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Cynthetiq · 05-01-2003, 05:55 AM

For those of you who learned english written and spoken, I was wondering if you were ever taught standard english rules. I graduated from private high school in 1986, and during my HS career there was a push to make sure that we were all literate in grammar and good composition. It started simply enough as a freshman with good sentence structure, sophomore with paragraph composition, junior with short essay (three paragraph or more,) and finally as a senior writing full papers.

The other weekend the wife and I took the Foreign Service Written Exam for the State Department. It was a very difficult test with several parts. Two parts focused on english, one standardized test on multiple choice problems of picking out the correct answers of composition and sentence structure. The second part was an actual essay IN PEN, selected from three different topics. Objective, take a position on one of the topics and provide supporting arguments. There was a scrap page for you to make notes and outlines, then several pages for your composition. Each test was 50 minutes long, and someone asked if they could actually write in pencil, and was told the purpose for pen is the "finality of the written word," to see how you write and think.

The article below is from March 1, 2003 Newsday, there is a quiz at the bottom. I got a few of them wrong and if there are any teachers here who can deconstruct the answers and explain them it would be handy for some of us.

http://www.newsday.com/features/ny-p...mepage%2Dpromo

Whatever Happened to Grammar?
Out of favor for years because the educational establishment deemed it too ‘restrictive,’ grammar education is making a comeback
By Paul Moses
Paul Moses is a regular contributor to Newsday.

May 1, 2003

The third-graders at PS 277 in Brooklyn twisted upward in their seats, hands fluttering on outstretched arms like flags atop a pole.

As teacher Janet Kennedy recognized them, they marched in turn to the blackboard, drawing a collection of lines and connecting dots that would be foreign to almost anyone who graduated from college in the past 20 years or so.

This was no arts-in-the-schools project, or even some beginning geometry lesson. The enthused 8-year-olds were learning to diagram sentences.

In teaching her students this long- lost skill, Kennedy was reviving the educational equivalent of a woolly mammoth. The educational establishment - the National Council of Teachers of English, along with many researchers and curriculum developers - long ago declared that any systematic teaching of grammar belonged to the Ice Age. In the past few decades, sentence diagrams - word maps that once helped teach parts of speech and other rules of syntax - have been shunned as if they were a cut of steak at a vegetarian banquet.

Studies from as far back as 1963 have told teachers that it is useless and even "harmful" to teach diagramming, or for that matter any formal lessons on grammar. Students, according to the studies, retained little from old-fashioned grammar lessons, which stole time better spent on reading and writing. What's more, they suggested that focusing on grammatical errors would inhibit the students' creativity. As a result, grammar textbooks were long ago trashed and teachers were instructed to deal with usage problems one on one, when there was time. College education programs gave short shrift to grammar - and so, some veteran teachers say, many teachers don't know it well themselves.

But grammar, once the meat and potatoes of any child's education, is back on the table. University administrators, fed up with the poor writing of incoming students, have pressed the College Board, a Manhattan-based, national nonprofit group, to include a section on writing and grammar on the SAT college admission test. The national movement to set "standards" in education by testing students' basic language and math skills at various levels has put more pressure on schools to teach students to write without errors in usage. And even the 75,000-member National Council of Teachers of English, which opposes formal instruction in grammar, has at least revived the issue by devoting the January issue of its monthly magazine to the topic of "revitalizing grammar."

"About 15 to 20 years ago, it became verboten to teach grammar at the high school level. At some schools they were absolutely forbidden to do so," said Judith Richman, who has taught English for 33 years in Smithtown high schools. "Now," she said, "people are talking about it again."

To Richman, that's good news. It never made much sense to her that teachers were supposed to discuss writing with students who were not taught the terms needed to identify their errors.

One sign of a shift is that Richman, dubbed the "grammar queen" by colleagues, has been teaching a course on grammar to fellow Smithtown educators. She doesn't blame them for not knowing grammar: "They didn't know it because they were never taught it."

