Kudos to the grammarians who have collectively either corrected the errors in my worksheet, or elucidated the debates that surround the particular usages contained therein. I'm glad I'm not the only one out there who thinks grammar is fun--not just to puzzle over, but to discuss.

My colleague and I distributed the worksheet as an informal diagnostic, a way of gauging just where on the grammar curve our students are. What we discovered did not surprise us particularly. I won't discuss details for reasons that should be obvious, but I will say that after ten years of teaching, I am moved to generalize: Most high school students these days are not on the grammar curve at all. The parts of speech are largely mysterious to them; the rules of punctuation and agreement are likewise unfamiliar. Semi-colons, colons, and dashes do not come into play in their writing because they do not know what they are for. Sentence fragments abound because many do not know that a sentence requires a subject and a verb, nor can they tell reliably when something is a subject and when something is a verb. Forget about objects and indirect objects, simple and compound sentences, subordinate clauses and participial phrases: such terminology is Greek to the vast majority of them.

Don't get me wrong. Kids today are as smart, creative, and sharp as ever. Their grammar deficit is not their fault. They can't be blamed for what they were never taught. It's increasingly unfashionable to emphasize grammar and the rules of syntax in school, the reasons ranging from the hang-loose notion that the rules of usage are confining and binding and irrelevant anyway since language is a living, breathing thing, to the feel-good notion that grammar is boring and mind-numbing and kids will be turned off to reading and writing forever if they have to learn it.

What I've found is that kids--and the adults they become--dislike not being able to tell whether what they have written is written correctly, that they recognize on a fundamental level that they have been done a collective disservice by their teachers, and that they are quite eager to learn a skill they know to be crucial to their ability to function effectively as adults in this world.

More power to them, and lots more grammar to come. We'll be devoting at least one class period a week to grammar; I'll post the exercises we do on Critical Mass so readers can play along.

UPDATE: Girl Flip has more.

Disdain for grammar is nothing new! My expensive private school in the early 1970s did teach the very basics, but never got to anything as complex as compound or complex sentence structure (and appropriate punctuation).

Because I was blessed with an innate feeling for language, I did quite well on the SATs, which kind of masked the problem. I knew how correct sentences *felt* to me, but I couldn't explain why they were correct.

I finally learned English grammar thoroughly when I was student teaching English as a Second Language. Yes, as I prepared my lessons a day or two ahead, I finally learned the proper names and concepts of all the grammar I'd instinctively (mostly) gotten correct. This happy event occurred when I was in GRADUATE SCHOOL at the age of **25**.

I'm betting that kids who like puzzles and brainteasers can be attracted to grammar if it is presented in challenging ways. Here's just one technique for high class morale and involvement: Divide class into two teams. Start stopwatch for each team and have one student from each team race up to the blackboard. Hand the student a filing card on which an incorrect sentence is written (like the ones you posted, for example!)

The student copies the sentence on to the board and corrects it. When the student gets it right, (you give the nod of approval), he or she runs to the back of the line and the next student from that team races up, takes next index card, and does the same.

You can give both teams the same sentences on filing cards, but shuffled in different order. Also, have the teams physically at far ends of the blackboard so the kids who are waiting in line can't memorize the correct answers from the other team.

Whichever team gets through all the cards first wins.

During my student teaching days, the senior teacher did this with adult students of English as a Second Language. They were people in their late teens up to their 30's, from countries all over the world. The result? Pandemonium, laughter, intense interest in getting the sentences correct. It was a GREAT exercise.

I'm sure you can think of many, many more. Good luck!

Thinking further about my suggestion, I'm thinking you might have to deputize one student to help you evaluate the sentences. It might be too much for you to be handing out filing cards, judging sentences, and trying to keep a bunch of rowdy adolescents from bouncing off the ceiling! If you did have the two teams working at opposite ends of the blackboard, you'd have to be in two places at once to check the sentences.

And then there'd have to be at least one more of you to keep the kids in line (and to keep them from sneaking over to peek at the other team's sentences, to get an idea of what the other sentences are!)

In my ESL class, the men/boys were impatient to do everything and some tried to get to the head of their team's line, pushing out the women/girls. I remember physically pushing one boy back, really with the kind of affectionate sternness I had used as a babysitter a few years earlier. It was all in fun -- no one was angry -- it was like pushing a little boy back into his place in line!

It was worth the effort -- everyone had a great time, and really, they were focused on getting the sentences correct. What more could we want!

I'm glad I went to a traditional Catholic school. Grammar was beaten into us.

Teaching of Latin or German or both helps to encourage the mastery of arcane concepts like "subordinate clauses." Or, heaven forbid, the "indicative."

David

SAT II Writing prep books contain nice collections of sentences in need of repair.

I think the school systems really owe the students a huge apology these days. I went to a grade school in Wooster, Ohio back in the late 40's and early 50's. We were taught all the parts of speech by the 4th grade and we had to learn to diagram sentences in the 5th and 6th grades. My family then moved to Mount Vernon, Ohio and the diagramming continued. We also had spelling bees and multiplication table races so that we all had to learn the tables up to 15. It absolutely amazes me to see the waitresses at the local diners who have to pull out a calculator to add up the cost of a hamburger and a cup of coffee. What happened to teaching the basics?

One thing you didn't mention is teachers who don't themselves know grammar. My wife taught nearly 30 years ago and is still in contact with the lady who now teaches AP English. New teachers are frequently make non-trivial errors.

Though my wife has occasionally pulled it off, most teachers can't teach what they don't know.

FWIW, our daughter is now a grad student in Classics. She is adamant (and not just because of her field) that everyone should study at least Latin, and preferably Greek too. No way to skip the grammar in those classes.

