A few years ago I was invited to participate in a collaboration between several school districts and the local technical college. We were developing a joint credit program. If approved, certain basic studies classes in the high school would earn dual credit at the technical school. English, math and science classes were the starting points.
At this meeting almost immediately an English teacher from the tech school got up and began a not to subtle tirade against the high school teachers about their not teaching grammar , spelling and punctuation. She said things like, “What are you people doing out there? When those kids come into my classes they are lost. They don’t know a noun from a verb, or present tense from past.” She went on like this for several minutes.
When done it was silent! Heads down, a few feet shuffling, and a paper rustled here and there.
Finally, the chairwoman of the committee spoke,”Ok, let’s move on to credit considerations.”
“Hold on!” I interrupted and turned to the English teacher, “Do realize you are telling every teacher in this room they are not teaching grammar? There are a couple principals and a superintendent sitting on this committee and you are charging their staffs with not doing their jobs. Where do you get that from? From some kids that do a poor job writing in your class? I can tell you right now and more importantly I can prove it, that every teacher in this meeting teaches grammar and has been for a long time. And that includes you. Right now you are teaching remedial grammar I’m sure. And you are not having any better success than we are. So a good question becomes, why not? The answer to that question is not do we teach grammar or how do we teach grammar, but HOW is grammar learned? And don’t tell me I’m just being clever with words.”
“Well…no…I didn’t mean you weren’t teaching…”
“Yes you did! And you are frustrated. You want somebody to blame. Just like parents,school boards and administrators want someone to blame. Well there is someone to blame, and it is us teachers. But it’s not for your reasons. We’ve been tricked or forced into the mind set that there is a one-method-fits-all- methods for teaching “skills” like grammar, spelling and punctuation. We need to back up a little bit and take a look at what we want and what we do to get it, We need to understand grammar better; what is it, where does it come from, how does it work, how do we make it work. and most importantly how do we learn it. Let’s try some rationality for a change.”
Again the meeting got quiet. Finally the chairwoman said, “OK, let’s move on in the agenda?” and the whole incident seemed pushed aside and forgotten. But it wasn’t. For the rest of that school year principals and superintendents from all the schools involved in the collaboration project called me and asked me to speak to committees, councils, and groups of parents about how grammar is learned.
Needless to say, not everyone jumped on the bandwagon. But for one of the few times the debate was held on level ground.
Yes, grammar is important. Let’s learn how its learned especially since it seems it is learned much differently from how its taught.
In her book _Wonderous Words,_ Katie Ray makes a distinction worth thinking about–the difference between a perscriptive and a descriptive grammar. I would argue we were all taught a perscriptive grammar. We were given perscriptions like “don’t start a sentence with and”–various rules to follow. We were told, probably have even said this ourselves, that you have to learn the rules before you can break them.
Writer’s, however, make decsions and use language, use grammar to help express whatever it is they need to express. They USE grammar as a tool; they are not boxed in by perscriptive rules.
What Katie Ray suggests is that we look at and describe what writers do. The rules do not come first. Meaning comes first. The more fluent we become in describing the mechanical mmanuevers writers make, and the more we practice the craft of writing ourselves with our students, the more grammar we will know.
Learning grammatical rules does not mean that one can write, never has. Grammar instruction in the name of taching writing is a waste of time. When we consider the questions my dad raised above…how is grammar learned, we might remember that grammar tries to describe lanuage use not perscribe it.
Prescriptive grammar can be found in Warriner’s. I never had one in my classroom because it didn’t help.
Descriptive grammar can be found in Webster’s Dictionary of English Usage. My copy is heavily used because I found that it did help. Rather than have someone tell me “you can’t begin a sentence with ‘and’”, find out what writers have done down through the ages. Writers have no problem at all starting with and. I wonder who first made such an observation?
Don’s experience with the outraged tech teacher is typical; his admonition to look at the real problem was needed. How does grammar get taught? By usage is what I learned. I never had success teaching any grammatical concept to the class. I got bored just doing it. I never got tired of reading and commenting on papers where the concept was used.
If you don’t have a copy of the Webster’s, check one out. You can find a used copy on A Libris, I’ll bet. If you don’t already check out that site, it’s great for buying used books of any kind.
I’ve been struggling with an idea that seems to be too complex for me to express. But what the heck! I’ll give it a try here.
I watch the television show “Dog Whisperer”. I am growing into thinking there is more going on with this show than just teaching people how to gain control and maintain control of their dogs.
