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Grammar Alivel

NCTE Editorial Board: Gwen Alexander, Elizabeth Close, Cora Lee Five, Joe Janangelo, Ray Levi, Shuaib Meacham, Jaime Armin Mejia, Carolyn Phipps, Kyoko Sato, Zarina Hock, Chair, ex officio, Kent Williamson, ex officio

We gratefully acknowledge the contributions of the following members of the NCTE Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar:

Paul E. Doniger Helene Krauthamer Johanna E. Rubba Wanda Van Goor Edith Wollin

ATEG

The NCTE Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar aims to improve the teaching of grammar at all levels, from elementary school through college; to promote communication and cooperation among teachers, researchers, administrators, and others interested in the teaching of grammar; to provide an open forum in which advocates of all grammar theories, representing the broad spectrum of views of grammar and its teaching, can interact. Through its listserv, its conference, and its journal, Syntax in the Schools, ATEG offers educators information about grammar and suggestions for better ways to teach it. (For more information, visit ATEG's Web site at .)

Grammar Alive!

A Guide for Teachers

Brock Haussamen with Amy Benjamin, Martha Kolln, Rebecca S. Wheeler, and members of NCTE's Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar

National Council of Teachers of English 1111 W. Kenyon Road, Urbana, Illinois 61801-1096

Chapter 5, "Non-Native Speakers in the English Classroom," was adapted from the book Differentiated Instruction: A Guide for Middle and High School by Amy Benjamin. This material is used with the permission of Eye on Education, Larchmont, New York, .

Staff Editor: Bonny Graham

Interior Design: Doug Burnett

Cover Design: Barbara Yale-Read

NCTE Stock Number: 18720-3050

?2003 by the National Council of Teachers of English.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or trans mitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including pho tocopy, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission from the copyright holder. Printed in the United States of America.

It is the policy of NCTE in its journals and other publications to provide a fo rum for the open discussion of ideas concerning the content and the teaching of English and the language arts. Publicity accorded to any particular point of view does not imply endorsement by the Executive Committee, the Board of Directors, or the membership at large, except in announcements of policy, where such endorsement is clearly specified.

Although every attempt is made to ensure accuracy at the time of publication, NCTE cannot guarantee that all published addresses for electronic mail or Web sites are current.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Haussamen, Brock.

Grammar alive! : a guide for teachers I Brock Haussamen, with Amy

Benjamin, Martha Kolin, and Rebecca Wheeler and members of NCTE's Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar.

p.cm. Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 0-8141-1872-0 1. English language-Grammar-Study and teaching. 2. English language -Study and teaching. 3. Language arts. I. Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar. II. Title.

LB1576.H3235 2003 372.61-dc22

2003015117

v

Contents

Preface

vii

Vignette: Language about Language: A Middle School Grammar Class IX

Introduction

xi

I. Grammar in the Classroom

1. Three Goals for Teaching Grammar

3

2. Discovering Grammar

10

Vignette: Flossie and the Fox: Code-Switching between

the Languages of Home and School

14

Vignette: Helping High School Juniors Get Comfortable

with Shakespeare's English

20

3. Teaching the Language of Grammar

23

Vignette: Teaching the Passive Voice

29

Vignette: Teaching Pronouns with LEGOs

31

Vignette: Teaching the Absolute Phrase

33

Vignette: Subject-Verb Agreement: Slicing the Apple

34

4. Flexing the Students' Sentence Sense

37

Vignette: Grammatical Choices, Sentence Boundaries,

and Rhetorical Effects

38

Vignette: Sentence Imitation

42

Vignette: Teaching English Language Learners the

Known-New Pattern

47

5. Non-Native Speakers in the English Classroom

50

Vignette: Teaching English Language Learners in

Elementary Grades

61

Vignette: Helping a Ninth-Grade Student Use the

64

vi

II. On Grammar 6. Grammar Superstitions: The Never-Never Rules 7. Diagramming Sentences 8. An Overview of Linguistic Grammar Conclusion A Grammar Glossary Sources and Resources Index Author and Contributors

Contents

71

80

95

97

109

113

119

vi

Preface

The Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar (ATEG) was born in the late 1980s with Edward Vavra's newsletter Syntax in the Schools, a forum for educators interested in the teaching of grammar and concerned about its neglect. The readers came together for the first ATEG conference at Dr. Vavra's institution, Shenandoah College in Winchester, Virginia, in 1989. Martha Kolln, from Pennsyl vania State University, was elected president. In the years following, ATEG formally became an Assembly of the National Council of Teach ers of English. Its members hold an annual conference in July at differ ent institutions around the country. ATEG's goal has remained to en courage the effective teaching of grammar and to provide a forum for discussions about grammar teaching. The Assembly now publishes Syn tax in the Schools as a refereed journal and has a Web site at as well as an active listserv.

This guide is the product of many years of ATEG members' ex citement about the possibilities for teaching grammar and their dismay that the subject has remained so bogged down in outdated ideas and approaches. In 1998, a committee began work on a report that evolved into this book.

The several authors of the book have both written portions of it and helped revise one another's work, so the collaboration has been a rich one. The introduction was written by Brock Haussamen, with re visions by Amy Benjamin. The three goals for the teaching of grammar, laid out in Chapter 1, were first formulated by Johanna Rubba; the dis cussions of the goals were written by Brock Haussamen. Most of the suggestions for methods and lessons in Chapters 2, 3, and 4 were first written by Amy Benjamin and Johanna Rubba. The methodology por tion of Chapter 2, "Discovering Grammar through Language Variety," was written by Rebecca Wheeler. Chapter 5, "Non-Native Speakers in the English Classroom," was adapted from the book Differentiated In struction: A Guidefor Middle and High School by Amy Benjamin; it is used with the permission of the publisher, Eye on Education. I'm grateful to Miriam Moore and Christine Herron of Raritan Valley Community College for suggesting additions to this material. "Grammar Supersti tions: The Never-Never Rules," Chapter 6, was written by Amy Ben jamin. Chapter 7, "Diagramming Sentences," and the grammar glos sary were prepared by Brock Haussamen with help from Martha KolIn,

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