Teaching Grammar in the Context of Writing

Abstract

As Jeffreyt nuntsman (1983) puts it, was thought to discipline the mind and the soul at the same (59). I was even more surprised to discover that a major publisher of textbooks used in home schooling and in fundamentalist schools describes a certain middle grade grammar and writing program (God's Gift of Language Series) by saying that Grammar is taught with the purpose of making clear to the students the orderly structure of their language, a picture of God's orderly plan for the world and for their lives (A Beka Book, 1996, Home School Catalogue, 36). Clearly some people think that grammar should be taught as a formal system because it represents order, authority, and something that-to them-seems absolute, without question (Chapman 1986; Holderer 1995; Gaddy, Hall, and Marzano 1996). With such deep-seated beliefs, some parents and community members argue vociferously for teaching grammar as a system-formally, and not necessarily in conjunction with writing. They argue for grammar on what, for them, are moral and religious grounds. And when other stakeholders in education realize that grammar is not being taught as a formal system and that students are not necessarily mastering some of the conventions of edited written English, it is easy for them to simply assume a causal relationship and believe that English teachers are not doing their duty when they don't teach grammar as a complete subject. As professionals teaching the English language arts, we too are sometimes convinced that we learned practical things about sentence structure, style, and editing from doing exercises in our grammar books; for instance, I can tell you very specifically some of what I learned that has helped me as a writer (though I'll admit I only needed one or two semesters of intensive grammar study to reap its potential benefits, not the six semesters to which I and my classmates were subjected). Because some of us are convinced we benefitted at least somewhat from the formal study of grammar, it can be difficult for community members and English teachers alike to believe what decades of grammar studies tell us: that in general, the teaching of grammar does not serve any practical purpose for most students (Hillocks and Smith 1991). It does not improve reading, speaking, writing, or even editing, for the majority of students-nor does the teaching of English grammar necessarily make it easier for students to learn the structure of a foreign language (indeed, many students who have studied English grammar consciously learn the structure of English for the first time when studying a foreign language).

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