For me its fascinating to listen to the host, Caesar Milan, use language. Born a native speaker of Spanish his English is excellent but not perfect. But that’s OK -which raises a question in me.
Why is he allowed to use “broken English” on a regularly produced, world-wide media event?
Don’t misunderstand me, I have no problem with what he’s doing. I understand him perfectly and I find nothing offensive or irritating in his presentation. In fact, his, what some “purists” would call “broken English” that seems to be more powerful and meaningful than standard, correct English.
Here’s an example. Caesar frequently uses a phrase, “You see, he is dog. He behaves dog, thinks dog, and reacts dog. He is not human so to help him you have to bring out and accept dog in him. That is where trust will start.”
In correct English, the way Caesar uses the noun dog is incorrect because there is no article preceding the noun. In Spanish, the concept of dog does not need, or at least not need the same article, as English does.
When I go back and write Caesar’s phrase in standard English, it is not as powerful. The way he uses the word “dog” makes my brain work differently than if he said in in standard English. His way is deeper, richer, and more instructive. He makes me feel the process of dog and not just the object. So now I have several questions. Is he doing this on purpose because he knows there is greater strength in his Spanish syntax than in English? Is it just his level of mastery of English? The producers of the television show don’t seemed concerned about this, why is that? If this were a classroom, someone would be correcting his usage.
For his purpose, Caesar’s Spanish syntax is more appropriate and meaningful than standard English. So that raises another question. Who gets to decide what is proper usage of language and what are the rules for making that decision?
All my life I’ve been told this is the right way to use language and this is not! But in the real world I live in those right and wrong ways are not consistent and in fact “wrong ways” often become acceptable if not “right ways”. What always becomes a greater instructor of language usage is need, purpose, and meaning. Are we, teachers, swimming up stream in the river language rules? The French are fanatical about this. At one time, publishing common vernacular was subject to monetary fines. At one time it was forbidden to use the words McDonald’s and hamburger. in France. The pressure of common need and purpose has overthrown those rules. What does that tell us about the dynamics of the life of language?
Because of that idea, what does it say about grammar, language usage, and literate behavior? Does it inform differently our notion of grammar, how its learned, and how its taught?
For me it does! Like Larry, I never had Warriner’s in my classroom but I did have “The Elements of Style” (E.B. White and Wm. Strunk) And like Larry, my copy was well worn through use.
Mr. Hudson, you raise some intriguing points. I had never considered the language used by Caesar in his show because, like you, I understand his meaning quite clearly. By using phrases like “He is dog,” there is much more emphatic expression present. I think we tend to romanticize the use of English by someone who is not a native English speaker. We are fascinated by the expressiveness and sometimes even the struggle to convey the message in a language not native to that person. In terms of proper grammar, we are much more demanding of our English speaking students. I do not remember much of what I was taught in school in terms of grammar usage, but I do remember a lot of memorization. Honestly, I did not really have a grasp on the proper usage and rules of our language until I had to teach it. I spent years teaching isolated grammar lessons to junior high students who promptly forgot most of my lessons after they took the tests. Now I try to use their writings to find concerns that need to be addressed. Here is my question, though. When I put examples on the projector with the mistakes they often make in writing, they quickly recognize the errors and correct them; however, when the next assignment is submitted, the same errors are there. Why can students recognize mistakes on the board, but not the same errors in their own work? How do I get them to become more self-editing?
Karen, Like you, for a long time, I did not grasp how the lack of progress or recognize the breakdown between my student’s writing skills and my instruction of “rules of grammar” was a big part of a big problem. I thought the blame was on the kids. Because I was lucky enough to get involved in the National Writing Project I was given a different point of view on which to consider writing and skills like grammar.
Way back in the early 1970′s, the Bay Area Writing Project (the birth place of the National Writing Project) conducted a study on grammar instruction. The study involved about 3000 people and looked at formal instruction in grammar and application of that instruction in real world writing situations. The results game back that only 20% of the participants showed any residual application from their grammar instruction to their own real writing needs.
Now a whole lot of assumptions can be made from this. And a lot of inquires should follow it up. One assumption that deserves deep investigation is “Why are we only teaching to 20% of our students?”
I, also, never got the connection between grammar skills and drills and writing. When I became a teacher, out of stubbornness born of confusion and mistrust, I refused to repeat the process that failed with me. That caused regular difficulty with my supervisors and me. And I was even more powerless because I did not have an argument or explanation to replace the ones I was rejecting. Until I started learning about writing, writing process and literate behavior.