Michael Southwell, retired chairman of the English department at York College in Queens, is on the same page. He says he believes one of the biggest obstacles to effective grammar instruction is that the teachers themselves have not been taught grammar adequately in education schools. "I think a few years down the road, we are going to discover this has been a catastrophe because no one's been paying attention to how to teach the teachers," said Southwell, co- author of the college textbook "Mastering Written English" (Prentice-Hall).

read the rest of the story...

A Grammar Quiz

Identify and correct the

grammatical error in each sentence.

1. The manager threw the team a party because of them breaking a two-week losing streak.

2. Will everyone pass in their homework?

3. Having snuck out of the service, the congregant didn't contribute to the offering.

4. Had I been ready, I could have went to the game early.

5. Winning the award was more then she had ever hoped.

6. That was information supposed to be heard only by Michael and myself.

7. The soldier could of looted the abandoned bank but resisted the temptation.

8. The decision was reached between my mother, my sister and me.

9. I read less books during the school year than in the summer.

10. I appreciated knowing him because he was different than most of my other friends.

11. Despite the prisoner's being under suicide watch, he hung himself.

12. She wished her partner was not so stubborn.

13. My niece wanted my sister and I to pick her up at the train station.

14. In accumulated sales he was far less successful than her.

15. I couldn't remember whom I had thought was more important.

Answers on next page

Compiled by high school English teacher

Judith Richman.

Answers

to grammar quiz

1. ...because of their breaking a two-week losing streak.

2. Will everyone pass in his homework?

3. Having sneaked out of the service....

4. ...I could have gone to the game early.

5. ...more than she had ever hoped.

6. ...heard only by Michael and me.

7. The soldier could have....

8. The decision was reached among....

9. I read fewer books....

10. ... he was different from most of my other friends.

11. ... he hanged himself.

12. She wished her partner were not so stubborn.

13. My niece wanted my sister and me....

14. ...he was far less successful than she.

