In my work with adults who dropped out of school before earning a college degree, I have found over and over again that they over-edit themselves from the moment they sit down to write.
Is that right? These students are victims of the mistaken belief that grammar lessons must come before writing, rather than grammar being something that is best learned through writing. I saw the high cost of this phenomenon first-hand at the urban community college where I taught writing for eight years, an institution where more than 90 percent of students failed to complete a two-year degree within three years.
The national average is only marginally better at roughly 80 percent. A primary culprit: the required developmental writing classes that focused on traditional grammar instruction. Again and again, I witnessed aspiration gave way to discouragement. In this seven-college system, some 80 percent of the students test into such classes where they can spend up to a year before being asked to write more than a paragraph.
But does it deserve a place in English class today? In , although there is a danger in her simple phrasing, LaBrant offered an eloquent argument about the job of teaching writing: It ought to be unnecessary to say that writing is learned by writing; unfortunately there is need. Hillocks, for example, has shown that isolated direct grammar instruction has negative consequences on students as writers: Teaching Writing as Reflective Practice, George Hillocks NCTE has catalogued the same debates, misunderstandings, and research base: Guideline on Some Questions and Answers about Grammar and Resolution on Grammar Exercises to Teach Speaking and Writing.
If our goal, however, is to teach grammar, then isolated grammar instruction would be justifiable. And thus, isolated direct grammar instruction fails writing instruction because i it too often replaces time better spent reading and writing by students, ii it requires a great deal of instruction related to terminology and systems that a does not transfer to composition and b again consumes huge amounts of classroom time, and iii formal and isolated grammar instruction remains decontextualized for students since grammar like algebra requires abstract reasoning by children and teens who may have not yet reached the level of brain development necessary to navigate or understand the system at the explicit level.
However, the two key points here include the following: we are discussing writing instruction as the primary goal and we are confronting isolated direct grammar instruction. So let me be very clear: No one in literacy suggests not teaching grammar; the question is not if , but how and when. Connected to the context and when of direct grammar instruction is the importance of balanced literacy , which calls for literacy teachers to incorporate any practice including sentence diagramming, including grammar exercises that helps individual students which may rub against generalizations found in the research base : And finally, many people have a distorted nostalgia about why they have learned so-called standard English.
So I return to LaBrant , and her plea that teaching young people to write is about goals and weighing what truly matters: There are many ways of writing English, and the teacher of composition must know, before he thinks of means for teaching, what kind of writing he thinks important to teach.
Like this: Like Loading Pingback: Thoughts on Diagramming English Pingback: Stephen King: On Teaching the becoming radical. Thomas - Garn Press. Leave a Reply Cancel reply Enter your comment here Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:. Email required Address never made public. Name required. Follow Following. Sign me up. Already have a WordPress. Diagramming Sentences with English Language Learners. Get the Entire BusyTeacher Library:.
Dramatically Improve the Way You Teach. Save hours of lesson preparation time with the Entire BusyTeacher Library. That's 4, pages filled with thousands of practical activities and tips that you can start using today. Popular articles like this. Questions and Short Answers. Teaching Ideas. Please wait Diagramming Sentences with English Language Learners by Stacy Zeiger 17, views To many, diagramming sentences is an outdated practice that offers few benefits for students.
When children are taught how to properly take a sentence apart and diagram it, they can then visually see how each word works together. This process encourages them to work diligently to write well because they have learned how important it is for words to be put in the correct order and place.
Learning how to diagram correctly gives you the ability to recognize when your own written English is incorrect, which saves time on editing after completing your composition. Since diagramming sentences teaches the correct way sentences should be put together, children will also be learning how to articulate their thoughts properly. This is a skill that will benefit them throughout their life and can make a great impact on their future success. Since diagramming teaches how sentences are assembled accurately, you become aware of the errors in your speech.
In my opinion, there are two major reasons mistakes found in compositions are not caught at first glance.
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