If you would like I can give you a list of about 100 books yon can read (I have read them) that look at writing, writing process, and the things that work and don’t work, and why.
But since you mentioned junior high students, I will suggest only one book – Nanci Atwell’s “In the Middle”.
My reason for suggesting this one book is because Atwell addresses your concerns directly and from a writing process perspective. Your question as to why kids don’t apply what they “learned” to their writing is central and fundamental. The quick answer is ownership. Writers that don’t own their writing and their writing process also don’t need to own or know the maintenance procedures. This is not a glib response. Think about something you own and car about like a car or computer. you pay attention to the rules of operation and maintenance. And the greater the sense of ownership the greater the sense of care and respect. This is a generalization and I understand all the risks and objections to generalizations, but I know this to be true (and am willing to debate it with anyone) our kids go through our public education system and are not allowed to discover, gain, and maintain their personal literate behavior. They are TOLD what they are supposed to know and what skills they are to have. When that makes no sense to them and continues to make no sense they eventually reject it. And more often than not they have nothing to replace it.
Atwel does a terrific job showing what writing process is and how it belongs to each individual. She makes it exciting, safe, and fun to be a writer. She shows kids they have an authentic voice and that voice has power. As her students embrace that idea they take ownership of their process and with that ownership comes an internal accountability for accuracy and precision in their writing. We see that accuracy and precession in terms of correct spelling, grammar and punctuation. It does not work the other way around; teaching rules out of context does not translate into compliance. Notice what we do to try and make kids genuinely aware of the consequences of drinking and driving. We bring in wrecked cars, live people with smashed and broken bodies, classmates that are doing jail time for drunk driving and other crimes. Telling them it was bad didn’t work. Telling a kid there is something wrong with her writing doesn’t work either.
Genuine ownership is a universal context for discovery, accuracy, and application.
One of the hardest things to deal with in ownership is time lag. Our system assumes all kids at the same age and grade level can do or learn the same things in the same way. That is never correct. But the pressure from parents, administrations, school boards and society in general tries to squeeze those kids like tooth paste that must be put back in the tube. Teachers need a network of support to resist that pressure. And teachers need to resist that pressure to protect their kids.
I realize I did not give any suggestions on what to do to get kids to make the step from recognizing mechanical errors in their writing to following through and not making those errors in the first place. I am a big believer in philosophy. I think we, teachers, must learn to articulate why we believe things as much as what we believe. However, philosophers tend to deny the realities of life for the beauty of theoretical. That’s a mistake too.
Here’s something any teacher can do at any age or grade level. Plus its name will impress or startle some skeptics giving the teacher a little more time to show what’s going on
Help your kids create a “rubric” for their class that will cover grading writing, evaluating writing, and projecting the purpose and effects of writing to an audience.
Start by selecting some pieces of writing (I suggest three but more is OK) that is within the range or comprehension and interest of your students. Select these pieces by what they contain. That is find pieces that are high quality in content and form. But also select pieces that have flaws. Little flaws like typo’s or omissions, and larger flaws like spelling, mechanics, organization, details, clarity, punctuation, and fluency.
Photocopy the pieces and give each student a copy of each piece. Then instruct the students to grade the writing. Ask them to give the writing an “A”, “B”, “C”, “D”, or “F”. But they have to have a specific reason/s for the grade and they have to articulate those reasons.
What will happen is they will find mistakes (spelling, grammar, punctuation, organization, details, clarity, sense of audience, and fluency) in the writing. Eventually they will also find merit in the writing – ideas, articulation, creativity, risk taking, and sense of audience. As the students speak to the reasons for a grade write them down on the board. You may have to nudge or massage the reasons but you can easily get the kids to agree.
You decide on the complexity of the rubric. Make it as simple or sophisticated as the kids can handle. You can always rewrite the rubric during the school year as the kids become more sophisticated.
With the rubric you have a student-owned lexicon to work from in dealing with the students’ writing as well as writing you want to study or illustrate. If someone asks, you have an impressive matrix to illustrate the skills and goals of your students as writers. Your rubric is a great equalizer. It is a check-list, if you will, of what the kids know, have accomplished and will accomplish. It is personal and universal at the same time. And since the students created it, its much more likely they will claim it and own it.
