This blog on nobody’s favorite subject derives from a draft introduction to a book tentatively titled Write Rightly, which I have decided not to write because no one cares about good grammar, much less a book about it. Proof: Las Cruces Sun-News reporter Justin Garcia recently discounted—defensively?—one tool-of-the-trade: “I'm not a stickler for grammar … (as you may know from reading anything I write).” If grammar does not count in a writing profession, where does it count? Not in public education, which gives it lip-service. Not in politics, in which culture-warrior politicians who once deplored the lack of basics, including bad grammar, now have many other gripes and would offend their base if they griped about something regarded as elitist like good grammar. At 82, writing the book would waste the time and energy left me. I prefer to walk my dogs.
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I had a good public-school education in grammar and composition, and a strong background in the literacy which comes from reading widely. Yet when, in the mid-60s, I became a teacher in a preparatory school with a traditional approach to English, I had to learn the fundamentals and the finer points, from A to Z, of grammar and composition. I taught myself the terminology and its applications, and their uses in parsing sentences or analyzing texts. I had to learn the material at night which I had assigned my students that day and which I had to teach the next; at the same time, I had to learn how to teach it. In little time and forever after, I had grammar down pat for personal, pedagogical, professional, and professorial uses. Even fellow scholars complimented my writing.
In the mid-70s, when I was an instructor at the University of Colorado, Colorado Springs campus, the English Department chair gave me choices of any two courses. But he hoped that I would teach the introduction to English literature; I agreed. I wanted to teach remedial writing and emphasize grammar; he agreed and assured me that I could teach it regardless of class size. To the seven students who showed up, I detailed the course: in-class instruction, after-class assignments of material to learn (memorize) and exercises to do, in-class discussion of the material and exercises, in-class quizzes on the material (graded)—and repeat. I said that I allowed only enough time on quizzes for students to write correct answers because, if they had to stop and think, they did not know and would not use what they needed to know and use when writing. The next day, four students showed up and remained until the end of the course. As their competence grew, their confidence grew. Within weeks, other students were asking me whether I would be teaching the class next term!
Those were the last years in which grammar was still regarded as an essential element of public education, as it had been for the previous two-and-a-half millennia. For, in the general retreat from formal, structured, teacher-centered instruction mainly since the Vietnam War, grammar has suffered inordinately in withdrawal. Expectations of “good grammar” continued but were mocked. “Grammar police” criticized Marlboro cigarette ads stating that Marlboros “taste good like [not “as”] cigarettes should”; Marlboro retorted with a clever ad, “good grammar or good taste.” This exchange illustrates one reason why grammar has acquired a bad reputation: grammarians have harassed others about their grammar. If I am introduced to people as an English teacher or professor, some say that they are going to have to watch their grammar. I sometimes wince, sometimes chuckle, at the T-shirt threat, “I am silently correcting your grammar."
Still, much of the public has continued to expect teachers to teach the basics, including grammar, so departments of education, school boards, superintendents, and principals give it lip-service and sprinkle it throughout the required English curriculums. After 50 years of decline in teaching grammar, English teachers, especially elementary school teachers, do not know it, only go through the motions of teaching it, and feel anxious or, when challenged, defensive about this area of their ignorance. Their defense: good grammar does not ensure good writing. True, but bad grammar makes for bad writing, calls attention to itself and away from its message, and shames the writer.
Locally, Las Cruces superintendents Stan Rounds and Karen Trujillo admitted to me that no elementary school teacher knows grammar, but neither cared. Given decades of decline to a stable mediocrity in the reading proficiency of Las Cruces students, their indifference is perverse. The emphasis which grammar places on language contributes to proficiency in reading as well as writing. It is more important to students from weak than strong backgrounds. If the systematic study of grammar and composition is not part of students’ education to achieve proficiency, the question is, what is? Or does proficiency not matter? (I interview Ralph Ramos later this month.)
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This account of the status of grammar in public education makes three points:
One, grammar can be taught. Teachers can teach it to themselves; they can teach it to their students; and both will feel better about having mastered a basic skill for communicating with others. I promise.
Two, to teach grammar, teachers must be thoroughly competent—knowledgeable and skilled—, fully confident in teaching it, and passionately committed to the work to make sure that students “get it.” They have a long way to go to get there.
Three, methods of teaching differ. My method is not everyone’s. I do not care; I am pragmatic; whatever works, works. What I shall say on behalf of my “boot camp,” bit-by-bit approach is that, within a few days, my students got satisfaction from mastering each bit and confidence in their increasing mastery of grammar. They also learned that their mastery rewarded their efforts. They also trusted my teaching because it made clear what had been covered superficially, if at all, and left murky and a matter of anxious guesswork.
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My purpose in urging the teaching of grammar is not to encourage grammar-based micro-aggressions. It is not to resurrect a presumably defunct subject to waste teachers’ and students’ time and energy. It is to urge teachers to teach it so that students can achieve greater mastery of the English language to serve their purposes.
So I have in mind one or two more blogs more technical in detail on grammar. Their purpose will be to show that grammar is not the bugbear which teachers of English make it out to be and which students fear because tests hold them accountable for what their teachers have failed to teach. Sentence fragment? Subject-verb agreement? Who-whom?
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