Taking Latin, even though I didn't learn it adequately well, shored up my purely functional understanding of grammar. It's one of those things I was essentially never taught in school and can handle only due to tremendous amounts of reading.

Is this necessarily the teachers' fault, though? Because I can remember being taught the parts of speech at least three or four times in the K-12 grades. Is it not the student's responsibility to remember what he's learned?

As a teacher of Latin, my 7th grade students frequently approach me and regale me with tales about how they are the only ones in their English classes who understand the rules of English grammar (knowing what a direct object is, what a compound sentence is, and when to use "who" rather than "whom").
As a teacher of History, however, it occurs to me that the failure to teach grammar occurs throughout the departments. Students often feel that the rules they learn in freshman English are applicable only in English classes, since mistakes in their papers for other classes such as History, or in their lab reports, are corrected rarely and not consistently. I count it an odd sort of compliment when a student accuses me of grading "too mean [sic]"--since I am "not an English teacher", I should not reduce their grade for grammatical error. Admittedly, I heard this cry of despair more frequently when I taught college freshmen.

"One thing you didn't mention is teachers who don't themselves know grammar. My wife taught nearly 30 years ago and is still in contact with the lady who now teaches AP English. New teachers are frequently make non-trivial errors."

Marty: can you give some examples please to back this claim up?

Question for all you grammarians:

Why do newspapers not capitalize the P in president when referring to the President of the United States (i.e. The president was in Ohio today)? I would think that this is a specific context where the term "president" can be considered a proper noun since it is merely an abbreviation of his proper-noun title "Presdident of the United States".

Any thoughts?

"Driving along the road, the scenery was beautiful."

The best that can be done with that is to throw it out entirely and start over. I believe it's trying to express the thought that the writer found the scenery beautiful as he was driving along the road.

Perhaps the simplest rewrite would be

"As I was driving along the road, I saw that the scenery was beautiful."

"... I found that ..." is too stodgy.

Or better, to make it more active:

"The scenery was beautiful where I drove along the road."

But roads are where we drive, so that part is unnecessary:

"While I was out driving, I saw beautiful scenery."

You can even omit the comma by reversing the phrases:

"I saw beautiful scenery while I was out driving."

It doesn't always help to try to straighten the nails in a badly-built sentence.

(Mildly obsessed with grammar and writing since about 1990.)

It's not the grammar instruction nor the lack of it that has created poor writing. It is the poor methods that are used to teach language writing.

To be more specific the curriculum used by our schools to teach writing is improperly sequenced. Moreover, two proven methods for teaching writing have been left out altogether. These two methods, it can be argued, are the most successful in assuring a student will not only become proficient in writing but confident as well.

The dictation and what the Europeans call the reproduction have been used by them with great success. Success to the point that many of their students come here to our schools and universities and immediately out perform our students.

By the improper sequencing of teaching tools and the omission of these important two tools we continually discourage and destroy the student's confidence and desire to write. Whether they are pounded with grammar or not, they are then asked to create and write their own ideas far to early in the process. Writing is the most difficult aspect of a language to learn. It is also extremely emotional and personal. When a student is asked to write in a daily journal or write about what he thinks of certain things and ideas, he must write correctly while formulating his ideas. We all know it not to be that easy, but we continue to demand it of our students way too early in the sequence. It discourages them, it makes them question their ability and they just give up.

Of course, there are students who are naturals, and reveal such ability early, but most are not.
The students who are not can be brought to proficiency in writing if proper tools and sequencing are utilized. The naturals will also benefit from proper sequencing and the use of such teaching tools as the dictation and reproduction.

The dictation and the reproduction teach and reenforce grammar, style, syntax, spelling, puntuation, vocabulary, and all aspects of language and the writing of language and turn it all into habit.

Confidence and proficiency in writing can only be fostered in a student with good teaching methods and proper sequencing of those methods.

I've argued for them and correct sequencing to be incorporated into the curriculum everywhere until I have turned blue. English and language teachers in our system are locked into a failed curriculum, even when faced with poor writing and language performance at every level.

Kelly,

The only specific example I remember is our teacher friend moaning that some of the new teachers didn't use apostrophes properly in its and it's. I remember that because apostrophe errors are my pet peeve. She has told me of other problems, but I made no effort to remember specific stories (and I don't).

Professor Walter Williams, Professor of Economics at George Mason University relates the reaction of his grad students to having the spelling, grammar, style, etc., corrected on their papers.

"Professor Williams, this is an economics class, not an English class."

"Yes, and it's conducted in English."

While I guess these discussions are entertaining for the participants, the regular use of the words "grammar" and "grammarians" is misguided. To amplify, I've taken up the multiple uses of the term "grammar" at my own blog: http://faculty.deanza.fhda.edu/jocalo/2004/09/24

While I guess these discussions are entertaining for the participants, the regular use of the words "grammar" and "grammarians" is misguided. To amplify, I've taken up the multiple uses of the term "grammar" at my own blog: http://faculty.deanza.fhda.edu/jocalo/2004/09/24

Eric -
Most newspapers use AP style, which says that the writer should make a proper noun (such as "President") lowercase in a subsequent, stand-alone reference.

-GF

Saw an interesting full page color ad in the current Minnesot Monthly magazine for Concordia College in Moorhead, Minnesota, the headline of which was...

OUR FACULTY ARE OUT THERE.

Isn't "faculty"singular?

What else can you learn at Concordia???

rs

> Isn't "faculty"singular?

In American English, yes. Perhaps Concordia has a secret Anglophila or something.

My daughter is in first grade. How can I check to see that she is being taught the grammar that she should be in each grade. Is there a recommended curriculum? Do you recommend any books or systems on how to teach grammar to one's children