A couple of days ago I emailed Ms. Ward who teaches high school English. I came across her class web page and much to my surprise found some amazing teaching resources. Not only is her website professional, clean, and easy to follow; it also is an amazing resource for her students, their parents, and other teachers. Frankly, how do teachers like her find time to be THIS organized? Oh, I’m not complaining. Especially since she was gracious enough to give me permission to utilize some of her resources.
While I was responding to her email my thoughts began flowing and what was a simple email has turned into this blog post.
Ms. Ward shared with me something a mentor of her’s once said, “…that the best teachers are not ones that create their curriculum alone. Instead, great teachers are great thieves; we know when to beg, borrow, and steal from those around us”. I agree whole heartedly with her mentor. So many new teachers reinvent the wheel over and over and over again. I think this is why so many new teachers get burn out. Well, it’s one of the many reasons. We all know there are many more facets to the education world that cause teachers to leave in high numbers the first three years and even more before their fifth year. Right now I’m in year 3 of teaching. I’m not burnt out but I do feel a bit defeated at times. Part of that I must take responsibility for (I hate planning); the other part I put on LAUSD’s inadequacy and seeming inability to structure, implement, and sustain new and effective programs. Of course, as a result, many teachers feel defeated.
In the email with Ms. Ward she shared a story of a fellow teacher who, “confessed that she’s been teaching her students grammar as if it were a horrible taboo”. I am 34 years old which means my English classes growing up were mostly reading and writing. I recall having one class in middle school with a strong emphasis in grammar. However, we were a generation that did a lot more reading and writing and therefore our ability to write coherent sentences and express ourselves seemed to be inherent. It’s sad because I am far from a grammatician. As a matter of fact, part of my undergrad was a course called, “Introduction to Teaching Grammar”. I worked my tuchus off to earn a B in there. Linguistics, although fascinating, was another class that I found extremely challenging. In Junior College I had a professor who had us diagram sentences and such. Again, I worked my butt off for an A. My point…grammar is hard for us all. I believe that many teachers struggle with teaching grammar. We all seem to know that our students need grammar instruction and it also seems that since many of us don’t know how to teach it we sort of hope the next teacher will cover it. Frankly, this does nothing to support student learning or professional growth for us teachers.
Where I teach in Los Angeles, we are mostly Latino and Asian. Mostly second language learners. 75% free lunches. In other words, these are the kids that truly need some foundation if we are ever going to get them to write well. My students have thoughts, and ideas, and creativity. It’s my/our job to give them the tools to express these gifts and to do it in a way where they are respected and taken seriously. I teach many sheltered English courses. Many of my students, and I do not exaggerate here, have never read a full novel on their own. They simply don’t have the same structures, support, and reading foundations that many in my generation and demographic grew up with. And for the record, I am a product of an LAUSD education.
The point of this post? Mostly this was an outlet for me to express my frustrations with grammar and the lack of anything grammar related coming out of my students. I don’t understand how I get students in the 9th and 10th grade who seem to have no prior writing skills. Actually, that’s not entirely true. I do understand that a huge part of the problem is that in LAUSD students, even when they fail their entire middle school years, they STILL move on to high school. Yes, we push them along. No Child Left Behind. And, this is when I get them. They are reading and writing between 4th and 6th grade levels and I and my high school colleagues are supposed to work wonders and catch them up to where they should be.
Sigh…just a day in the life of teaching…
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Grammar is a tricky thing. The question that a lot of us ask is, is it more important to be able to articulate the rules and language of grammar, or to be able to actually use and recognize it? I know that I fall into the second category. I can’t tell you exactly what a dangling particple is or whatever, but I know that if I saw one, it would seem off to me and I would know how to correct it. I firmly believe that this “application” ability comes from being a voracious reader, and growing up in a house where reading was a habit, a pleasure activity. So many of my kids come from homes where the only reading is the newspaper and maybe the bible (that’s a stretch, though). Kids learn to read through modeling and example (parents read aloud to their kids, and kids see their parents reading for pleasure). When reading is a habit, grammar becomes internalized. My kids tend to read a lot of those “street novels” which is all well and good. It would be easy to say, “hey, at least they’re reading,” but I’ve seen some of these books! The grammar and language is atrocious. I think this is part of the reason I don’t teach Push. It’s a great book, and I encourage them to read it on their own but it doesn’t model standard grammar and I’d rather use my valuable class time introducing them to texts that provide models of correct grammar.
