Hindsight 20/20

Well, looking back on a semester that covered grammar theory, diagramming, active/passive voice, appositives, and relative clauses, I feel I have gotten the gist of many of these areas, but I am still unsure of myself. In fact, my confidence in these departments makes me wonder if it's even worth it, learning grammar terms that is. I know that these things are important but I feel that to be a good writer one just has to write, write, write some more and write again. (Whew!) As a pre-service teacher I want to help other people get past the struggles that has plagued me. One area that I have truly enjoyed is the difference between grammar, grammar terms and SWE.

Mulroy: The Response

Mulroy makes a very convincing argument in his proctection for traditional grammar. I'm starting to contend that it's not what is taught but how it's taught. Mulroy has not yet really layed an argument for this, except by saying that we should use Reed/Kellog diagrams as an aid. To me that's not "how." That is a "what" should be taught. And, I reckon that, in all honesty, teaching theory is not Mulroy's department, but it should be. Critical thinking involves how we approach a problem and how we solve the problem. Now, I am starting more, more to appreciate Mulroy's claim that traditional grammar is necessary to be a succesful reader and writer. Yes, that I will say with flirtation, but Mulroy never gives any plan. He only states what we should teach. I never thought that I would appreciate Mulroy and even respect his knowledge, but the man has won me over enough that I will say yes to his engagement: that traditional grammar makes you a holistic rhetorician.
I hope this relationship works.

Mulroy's Makin' Me a Believer, Man!

In" The Myth of the Bad Old Days," David Mulroy explains that a sub-group in the NCTE--ATEG--are increasing in number to teach grammar. The problem is the negative view of traditional grammar (88). Mulroy goes into the inherent strenghts of Reed-Kellog diagrams, explaining that they alone can accurately break down compllex sentences in Greek and Latin, not to mention useful aphorisms, of which tree diagrams are cumbersome and unpractical for the challenge. He also explains that Reed-Kellog diagrams are more efficient than the former because they are efficient. Another argument that Mulroy makes is that tree sentences are "...suitable to sentences written in normal order," but there are flaws when the subject can change (95). He also made the bold claim that students are having a hard time with comprehension vs. vocabulary, which he believes can be corrected if diagraming is used to explicate sentences, of which he himself does with expedient results.

Questions

1. According to Mulroy, who were the only individuals that could receive a higher education and what was their goal?

2. Why, do you think, is grammar so important when it comes to documentating history, culture and ideas? Does Mulroy believe this is important?

Me Kill, You Question.

In his essay, The First Liberal Art, David Mulroy says the liberal arts make students better learners not better speakers. For Mulroy, pragmatism is built upon the liberal arts, and I like this far better than the inverse.

Indeed, I would rather sit down and discuss philosophy, religion, culture, etc than the how-to's of chicken genocide for mass consumption or the how-to's to the extraction of precious resources for the greatest profit-margin on a balance sheet.

I, too, like Mulroy believe that "perfection" of any discipline can be reached through the synergy of the liberal arts with pragmatics. If the liberal arts make us better thinkers, then no matter what discipline we drift toward, we can excel in said discipline if we use the tenets from the liberal arts. And, that is the case the higher up the food chain a person reaches in the job market, no matter what field they enter.

For example, consider a sales associate at Wal-Mart. Their primary role is greet, scan, pack, exchange money, and express gratitude, low, low thinking skills right? I mean where are you gonna use liberal arts there. Now, let's look at the assistant manager of Wal-mart. He's got to coordinate, judge, prioritize, based upon employee quotas. Then we can include the manager of the whole store. He's got to be creative, motivational, and a thinker, which sounds a lot like the liberal arts.

And, while advances in technology will always be linear and static, the thinking that goes behind them are fluid and organic. So, with that being said, any one can be taught practical sciences, but not many people can connect them to humanity.

Opus Duo: Confusus Hominus Consilio Ab Lingua. Mei Menda

The prompt: Why Should SWE be taught in school, if so, how?

It’s hard for me to imagine anyone suggesting that SWE should not be taught in school. And, in fact, if someone suggested otherwise I would be wondering how they reasoned it away.

The first obvious fact that SWE should be taught in school resolves around the principle of language and how we, as a society communicate with one another. Besides the obvious mediums of the visual, audible and text, we are also taught body language, eye contact, idiosyncrasies, dress, etc.

