RE: grammar

["Elizabeth D. Burris" <edbur@conncoll.edu>]

Joan,
I think "paying attention" is crucial to developing intuition.  I also
think caring matters.  When I think about my own intuitive sense of
grammar and writing, my "ear," as you put it, I think it developed through
reading books I absolutely loved--and then trying to imitate them by
writing my own versions.  That care, even love, of reading tuned my
attention, I believe, so that I noticed spellings and constructions (not
in so many words) and lilts and effects that characterized a particular,
fond relationship with words and the worlds they can create.
And--there--relationship is another thing
that matters, I think: establishing a genuinely caring relationship that
fuels attuned attention to the nuances of language and the feelings
language both creates and labels is the basis, I believe, of my intuitions
about writing.

I think.

Betsy Burris
Director of the Writing Center
Connecticut College