Nani, I mostly believe the same as you, except for one thing (unless I’m misreading it). I too fall into your second category about being able to actually USE grammar. I too am from the school where I don’t necessarily know how to identify grammar specifics, but like you, I read and wrote when I was little. So, the question this post begs is:
If our students are not “voracious readers” then we must find a way to give them the skills they WILL need as they progress in school and in life. I’m beginning to believe that if the only way to do this is to teach them some grammar basics with repetitive practice, then so be it. No, I’m not talking daily extended activities. Right now I’m thinking I will go back to using “Daily Bites”. This is a binder of ALL transparencies, three per week, that have students correct grammatically incorrect sentences without direct grammar instruction. Believe it or not, the kids have fun doing these. They do three a week on the same paper and turn them in weekly for points. I give them about ten minutes to do them as a warm up, then we go over them as a group.
The second thing I want to implement in January is a weekly grammar lesson of some sort. I want to teach one concept, have them do practice, and hopefully that will help them begin to be able to identify where their writing has weaknesses. Before I start any of this, I will be giving a pre assessment.
(wow, Tamara sounds all teachery for a change).
You’ve got me really thinking about the role of grammar in the language arts curriculum. Like you, I am a product of Whole Language education; grammar was never something that I was taught in isolation. I learned phonics and the difference between the subject and predicate as a first grader. I didn’t really learn grammar until I started to teach it to my high school students about six years ago. It was drilled into me while in college that English teachers should be concerned about content over conventions.
In my last few years of teaching, I too have run across students who are not voracious readers, and by extension, they are not well equipped writers. More problematic though, I have this year a number of students who are voracious readers but who cannot construct a paragraph to save their lives! This is where I see grammar as being useful.
I tell my students that if they step out of my room after a semester and can’t tell me what a dangling modifier is but know how to fix it, they will succeed. However, I don’t think that grammar and mechanics are something that we just pick up as we read. I agree with Tamara, they must be taught.
I firmly believe that the ability to read and write well grant students access to world of possibilities. Language equals power; therefore, I must find ways to integrate grammar and mechanics education into the teaching of writing. What good is a thought if you cannot express it clearly?
–and thank so much for getting me thinking about this, Tamara!
I completely agree with your post. When I was growing up, I went to a small private school for grade school where our class size was never greater than 25. (And that was with two grades combined!) I felt like I got a pretty average, if not more hands on, education. But when I began studying foreign languages in high school and college, I got really frustrated. I can’t tell you how many times we had to stop our usual lesson in Russian, French, etc to get a lesson on English grammar. Even in college, I found that I was one of very few students in my class who knew what a direct object was. Maybe I did get a better education than most people, but by no means do I consider myself to be a grammar perfectionist. But come on people! Aren’t direct objects third or fourth grade material? My professors were probably 10 times more frustrated than I was to have to review simple *English* sentence structure in a foreign language class.
So when it comes to grammar, I say “Rant on!”
Hey, Tamara: This isn’t really a response to your post, but is more of a response to the thoughtful comment you left on my blog. I’m quite ambivalent about teachers. My father was an English teacher — and a superb one. I went to public schools, and managed, on occasion to have wonderful teachers. Last year, my kids’ public school teachers were so terrible it was a crime to have them in front of a classroom. (And I blame unions entirely for the inability to fire these useful pieces of classroom furniture.) This year, they’re decent.
I have huge problems, though, with politically driven curricula; teaching colleges that often seem bound and determined to politicize impressionable young people who really do just want to teach; and teacher’s unions that are about money and politics (and I know lots about that from my Dad’s years in the union). These three factors tend to leave room for a few truly excellent, committed teachers, and a whole bunch of people who are just drifting through the system, picking up indoctrination at is goes along. It also creates a system that’s invested less in teaching and more in gobbledy gook, something I’ve seen as the child of a teacher, as a public school student, and as a parent. I’m always amazed when I go to meetings with teachers that a significant number are completely incoherent when they try to explain the thinking behind their teaching. They’ve been taught something akin to psychobabble, rather than solid educational material.
Teaching is not easy, and so many teachers are deeply committed, intelligent, kind, and competent people who stick it out despite all the problems. However, I think their blind allegiance to the deep systemic failures I’ve described above often exacerbates the same problems that make their own lives a misery.