|
|
|
| VOICES ON: Teaching Grammar in 2002 Larry Beason has served as director of composition at the University of South Alabama since 1998. He previously taught at Eastern Washington University, where he also directed a composition program and coordinated a writing-across-the-curriculum program and an M.A. program in rhetoric/composition. He has published textbooks and research dealing with grammar and usage but is also interested in assessment, teacher training, and the relationships between politeness and rhetoric.  Do you think it is important to teach grammar in first-year composition? Why or why not?
For me, the issue is not whether grammar should be taught but how, how much, to whom, and when grammar should be taught. As Patrick Hartwell pointed out in 1985, the term grammar has different meanings, but for now I want to define it basically as the traditional classification scheme found in handbooks for describing relationships and functions of words in sentences (e.g., parts of speech, subjects and predicates, phrases, and types of sentences). Yes, I believe enough grammar should be taught to help students, first, to avoid unintentional errors in formal English and, second, to enhance their writing styles in ways, such as improving syntactic maturity, that go beyond error avoidance. But how much grammar instruction is needed? The specific answer depends on the types of students and how much they already know about grammar, but in general I believe in teaching the least amount of grammar needed. Constance Weaver's Lessons to Share: On Teaching Grammar in Context is one text describing such a minimalist approach. A teacher can help students avoid errors and improve their writing style without ever discussing formal grammar, but teaching a vocabulary for describing words and sentences is one important tool. So why would we not want to offer students one more way to discuss language choices? It is also possible to learn division or geometry without learning what is meant by the terms fraction or circumference, but learning is usually facilitated when students acquire a vocabulary for—and an understanding of—a larger classification scheme, despite the shortcomings of all disciplinary vocabularies or schemes. So how do you teach grammar?
As the composition profession has been fond of proclaiming for over two decades, grammar should be taught in the context of students' writing. It has become, in fact, almost a cliché that often fails to inspire teachers to seek out or create innovative approaches to teaching grammar, despite the insightful work of Weaver and others. Too many people seem to assume that teaching grammar in context means one thing and one thing only: working with students one-on-one, which is usually the best way to teach anything. I rarely teach grammar unless it is directly connected to error avoidance or a stylistic matter. Typically, I bring up, say, the definition of a clause only to help explain punctuation in a compound sentence. More specifically, one method I use is a five-minute or so mini-lesson involving one type of error, one or two grammatical definitions that help students understand the error, a correction strategy, and then a hands-on editing session in which students proofread their paper and a peer's paper for that error. We then wrap up with a whole-group discussion in which I intentionally use the grammatical terms to answer the students' questions and to probe their editing decisions. That is one means by which a small amount of grammar instruction can be used in a whole-group setting without sacrificing the teaching of grammar in a suitable context. Though they are often misused and have been given a terrible name, even worksheets can be used to teach grammar in context; examples of this include using worksheets to hone a skill immediately and directly applying this skill to students' writing. Unfortunately, a teacher might easily rationalize the daily "drill and kill" approach to grammar as teaching grammar in context, so we still need a better understanding of what really contributes to grammar's direct, hands-on applications to writing. Years ago, Joseph Williams published an article in which he argued that teachers identify errors much more frequently in student writing than in the writing of their peers. Have you found this to be true? What have we learned since?
I certainly agree, and Williams's "Phenomenology of Error" has been one of the most influential articles on error for many of us. Perhaps the most important point his article makes for me is that errors are subjectively and rhetorically constructed in readers' minds, rather than being static "flaws" that apply equally to all writing situations. Indeed, while I might not identify errors as readily when reading a fellow teacher's writing as opposed to a student's, I know I am not alone in holding the teacher more accountable when I do find his/her errors, illustrating again the effect of the writer's persona on error gravity. As a result of the work of Williams and others, teachers and researchers have learned that error is more complex and less understood than we once thought. Equally important, we have learned that writing, being a rhetorical act, depends more on audience awareness, content, and the nature of the communication exigency than on rules of any sort—grammatical or otherwise. Other studies, such as Connors and Lunsford's report on error frequency, have since helped dispel other myths about grammar and error. What research do you think is needed in this field?
I believe that, as the late Robert Connors indicated in his last article in College Composition and Communication, we need to question why certain types of language study—especially stylistics, sentence combining, and grammar—have received relatively little attention from composition scholars in recent years. I think we would benefit from current research on a range of topics associated with technical aspects of language, for many issues are far from settled, despite what common lore suggests. In particular, we need to take a harder look at diverse approaches to teaching grammar and helping students avoid errors. Too often, we still cite studies and research reviews published decades ago on the study of grammar and error. Given changing attitudes toward language, changing technologies and pedagogies, and changing student demographics, we should not rely on studies investigating only the most traditional approaches to grammar. As I mentioned earlier, I do not believe we know enough about what it really means to teach grammar in context—or the benefits of doing so. Teachers at all levels have shown a sustained interest in these issues, and I think more researchers and leaders of our professional organizations are responding to these interests. I know that the listserve for the Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar (ATEG) has many hearty and useful discussions, and an NCTE affiliate in my region is focusing this year's conference on the standard uses of English. I hope, then, that research on grammar—and on the associated issues of error and stylistics—will continue to grow in a great many directions. |
|
|||||||||||
| Bedford/St. Martin's | Composition | Catalog | Order a Book | Contact Us |