This cornucopia of communication allows us to express our how, what and why’s to the other person, sometimes getting extremely complicated when one person says one thing and they mean another, “He’s sooo bad!” An expression like this could be taken as a sign of affection, depending on who said it: Grandma or Groupie.

With that being said, the written medium has to be explicit in form, because the writer does not know for sure who their audience is going to be. And, even if they do know for sure, the syntax has to express what facial, pitch and body language cannot, hence the complication. However, grammar can be exciting! While it may sound ridiculous to say, especially given my cynicism toward the subject, my background in education has allowed me to see the “light.”

Indeed, Bloom’s Taxonomy, a theory that says there are six hierarchical levels of cognitive functionality, claims that we as humans learn more, and retain more, when the higher levels are in operation. Typically, the highest level—evaluation—is used at the college and postgraduate level, resulting in assignments that ask us to “evaluate if SWE is necessary for success.”

Conversely, the lowest end of Bloom’s Taxonomy says that knowledge is the most primal way of learning and retaining information. For example, “a noun is a person, place or thing.”
It is here where I believe the education system needs to be overhauled.

I believe the “how” to teaching grammar should be more deductive: give the big picture first and then “assemble” the parts. Analogously, no one solves a jig-saw puzzle without knowing what it is they are putting together; they see the picture then they assemble.

If we continue this metaphor, and use me as bait, I HAVE BEEN PUTTING TOGETHER MY JIG-SAW PUZZLE WITHOUT KNOWING WHAT THE HELL IM SUPPOSED TO BE PUTTING TOGETHER!!

When I hear commands like, “Never start a sentence with a conjunction” and “Never end a sentence with a preposition,” my instinct is to ask “why?” (evaluative). I do not think I’m smarter than other people, I just want to know. It helps me process my thoughts, gives me peace and allows me to be more productive as a learner.

In short, I think kids need to be given more faith, trust and autonomy. Teachers need to explain the big picture first and then work forward in creative, evaluative ways.

I sincerely believe if teachers would explain the nuts and bolts behind SWE, then the appreciation for it would increase exponetially.

Help with Title? Go here > http://www.online-dictionary.biz/latin/english/vocabulary/reference/consilio.asp

Hatchet or Scalpel: The Butcher's Tools

Mulroy begins his essay with “The study of grammar helps us to understand the great literature of the past and to speak and write eloquently” (79). Romantic, with the belief that grammarians have gotten a raw deal by being labeled as stereotypical old fogeys, Mulroy contends that “the most important benefit of the prevalence of good grammar is that it contributes to the preservation and spread of standard languages” (79). His profound statement, earlier echoed, is backed up by the notion that historical language, at least in Europe, was quilt-like, where different unintelligible dialects hampered progress. As a result, there were economic, social and cultural factors that required “uniting large numbers of people together by a common tongue…to create standard national languages” (80).
But Mulroy explains that this was not going to be an easy task, given the unbridled spirit of the English, so eventually capitalism gave forth her fruit in the context of dictionaries and grammar books that became vogue in the 18th and 19th centuries. He later goes on to praise people like Samuel Johnson and Bishop Lowth, saying they “…contributed significantly to the creation of modern standard English…” (81).
On the other hand, Mulroy feels that Pinker, although a brilliant writer and linguist, in not so many words “pisses” on the achievments of these men as well as zealot mavens who trumpet the benefits of good grammar. So, like a careful surgeon, Mulroy slices away Pinker’s arguments, as if they were gangrene to the “grammar” body.
First, Mulroy lumps the NCTE and Julius Hook (an all-star in the English world) with Pinker’s faulty research skills, stating that Hook and Pinker both “…refrain from citing specific passages in Lowth’s grammar [book]” (82). Later, Mulroy praises this same Lowth by saying, “With some updating, it [Lowth’s book] could be used to give college students a needed overview of English grammar” (83).
Obviously, Mulroy is heralding the intrinsic application this book yields. But, Mulroy isn’t done carving yet. Next he carves away the cancerous definite article, as seen in Pinker’s eyes. Then he removes the tumor of infinitives that has plagued, in Pinker’s lens, modern English. With all these hypothetical foibles laid at Pinker’s feet, Mulroy does stitch up his contentions nicely saying, “My problem with Pinker’s influential presentation is one of emphasis, not principle” (85).
Toward the end of his essay Mulroy defends grammar instruction suggesting that grammar is intrinsic, increases vocabulary and “…greatly increases the number and complexity of the thoughts that one can actually express” (86-87). He also says that people have risen from poverty thanks to grammar.