Right now, I am in grad school and have been researching about narrative writing. I love teaching the narrative, but as I have read article after article, I am beginning to see a blur about what exactly must be in writing. My main concern as of Tuesday in class was contractions. I know that narratives are supposed to be a bit more informal than persuasive papers or research papers, but I am now wondering why kids can’t use contractions. I feel like the narrative needs to be more expressive and isn’t a contraction expressing the individual self, like saying, “I just couldn’t do it” instead of “I just could not do it.” When I read certain contractions, I just see this certain feeling or attitude in the contraction; however, in formal writing we are taught to not use contractions. Why is this such a big deal to me? I don’t know. It’s just that if there is this big difference between personal and academic writing, then why aren’t contractions valid? I guess I just feel frustrated because when my students ask me why they can’t use them, I don’t have an answer because I JUST DO NOT KNOW!
I was a part of a committee who screened prospective student teachers for next year. One of the student papers I read was a research paper written about the teaching of what he refers to as “block lessons” in grammar. His contention was that teachers who teach isolated grammar lessons are doing this for one of two reasons. The first possibility is that the teachers are afraid of trying anything new; the second is that teachers are afraid of questions. He said that teachers rely on workbook answer keys because they do not know how to answer questions without printed answers in front of them. Any student inquiries can be addressed immediately by checking the key. His thought is that teachers are hiding behind grammar as a safety net. I think this is much too harsh and simplistic. Most teachers who teach block grammar lessons are those who really think these lessons help students learn skills they need. Although I was one of these people years ago, I have since learned that students usually forget all of the drills as soon as they take a test, and they continue to make the same mistakes as they write. I agree with his assessment of the futility of isolated grammar lessons, yet I was “disturbed” by his ideas that teachers are lazy and fearful of questions.
Kayla,
Your question and concerns are well founded and I suspect, deep down, you do know the answers. They dig deeply into this complex process we call writing (literate behavior) First, the naturalness you see and read in some student’s writing when they use contractions is in part something called “voice”. In good writing, “voice” is always present and always important. “Voice” is a many layered element of writing expressing the personality of the character in the writing, or the issue being written about. But it is also the personality of the writer and her imperative behind the writing. As often as not, “voice” does not consider the rules. It is about meaning and impact, intentionality, imagery, and sound. Those purposes cannot be controlled by rules of grammar or form. In fact they are harmed by those rules.
Another way to understand “voice” is to read a history text book, or social studies text book, or any text book for that matter. Textbooks are voiceless. They are voiceless on purpose. If not, then they would have life, personality, opinion, interpretation and expression and one or all of those qualities would make them unacceptable in certain parts of the country (Kansas for example) and therefore unsaleable. But that’s another story.
Encourage your student’s to use contractions especially in narrative writing. Narratives without voice are never interesting or important. And they never will be considered good writing.
Now for the professional issue. It’s true that serious, academic writing, and some forms of business writing have some struct rules of form. Those rules are usually idiotic but if the writer is required to work in that world then the rules are necessary. I would argue that good writing is more important than some in-transient rules. A writer that understands that writing is a process, and that she has individual strengths and weaknesses in that process, and that process will ultimately always serve her needs and efforts, does not need to fear or obsess over less significant details like contractions. That sounds like I’m saying process over product will always win. That’s not the issue! It’s process before product. Once the integrity of a piece of writing is established, then the debate over form can take place with fairness. At that point a lot of “so-called rules” become irrelevant.
Write the truth first. Then worry about the details. When a writer owns her writing, she will make decisions about form details and those decisions may not conform to the rules. But because the writer owns her work, her justification for breaking the rules will always (almost) trump the rules.
My advice – don’t teach your student to write to some arbitrary set of standards. Teach them to write to the process of good writing. Time will push aside the foolish and illuminate the important.
Don Hudson, retired high school English teacher
I used to spend too much time and energy focused on rules such as contractions as well as the use of third person only except in narratives. The work my students submitted was flat and definitely lacked a distinctive voice. I asked a couple of the writing professors from SIUE how they handled these rules, and they indicated that they are not bothered by contractions or first person pronouns. I do continue to stress these rules in formal research papers, but for everything else, I find much better results with the more informal approach. Students feel more relaxed about their writing, and I am getting some really engaging work from some of them. (I wish I could say all of them:( Like you, Kayla, I cannot always answer the questions students ask about why some of these rules are important, so I just tell them I don’t know, but I try to hazzard an educated guess. At this point, I am not bothered by contractions or first person pronouns, but I must admit that the use of second person pronouns in writing still bothers me.
