Grammar Alive! Chapters 1 and 2

We have traditionally taught grammar without appreciating the fact that they already have a full grammar system--an ability to organize language meaningfully--in their heads. Consequently, the grammar of the classroom has often seemed to students like so much unnecessary jargon they have to learn about a language they already know. (xiv)

It is through instruction like this that I believe that I have such a weak connection to grammar in the classroom. I was lucky in that I was raised in a family that spoke pretty darn close to Standard English, and did not have to struggle to be able to think, or write in that voice. The terminology never seemed that important to me because I never saw a practical use for it (not having then the plan to teach English in school) and it all seemed somewhat abstract, confusing, and used names that neither made sense, or were easily remembered. In addition to all of this, as I recall, instruction on the subject pretty much stopped after about 8th grade. Needless to say, I avoided having to teach grammar lessons like the plague while doing my student teaching.

Like many people, I am not scared to admit my own deficiencies, but that is only the first step, secondly you must face them head on. This is why I have decided to better understand my foe. I don't want to continue to have an Achilles heel or, worse yet, pass my own weakness on to my students. Time to man up and take my place back in Mr. Sawyers 8th grade English class; pick up my notebook with a new-found drive to comprehend.

After joining the NCTE and ordering a professional development packet for grammar, I started reading a book included that is entitled: Grammar Alive! And thus far I have been really impressed. It looks at grammar through a different lens than I haven't ever seen through before. It is not a book set around the rules for each part of language like all the other grammar books I have ever seen/purchased in the past. In fact they recommend doing the furthest thing from that in your classroom:

...it is not language that is the crucial issue here; it is people, and the match between the language they use and the circumstances they find themselves in. Language is "correct" or "incorrect" depending on the circumstances. (11)

Grammar, according to this book, is best taught through using authentic texts (i.e. newspapers, studied texts, student writing etc.), while simultaneously making explicit features of language that the students, and indeed any English speaker already implicitly knows.

The book argues that as English teachers, we should have three primary goals in our classroom:

A.) Every student, from every background, will complete school with the ability to communicate comfortably and effectively in both spoken and written Standard English, with an awareness of when use of Standard English is appropriate.

B.) Every student will complete school with the ability to analyze the grammatical structure of sentences within English texts, using grammatical terminology correctly and demonstrating knowledge of how sentence-level grammatical structure contributes to the coherence of paragraphs and texts.

C.) Every student will complete school with an understanding of, and appreciation for, the natural variation that occurs in language across time, social situation, and social group. While recognizing the need for mastering Standard English, students will also demonstrate an understanding of the equality in the expressive capacity and linguistic structure among a range of language varieties both vernacular and standard, as well as an understanding of language-based prejudice.

Through activities that use contrastive analysis (comparing texts from multiple different genres, defining what features/conventions each asks for specifically) and an familiarity with the process of code-switching (choosing between language varieties, or dialects, depending on the time, place, audience, and communicative purpose). These kinds of activities lead students to an overt awareness of not only themselves and their own identity through language, but of the society in which they live, its values, prejudices, and peculiarities.

More to come...