RE: grammar

[Merry Farrington <merry@mail.wsu.edu>]

I like the hear it repeatedly, learn it (intuit it?) more easily theory.
Or as Faigley credits Britton in a 1986 article: "children as speakers
gain a sense of audience because the hearer is a reactive presence, but
children as writers have more difficulty because the 'other' is not
present." The audience also models and provides feedback. When learning
something as specific, yet arbitrary as grammar, the more exposure the
better. To me it's clear why so many struggle. An invaluable tool in this
struggle -- talk. To (mis?)appropriate North: "talk is everything." That's
why I love read aloud tutorials (student reads). Make them comfortable
first and then it's amazing what they pick up on their own. First time
I've stuck my neck out,

Merry Farrington
WSU   

On Tue, 5 May 1998, Elizabeth D. Burris wrote:

> Hear, hear Eric!  I like how you think about teaching *and* intuition;
> your comments about both make me wonder how some people develop intuitions
> about, say, grammar and why others don't.  Surely it's not the "teaching"
> they have received, as most of us have been drilled in grammar to one
> degree or another (and drilling seems to have been the default approach to
> grammar instruction at least for my generation)--it's undoubtedly the
> "learning" each of us has done, the participation in complex interactions 
> "in different conditions" (as you say) out of which such a felt sense
> gradually emerged.  What does it take, I wonder, to facilitate such
> learning, to support the development, the cultivation, of intuitions about
> grammar (or about organization, for that matter)? Seems to me that the 
> answer to that question could revolutionize composition instruction, not
> to mention the field of teaching.
> 
> Betsy Burris
> Director of the Writing Center
> Connecticut College
> 
> On Mon, 4 May 1998, Eric Crump wrote:
> 
> > On Mon, 4 May 1998, Kuhne, David wrote:
> > ->It still seems to me that if we can't teach writers to use correct
> > ->constructions then maybe our "community" needs to take a close look at what
> > ->we "really" do.  And no, I'm not joking.  Dave Kuhne
> > 
> > Great idea, Dave! We really *should* look closely at what we *really* do
> > (and we should look rather oftener than we do). And we ought to be open to
> > the possibility that our assumptions (even the most basic) are open to
> > question.
> > 
> > For instance, you open up the possibility of questioning "teaching" 
> > itself. Perhaps we can't teach anyone to use correct constructions. 
> > Perhaps we can't teach anyone anything. Perhaps we never could and only
> > believed in a myth of our own construction and for our self-justification.
> > 
> > I've been wondering for some time whether teaching, as I was taught to
> > understand it, isn't just a name we give for a process that happens in
> > different conditions and because of different influences than we assume.
> > That is, when people learn something, it's the result of a complex of
> > attitudes, assumptions, social conditions, motivations, and resources.
> > Learning is a product of the interaction between various people, present
> > or not, and all sorts of unaccountable forces. The old model of teacher
> > giving students knowledge or access to it is such a vast
> > oversimplification that it rather misses the mark entirely!
> > 
> > Maybe teaching, as such, doesn't really exist!
> > 
> > Whatcha think?
> > 
> > --Eric Crump
> > 
> > 
>