A few years ago I was invited to participate in a collaboration between several school districts and the local technical college. We were developing a joint credit program. If approved, certain basic studies classes in the high school would earn dual credit at the technical school. English, math and science classes were the starting points.
At this meeting almost immediately an English teacher from the tech school got up and began a not to subtle tirade against the high school teachers about their not teaching grammar , spelling and punctuation. She said things like, “What are you people doing out there? When those kids come into my classes they are lost. They don’t know a noun from a verb, or present tense from past.” She went on like this for several minutes.
When done it was silent! Heads down, a few feet shuffling, and a paper rustled here and there.
Finally, the chairwoman of the committee spoke,”Ok, let’s move on to credit considerations.”
“Hold on!” I interrupted and turned to the English teacher, “Do realize you are telling every teacher in this room they are not teaching grammar? There are a couple principals and a superintendent sitting on this committee and you are charging their staffs with not doing their jobs. Where do you get that from? From some kids that do a poor job writing in your class? I can tell you right now and more importantly I can prove it, that every teacher in this meeting teaches grammar and has been for a long time. And that includes you. Right now you are teaching remedial grammar I’m sure. And you are not having any better success than we are. So a good question becomes, why not? The answer to that question is not do we teach grammar or how do we teach grammar, but HOW is grammar learned? And don’t tell me I’m just being clever with words.”
“Well…no…I didn’t mean you weren’t teaching…”
“Yes you did! And you are frustrated. You want somebody to blame. Just like parents,school boards and administrators want someone to blame. Well there is someone to blame, and it is us teachers. But it’s not for your reasons. We’ve been tricked or forced into the mind set that there is a one-method-fits-all- methods for teaching “skills” like grammar, spelling and punctuation. We need to back up a little bit and take a look at what we want and what we do to get it, We need to understand grammar better; what is it, where does it come from, how does it work, how do we make it work. and most importantly how do we learn it. Let’s try some rationality for a change.”
Again the meeting got quiet. Finally the chairwoman said, “OK, let’s move on in the agenda?” and the whole incident seemed pushed aside and forgotten. But it wasn’t. For the rest of that school year principals and superintendents from all the schools involved in the collaboration project called me and asked me to speak to committees, councils, and groups of parents about how grammar is learned.
Needless to say, not everyone jumped on the bandwagon. But for one of the few times the debate was held on level ground.
Yes, grammar is important. Let’s learn how its learned especially since it seems it is learned much differently from how its taught.
In her book _Wonderous Words,_ Katie Ray makes a distinction worth thinking about–the difference between a perscriptive and a descriptive grammar. I would argue we were all taught a perscriptive grammar. We were given perscriptions like “don’t start a sentence with and”–various rules to follow. We were told, probably have even said this ourselves, that you have to learn the rules before you can break them.
Writer’s, however, make decsions and use language, use grammar to help express whatever it is they need to express. They USE grammar as a tool; they are not boxed in by perscriptive rules.
What Katie Ray suggests is that we look at and describe what writers do. The rules do not come first. Meaning comes first. The more fluent we become in describing the mechanical mmanuevers writers make, and the more we practice the craft of writing ourselves with our students, the more grammar we will know.
Learning grammatical rules does not mean that one can write, never has. Grammar instruction in the name of taching writing is a waste of time. When we consider the questions my dad raised above…how is grammar learned, we might remember that grammar tries to describe lanuage use not perscribe it.
Jeff
Prescriptive grammar can be found in Warriner’s. I never had one in my classroom because it didn’t help.
Descriptive grammar can be found in Webster’s Dictionary of English Usage. My copy is heavily used because I found that it did help. Rather than have someone tell me “you can’t begin a sentence with ‘and’”, find out what writers have done down through the ages. Writers have no problem at all starting with and. I wonder who first made such an observation?
Don’s experience with the outraged tech teacher is typical; his admonition to look at the real problem was needed. How does grammar get taught? By usage is what I learned. I never had success teaching any grammatical concept to the class. I got bored just doing it. I never got tired of reading and commenting on papers where the concept was used.
If you don’t have a copy of the Webster’s, check one out. You can find a used copy on A Libris, I’ll bet. If you don’t already check out that site, it’s great for buying used books of any kind.
I’ve been struggling with an idea that seems to be too complex for me to express. But what the heck! I’ll give it a try here.
I watch the television show “Dog Whisperer”. I am growing into thinking there is more going on with this show than just teaching people how to gain control and maintain control of their dogs.
