonstrations from Group 3 (Erica, Erin, Mary, Peter).