I give up.
The problems I have with the article, "I Guess I'd Better Watch My English" by Michael W. Smith, Julie Cheville, and George Hillocks, Jr. are substantive.
Now if we agree with Hartwell on the opening page (263) that the term 'grammar' is used to mean many different things, we have a problem if the authors do not spend special time identifying just how we are going to identify the term. Thankfully, they do just that. "One meaning of grammar is the systematic description, analysis, and articulation of the formal patterns of a language" (264). Fair enough. So that is what we are talking about. The article goes on to identify traditional school grammar (TSG) as combining "the explanatory function of grammar wih prescription." (263). We are thus dealing with grammar in this context. I can follow this readily enough.
The first interesting point is noted early on, on page 264. "In short, current tests place a high emphasis on the standard of correctness that TSG is designed to provide." I agree with that, on the surface. However, I have a question here: If TSG is rigorously tested for - and we can verify that the state of Ohio DOES rigorously test for TSG - then why is the grammar so BAD?
Think about that problem (which is not a fault of the article writers). Is the problem with the students, or with the teachers? Or with the system of education in the state of Ohio, which, even with the standardized testing here, varies so much from school district to school district so as to be virtually incomprehensible from one place to the next?
This begs a follow up question: Are we - the future teachers in this class - supposed to correct this?
I don't see how one semester of college writing can overcome twelve years of teacher incompetence/student inattention/incorrect administration of pedagogy (take your pick as to your cause). And yet, I don't see how I can expect any student to hand in a paper loaded with grammatical inconsistencies and NOT give it a horrible grade.
The article does attempt to address my concerns, but I have a few problems with how this is done. One of the biggest problems seems to be with the studies themselves that were conducted:
"The most compelling of these [studies] was done by Elley, Barham, Lamb, and Wyllie in 1976. They considered the achievement of New Zealand high school students as they moved through the third, fourth and fifth forms (Grades 9-11) and in a follow-up 1 year after the completion of instruction." (266)Interesting. High school students. In the realm of college teaching, while the pedagogy behind these studies may still be valid, I don't see a connection for our classes here. We are in a different phase. The students are understood to already have these grammatical building blocks in their realm of knowledge. Am I to re-teach the students? Is that what the study findings are telling me? Or, to move on to more substantive writing work, am I to let them proceed with incorrect grammar practices that will be harshly graded down the line in other, more advanced classes, perhaps not even in the field of English? Will I be letting down my students if I criticize them harshly on their grammatical structures, or will I be doing them a disservice if I do not?
The inclusion of the Black English Vernacular (BEV) is interesting as a point, but also without relevance to our situation at this campus, in the coming semester. We are not going to be teaching BEV in our classrooms - are we? If so, I have a lot of learning to do over the break.
All kidding aside, I see a certain problem with subjectiveness in this article. What is a valid grammar set for English? Is BEV valid in my classroom? This article argues that it is, and offers up the work of one of the three authors as evidence. This brings me to a side note: should an author of a scholarly article quote his or her own work when defending the positions in the article? Is that not a little bit like saying "It is correct because I said so earlier."? Even if there is some sort of empirical data that you have collected, is it not better to find other sources for the data than your own? Hillocks is referred to at least three times in this article.
The article does attempt to offer a solution for my grammar blues; namely alternative grammars, such as Structural Grammars and Transformational-Generative Grammar (267 for both) and the Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) described on pages 269-270 of the article. In the description of these models for alternative grammars, I feel like I have to reject the structural grammar model out of hand immediately. This model eschews using meaning as a mode for analysis, citing the existence of multiple meanings for words. However, that is a practice that I believe was successful in my own personal experience, with one caveat: it is not the ONLY method employed to learn proper grammatical structure. And maybe this is the entire point: in the English language, perhaps one model of grammar study is not enough. In the follow-through for this article's arguments, I found Halliday's work with clauses (270) useful. Here we have a way to study grammar that I can get behind. Even Halladay's discussion of mental process (271) makes sense to me. I can use this to interpret how my students are (mis)using clauses in their writing, and correct them accurately if need be.
This is good; this is progress, in my mind, towards understanding the grammar "elephant" sitting in the (class)room. But it does not solve MY problem: how can one college writing teacher-to-be pass a student that has little or no understanding of how the English language is constructed?
The answer: I don't know.
What I do know is this: as much as some educators and linguistic scientists hate to admit it, understanding proper grammatical structure IS important in the everyday world. People ARE judged by their use of the language in social, business, or any interactive setting. This is not just a paradigm troubling English users, either - this is a worldwide phenomenon. Ask any student of a foreign language how they are regarded when speaking to a native speaker in that language, and they make grave errors in grammar. I remember quite vividly being ridiculed by several Russian students for my attempts to speak that language years ago. My grammar was flawed; therefore I was not to be taken seriously.
I also find it very interesting that, of all the articles we've read, the one article written not by an educator or linguistic scientist, but a creative writer, stressed the need for correct grammar. Mem Fox, in her article "Notes from the Battlefield: Towards a Theory of Why People Write", states correct language usage is essential in any writing:
Such power doesn't come from nowhere. It comes from practicing writing for real reasons. It comes from having read powerful writing. It comes from having been taught, and I mean taught, the basic skills of spelling and punctuation in the context of real writing events (123, emphasis hers).
On the one hand, we have a slew of educators and linguistic scientists telling us that grammar is all but inconsequential to the underlying message. There may be some truth to that. On the other hand, there is someone who makes their bread and butter using the language, the whole language, and nothing but the language telling us the opposite. Bravo, Ms. Fox.
However, when it comes to grammar, I am still without an answer for how to approach this in my class.
The white flag is up.
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