For me its fascinating to listen to the host, Caesar Milan, use language. Born a native speaker of Spanish his English is excellent but not perfect. But that’s OK -which raises a question in me.
Why is he allowed to use “broken English” on a regularly produced, world-wide media event?
Don’t misunderstand me, I have no problem with what he’s doing. I understand him perfectly and I find nothing offensive or irritating in his presentation. In fact, his, what some “purists” would call “broken English” that seems to be more powerful and meaningful than standard, correct English.
Here’s an example. Caesar frequently uses a phrase, “You see, he is dog. He behaves dog, thinks dog, and reacts dog. He is not human so to help him you have to bring out and accept dog in him. That is where trust will start.”
In correct English, the way Caesar uses the noun dog is incorrect because there is no article preceding the noun. In Spanish, the concept of dog does not need, or at least not need the same article, as English does.
When I go back and write Caesar’s phrase in standard English, it is not as powerful. The way he uses the word “dog” makes my brain work differently than if he said in in standard English. His way is deeper, richer, and more instructive. He makes me feel the process of dog and not just the object. So now I have several questions. Is he doing this on purpose because he knows there is greater strength in his Spanish syntax than in English? Is it just his level of mastery of English? The producers of the television show don’t seemed concerned about this, why is that? If this were a classroom, someone would be correcting his usage.
For his purpose, Caesar’s Spanish syntax is more appropriate and meaningful than standard English. So that raises another question. Who gets to decide what is proper usage of language and what are the rules for making that decision?
All my life I’ve been told this is the right way to use language and this is not! But in the real world I live in those right and wrong ways are not consistent and in fact “wrong ways” often become acceptable if not “right ways”. What always becomes a greater instructor of language usage is need, purpose, and meaning. Are we, teachers, swimming up stream in the river language rules? The French are fanatical about this. At one time, publishing common vernacular was subject to monetary fines. At one time it was forbidden to use the words McDonald’s and hamburger. in France. The pressure of common need and purpose has overthrown those rules. What does that tell us about the dynamics of the life of language?
Because of that idea, what does it say about grammar, language usage, and literate behavior? Does it inform differently our notion of grammar, how its learned, and how its taught?
For me it does! Like Larry, I never had Warriner’s in my classroom but I did have “The Elements of Style” (E.B. White and Wm. Strunk) And like Larry, my copy was well worn through use.
Mr. Hudson, you raise some intriguing points. I had never considered the language used by Caesar in his show because, like you, I understand his meaning quite clearly. By using phrases like “He is dog,” there is much more emphatic expression present. I think we tend to romanticize the use of English by someone who is not a native English speaker. We are fascinated by the expressiveness and sometimes even the struggle to convey the message in a language not native to that person. In terms of proper grammar, we are much more demanding of our English speaking students. I do not remember much of what I was taught in school in terms of grammar usage, but I do remember a lot of memorization. Honestly, I did not really have a grasp on the proper usage and rules of our language until I had to teach it. I spent years teaching isolated grammar lessons to junior high students who promptly forgot most of my lessons after they took the tests. Now I try to use their writings to find concerns that need to be addressed. Here is my question, though. When I put examples on the projector with the mistakes they often make in writing, they quickly recognize the errors and correct them; however, when the next assignment is submitted, the same errors are there. Why can students recognize mistakes on the board, but not the same errors in their own work? How do I get them to become more self-editing?
Karen, Like you, for a long time, I did not grasp how the lack of progress or recognize the breakdown between my student’s writing skills and my instruction of “rules of grammar” was a big part of a big problem. I thought the blame was on the kids. Because I was lucky enough to get involved in the National Writing Project I was given a different point of view on which to consider writing and skills like grammar.
Way back in the early 1970′s, the Bay Area Writing Project (the birth place of the National Writing Project) conducted a study on grammar instruction. The study involved about 3000 people and looked at formal instruction in grammar and application of that instruction in real world writing situations. The results game back that only 20% of the participants showed any residual application from their grammar instruction to their own real writing needs.
Now a whole lot of assumptions can be made from this. And a lot of inquires should follow it up. One assumption that deserves deep investigation is “Why are we only teaching to 20% of our students?”
I, also, never got the connection between grammar skills and drills and writing. When I became a teacher, out of stubbornness born of confusion and mistrust, I refused to repeat the process that failed with me. That caused regular difficulty with my supervisors and me. And I was even more powerless because I did not have an argument or explanation to replace the ones I was rejecting. Until I started learning about writing, writing process and literate behavior.
