Grammar: Meaning and Contexts

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GrammarMeaning and Contexts

• From Presentation at NCTE annual conference in
  Pittsburgh, 2005.

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The question is not Should we teach
grammar? The question is How should we teach
grammar?
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First, a look at the research
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The Harris Study

• Compared two groups
• One studied traditional grammar the other used
  the time to work on extended pieces of writing.
  This group approached errors through meaning.

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Harris Study Conclusion

• After a period of two years five classes of high
  school students who had studied formal grammar
  performed significantly worse than a matched
  group of five non-grammar groups on several
  objective criteria of sentence complexity and the
  number of errors in their essays.

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Braddock, Lloyd-Jones, and Schoer Study

• Meta-study that examined previous pieces of
  research

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Conclusion

• In view of the widespread agreement of research
  studies based upon many types of students and
  teachers, the conclusion can be stated in strong
  and unqualified terms the teaching of formal
  grammar has a negligible or, because it usually
  displaces some instruction and practice in actual
  composition, even a harmful effect on the
  improvement of writing.

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Elley, Barham, Lamb, and Wyllie Study

• Studied 248 students in 8 classes over 3 years
• One group studied transformational grammar
• One group studied rhetoric and literature and
  also creative writing with writing conventions
  and spelling as the need arose
• Another group studied heavy doses of traditional
  grammar.

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Conclusions

• The purpose of the Elley study was to determine
  how much impact transformational grammar study
  had on student language growth. Researchers
  concluded that it had a negligible impact and
  that traditional grammar study had little or no
  impact on language growth.

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Hillocks Study

• Another meta-study, commissioned by NCTE

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Conclusions

• The study of traditional school grammar (I.e.,
  the definition of parts of speech, the parsing of
  sentences, etc.) has no effect on raising the
  quality of student writing. Every other focus of
  instruction examined in this review is stronger.
  Taught in certain ways, grammar and mechanics
  instruction as deleterious effect on student
  writing, I some studies a heavy emphasis on
  mechanics and usage (e.g., marking every error)
  resulted in significant losses in overall
  quality.

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Mina Shaughnessys Study

• Focused on adult basic writers
• Study looks at the cause of error in student
  writing

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Conclusions

• Teachers can often determine the problems
  students have with grammar by looking at a given
  students writing and discussing the writing with
  that student. Shaughnessy also points out that
  when students are concentrating on more
  sophisticated kinds of writing, they are apt to
  make mistakes they would not have made previously.

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Looking at the theory
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Janet Emig

• calls the teaching of grammar a prime example of
  the kind of magical thinking that teachers
  engage in when they believe students will learn
  only what they teach and only because they teach
  it.

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Patrick Hartwell believes there are 4 grammars

• Grammar 1 The formal arrangement of words in
  patterns that convey meaning
• Grammar 2 The descriptive analysis that
  linguists engage in
• Grammar 3 Linguistic Etiquette, the rules of
  correctness
• Grammar 4 School grammar, something Hartwell
  warns bears little relationship to Grammar 2

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Geneva Smitherman writes that all dialects are
valid

• Dialects of English are as rule-bound as the
  dialect we refer to as Standard English
• Teachers need to understand the rules of the
  dialects students in their rooms speak in order
  to help them code switch back and forth between
  dialects

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Smitherman writes

• in Talkin and Testifyin The Language of Black
  America
• While teachers frequently correct student
  language on the basis of a misguided concept of
  correctness saying something correctly, and
  saying it well, are two entirely different Thangs
  (sic) (229).

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Rei Noguchi recommends

• That teachers focus on most frequent errors in
  student writing
• These usually involve run-on sentences, comma
  splices, fragments, and the boundaries between
  clauses
• They also include subject/verb agreement

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Noguchi urges

• teachers to adopt a writers grammar where
  students connect what they already know about
  language to new knowledge about their most
  frequent and serious grammar and usage errors.

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Ok. So how do you do that?
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• Skills lists where students keep track of their
  errors
• Visual reminders in the form of posters or
  banners
• Departmental agreements about which writing
  conventions students need to focus on
• Focused, meaning-based writing invitations
• Asking students to make hypotheses about the
  linguistic structures they use everyday

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Heres a writing invitation

• This invitation asks students to think about two
  ways in which prepositional phrases are use.
  Understand, please, that there are other ways in
  which prepositional phrases function in a
  sentence. This invitation focuses on two. In the
  next slide, you will find a list of commonly used
  prepositions.