15. I couldn't remember who....
Copyright © 2003, Newsday, Inc.

05-01-2003, 05:55 AM	#1 (permalink)
Cynthetiq Tilted Cat Head Administrator Location: Manhattan, NY	Grammar: Were you taught standard grammar? For those of you who learned english written and spoken, I was wondering if you were ever taught standard english rules. I graduated from private high school in 1986, and during my HS career there was a push to make sure that we were all literate in grammar and good composition. It started simply enough as a freshman with good sentence structure, sophomore with paragraph composition, junior with short essay (three paragraph or more,) and finally as a senior writing full papers. The other weekend the wife and I took the Foreign Service Written Exam for the State Department. It was a very difficult test with several parts. Two parts focused on english, one standardized test on multiple choice problems of picking out the correct answers of composition and sentence structure. The second part was an actual essay IN PEN, selected from three different topics. Objective, take a position on one of the topics and provide supporting arguments. There was a scrap page for you to make notes and outlines, then several pages for your composition. Each test was 50 minutes long, and someone asked if they could actually write in pencil, and was told the purpose for pen is the "finality of the written word," to see how you write and think. The article below is from March 1, 2003 Newsday, there is a quiz at the bottom. I got a few of them wrong and if there are any teachers here who can deconstruct the answers and explain them it would be handy for some of us. http://www.newsday.com/features/ny-p...mepage%2Dpromo Whatever Happened to Grammar? Out of favor for years because the educational establishment deemed it too ‘restrictive,’ grammar education is making a comeback By Paul Moses Paul Moses is a regular contributor to Newsday. May 1, 2003 The third-graders at PS 277 in Brooklyn twisted upward in their seats, hands fluttering on outstretched arms like flags atop a pole. As teacher Janet Kennedy recognized them, they marched in turn to the blackboard, drawing a collection of lines and connecting dots that would be foreign to almost anyone who graduated from college in the past 20 years or so. This was no arts-in-the-schools project, or even some beginning geometry lesson. The enthused 8-year-olds were learning to diagram sentences. In teaching her students this long- lost skill, Kennedy was reviving the educational equivalent of a woolly mammoth. The educational establishment - the National Council of Teachers of English, along with many researchers and curriculum developers - long ago declared that any systematic teaching of grammar belonged to the Ice Age. In the past few decades, sentence diagrams - word maps that once helped teach parts of speech and other rules of syntax - have been shunned as if they were a cut of steak at a vegetarian banquet. Studies from as far back as 1963 have told teachers that it is useless and even "harmful" to teach diagramming, or for that matter any formal lessons on grammar. Students, according to the studies, retained little from old-fashioned grammar lessons, which stole time better spent on reading and writing. What's more, they suggested that focusing on grammatical errors would inhibit the students' creativity. As a result, grammar textbooks were long ago trashed and teachers were instructed to deal with usage problems one on one, when there was time. College education programs gave short shrift to grammar - and so, some veteran teachers say, many teachers don't know it well themselves. But grammar, once the meat and potatoes of any child's education, is back on the table. University administrators, fed up with the poor writing of incoming students, have pressed the College Board, a Manhattan-based, national nonprofit group, to include a section on writing and grammar on the SAT college admission test. The national movement to set "standards" in education by testing students' basic language and math skills at various levels has put more pressure on schools to teach students to write without errors in usage. And even the 75,000-member National Council of Teachers of English, which opposes formal instruction in grammar, has at least revived the issue by devoting the January issue of its monthly magazine to the topic of "revitalizing grammar." "About 15 to 20 years ago, it became verboten to teach grammar at the high school level. At some schools they were absolutely forbidden to do so," said Judith Richman, who has taught English for 33 years in Smithtown high schools. "Now," she said, "people are talking about it again." To Richman, that's good news. It never made much sense to her that teachers were supposed to discuss writing with students who were not taught the terms needed to identify their errors. One sign of a shift is that Richman, dubbed the "grammar queen" by colleagues, has been teaching a course on grammar to fellow Smithtown educators. She doesn't blame them for not knowing grammar: "They didn't know it because they were never taught it." Michael Southwell, retired chairman of the English department at York College in Queens, is on the same page. He says he believes one of the biggest obstacles to effective grammar instruction is that the teachers themselves have not been taught grammar adequately in education schools. "I think a few years down the road, we are going to discover this has been a catastrophe because no one's been paying attention to how to teach the teachers," said Southwell, co- author of the college textbook "Mastering Written English" (Prentice-Hall). read the rest of the story... A Grammar Quiz Identify and correct the grammatical error in each sentence. 1. The manager threw the team a party because of them breaking a two-week losing streak. 2. Will everyone pass in their homework? 3. Having snuck out of the service, the congregant didn't contribute to the offering. 4. Had I been ready, I could have went to the game early. 5. Winning the award was more then she had ever hoped. 6. That was information supposed to be heard only by Michael and myself. 7. The soldier could of looted the abandoned bank but resisted the temptation. 8. The decision was reached between my mother, my sister and me. 9. I read less books during the school year than in the summer. 10. I appreciated knowing him because he was different than most of my other friends. 11. Despite the prisoner's being under suicide watch, he hung himself. 12. She wished her partner was not so stubborn. 13. My niece wanted my sister and I to pick her up at the train station. 14. In accumulated sales he was far less successful than her. 15. I couldn't remember whom I had thought was more important. Answers on next page Compiled by high school English teacher Judith Richman. Answers to grammar quiz 1. ...because of their breaking a two-week losing streak. 2. Will everyone pass in his homework? 3. Having sneaked out of the service.... 4. ...I could have gone to the game early. 5. ...more than she had ever hoped. 6. ...heard only by Michael and me. 7. The soldier could have.... 8. The decision was reached among.... 9. I read fewer books.... 10. ... he was different from most of my other friends. 11. ... he hanged himself. 12. She wished her partner were not so stubborn. 13. My niece wanted my sister and me.... 14. ...he was far less successful than she. 15. I couldn't remember who.... Copyright © 2003, Newsday, Inc. __________________ I don't care if you are black, white, purple, green, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, hippie, cop, bum, admin, user, English, Irish, French, Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Buddhist, Muslim, indian, cowboy, tall, short, fat, skinny, emo, punk, mod, rocker, straight, gay, lesbian, jock, nerd, geek, Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, Independent, driver, pedestrian, or bicyclist, either you're an asshole or you're not. What's the best nation in the world? DO-NATION! Last edited by Cynthetiq; 05-01-2003 at 06:28 AM..