If you would like I can give you a list of about 100 books yon can read (I have read them) that look at writing, writing process, and the things that work and don’t work, and why.
But since you mentioned junior high students, I will suggest only one book – Nanci Atwell’s “In the Middle”.
My reason for suggesting this one book is because Atwell addresses your concerns directly and from a writing process perspective. Your question as to why kids don’t apply what they “learned” to their writing is central and fundamental. The quick answer is ownership. Writers that don’t own their writing and their writing process also don’t need to own or know the maintenance procedures. This is not a glib response. Think about something you own and car about like a car or computer. you pay attention to the rules of operation and maintenance. And the greater the sense of ownership the greater the sense of care and respect. This is a generalization and I understand all the risks and objections to generalizations, but I know this to be true (and am willing to debate it with anyone) our kids go through our public education system and are not allowed to discover, gain, and maintain their personal literate behavior. They are TOLD what they are supposed to know and what skills they are to have. When that makes no sense to them and continues to make no sense they eventually reject it. And more often than not they have nothing to replace it.
Atwel does a terrific job showing what writing process is and how it belongs to each individual. She makes it exciting, safe, and fun to be a writer. She shows kids they have an authentic voice and that voice has power. As her students embrace that idea they take ownership of their process and with that ownership comes an internal accountability for accuracy and precision in their writing. We see that accuracy and precession in terms of correct spelling, grammar and punctuation. It does not work the other way around; teaching rules out of context does not translate into compliance. Notice what we do to try and make kids genuinely aware of the consequences of drinking and driving. We bring in wrecked cars, live people with smashed and broken bodies, classmates that are doing jail time for drunk driving and other crimes. Telling them it was bad didn’t work. Telling a kid there is something wrong with her writing doesn’t work either.
Genuine ownership is a universal context for discovery, accuracy, and application.
One of the hardest things to deal with in ownership is time lag. Our system assumes all kids at the same age and grade level can do or learn the same things in the same way. That is never correct. But the pressure from parents, administrations, school boards and society in general tries to squeeze those kids like tooth paste that must be put back in the tube. Teachers need a network of support to resist that pressure. And teachers need to resist that pressure to protect their kids.
I realize I did not give any suggestions on what to do to get kids to make the step from recognizing mechanical errors in their writing to following through and not making those errors in the first place. I am a big believer in philosophy. I think we, teachers, must learn to articulate why we believe things as much as what we believe. However, philosophers tend to deny the realities of life for the beauty of theoretical. That’s a mistake too.
Here’s something any teacher can do at any age or grade level. Plus its name will impress or startle some skeptics giving the teacher a little more time to show what’s going on
Help your kids create a “rubric” for their class that will cover grading writing, evaluating writing, and projecting the purpose and effects of writing to an audience.
Start by selecting some pieces of writing (I suggest three but more is OK) that is within the range or comprehension and interest of your students. Select these pieces by what they contain. That is find pieces that are high quality in content and form. But also select pieces that have flaws. Little flaws like typo’s or omissions, and larger flaws like spelling, mechanics, organization, details, clarity, punctuation, and fluency.
Photocopy the pieces and give each student a copy of each piece. Then instruct the students to grade the writing. Ask them to give the writing an “A”, “B”, “C”, “D”, or “F”. But they have to have a specific reason/s for the grade and they have to articulate those reasons.
What will happen is they will find mistakes (spelling, grammar, punctuation, organization, details, clarity, sense of audience, and fluency) in the writing. Eventually they will also find merit in the writing – ideas, articulation, creativity, risk taking, and sense of audience. As the students speak to the reasons for a grade write them down on the board. You may have to nudge or massage the reasons but you can easily get the kids to agree.
You decide on the complexity of the rubric. Make it as simple or sophisticated as the kids can handle. You can always rewrite the rubric during the school year as the kids become more sophisticated.
With the rubric you have a student-owned lexicon to work from in dealing with the students’ writing as well as writing you want to study or illustrate. If someone asks, you have an impressive matrix to illustrate the skills and goals of your students as writers. Your rubric is a great equalizer. It is a check-list, if you will, of what the kids know, have accomplished and will accomplish. It is personal and universal at the same time. And since the students created it, its much more likely they will claim it and own it.
Right now, I am in grad school and have been researching about narrative writing. I love teaching the narrative, but as I have read article after article, I am beginning to see a blur about what exactly must be in writing. My main concern as of Tuesday in class was contractions. I know that narratives are supposed to be a bit more informal than persuasive papers or research papers, but I am now wondering why kids can’t use contractions. I feel like the narrative needs to be more expressive and isn’t a contraction expressing the individual self, like saying, “I just couldn’t do it” instead of “I just could not do it.” When I read certain contractions, I just see this certain feeling or attitude in the contraction; however, in formal writing we are taught to not use contractions. Why is this such a big deal to me? I don’t know. It’s just that if there is this big difference between personal and academic writing, then why aren’t contractions valid? I guess I just feel frustrated because when my students ask me why they can’t use them, I don’t have an answer because I JUST DO NOT KNOW!
I was a part of a committee who screened prospective student teachers for next year. One of the student papers I read was a research paper written about the teaching of what he refers to as “block lessons” in grammar. His contention was that teachers who teach isolated grammar lessons are doing this for one of two reasons. The first possibility is that the teachers are afraid of trying anything new; the second is that teachers are afraid of questions. He said that teachers rely on workbook answer keys because they do not know how to answer questions without printed answers in front of them. Any student inquiries can be addressed immediately by checking the key. His thought is that teachers are hiding behind grammar as a safety net. I think this is much too harsh and simplistic. Most teachers who teach block grammar lessons are those who really think these lessons help students learn skills they need. Although I was one of these people years ago, I have since learned that students usually forget all of the drills as soon as they take a test, and they continue to make the same mistakes as they write. I agree with his assessment of the futility of isolated grammar lessons, yet I was “disturbed” by his ideas that teachers are lazy and fearful of questions.
Kayla,
Your question and concerns are well founded and I suspect, deep down, you do know the answers. They dig deeply into this complex process we call writing (literate behavior) First, the naturalness you see and read in some student’s writing when they use contractions is in part something called “voice”. In good writing, “voice” is always present and always important. “Voice” is a many layered element of writing expressing the personality of the character in the writing, or the issue being written about. But it is also the personality of the writer and her imperative behind the writing. As often as not, “voice” does not consider the rules. It is about meaning and impact, intentionality, imagery, and sound. Those purposes cannot be controlled by rules of grammar or form. In fact they are harmed by those rules.
Another way to understand “voice” is to read a history text book, or social studies text book, or any text book for that matter. Textbooks are voiceless. They are voiceless on purpose. If not, then they would have life, personality, opinion, interpretation and expression and one or all of those qualities would make them unacceptable in certain parts of the country (Kansas for example) and therefore unsaleable. But that’s another story.
Encourage your student’s to use contractions especially in narrative writing. Narratives without voice are never interesting or important. And they never will be considered good writing.
Now for the professional issue. It’s true that serious, academic writing, and some forms of business writing have some struct rules of form. Those rules are usually idiotic but if the writer is required to work in that world then the rules are necessary. I would argue that good writing is more important than some in-transient rules. A writer that understands that writing is a process, and that she has individual strengths and weaknesses in that process, and that process will ultimately always serve her needs and efforts, does not need to fear or obsess over less significant details like contractions. That sounds like I’m saying process over product will always win. That’s not the issue! It’s process before product. Once the integrity of a piece of writing is established, then the debate over form can take place with fairness. At that point a lot of “so-called rules” become irrelevant.
Write the truth first. Then worry about the details. When a writer owns her writing, she will make decisions about form details and those decisions may not conform to the rules. But because the writer owns her work, her justification for breaking the rules will always (almost) trump the rules.
My advice – don’t teach your student to write to some arbitrary set of standards. Teach them to write to the process of good writing. Time will push aside the foolish and illuminate the important.
Don Hudson, retired high school English teacher
I used to spend too much time and energy focused on rules such as contractions as well as the use of third person only except in narratives. The work my students submitted was flat and definitely lacked a distinctive voice. I asked a couple of the writing professors from SIUE how they handled these rules, and they indicated that they are not bothered by contractions or first person pronouns. I do continue to stress these rules in formal research papers, but for everything else, I find much better results with the more informal approach. Students feel more relaxed about their writing, and I am getting some really engaging work from some of them. (I wish I could say all of them:( Like you, Kayla, I cannot always answer the questions students ask about why some of these rules are important, so I just tell them I don’t know, but I try to hazzard an educated guess. At this point, I am not bothered by contractions or first person pronouns, but I must admit that the use of second person pronouns in writing still bothers me.