Grammar Puss: Pinker's Such a Stinker?

In Grammar Puss, by Steve Pinker, the essay finally annihilates all those hypersensitive grammarians that are more concerned with exposing the weaknesses of others than improving language as a whole. The essay begins with the science of language and ends with the real purpose of improving language is "the clarity and style of written prose" (10). But the most interesting part was "Good writers go through anywhere from two to twenty drafts before releasing a paper" (11). As a person that is notorious in avoiding revisions, Pinker reminds the reader that the brain was not engineered to express complex trains of thought on paper. This is why writing is so difficult and explains why revisions are so prudent. The gist of his essay was to explain why "many prescriptive rules are just plain dumb..." (10) and that people should employ the standard english used in their dialect or what Foster would call discourse community. So, while Pinker does feel that tradition and rules are antiquated, he does feel that we must learn how to communicate with what is vogue in language communities.

Interview with McMahon, Chair of ECU English Dept.

Morning Dr. McMahon,
Thank you again for taking the time to answer my questions, I have taken the liberty to paraphrase your answers. If there are any irregularities, let me know. After your approval, I will be submitting this on a blog at tommyhammons@blogspot.com

What can grammar do for success, image and confidence?
How do you define grammar, connotatively?
Are you worried, psychologically, how your peers see you concerning grammar? Explain
Besides taking a grammar course, what’s the best way to exercise your grammar “chops?”
What are your concerns about Prescriptivists and Descriptivists?
What is your position on “literal meaning falling into disfavor in academia?”
Do you think this phenomenon is something to be worried about?
Do you think there is a connection between this trend and the declining interest in grammar instruction?

1a I believe that these three are interrelated, and that they have an important relation to a sound image.

2a. In the broadest sense, grammar is the structure of ideas and how they relate to one another.

3a. Yes! Though I am in a leadership position in the department, I feel that I have more to learn from my colleagues than they do from me with respect to many things, particularly grammar. I think this stems from the fact that I did not receive strong grammar training in high school.

4a. I think reading more books is the best way. Quite simply, if you read examples of good writing, you unconsciously begin to emulate them. Unfortunately, I think the proliferation of visual media is reducing the amount of time people spend reading and therefore reducing their opportunity to acquire strong grammar skills in this manner.

5a. Perhaps because I am a philosopher, I am more concerned with content. In short, I am concerned first with what people say, and secondarily with how they say it. However, I feel there is a false dichotomy between content and form because there is an inherent connection between the two. You cannot have one without the other; communication requires both content and structure. Simply put, if the structure of your expression is not sufficiently sound from a mechanical perspective, then it cannot convey content effectively.

6a. Disfavor, no. When we ask students to engage in analysis we are trying to get them to use their literal understanding of texts to anchor an interpretation. I do think that the movement away from formalist analyses and toward more reader response interpretation can result in a reduced emphasis on literal meaning. Mostly though, I think it is factors external to academia, factors in our culture, that have encouraged a decline in interest in literal meaning.

7a. Yes.

8a. Yes. In general, I think college instructors are more concerned with content, rather than structure, presumably because we assume that secondary educators have focused much of their attention on technical proficiency in their students’ writing. Of course, I assume that I need to help my students develop their grammar skills if they arrive here without a strong foundation in that area. Ultimately, I emphasize BOTH content and form because I feel that both are important and because I also have a duty to prepare students for the fact that in the real world, employers expect one not only to have good ideas, but also to be able to articulate those ideas in clear, correct prose.

Ethos and Error

This essay was a mouthful. The whole theme was errors in the workplace. If we don't see grammar as important, then surely we will appreciate it since our mortgage depends on it. BEsides the methodology approach, which was quite extensive. I liked the fact that Beason said the business people saw image as the main problem with faulty writing and he he broke it down into five categories. It reminded me of Snow White. There's sleepy and dopey and "hasty," "careless," etc. the thing that jumped out at me was thinking problems vs. knowledge problems. It seems people see you as having "faulty thinking abilities..." (52). They do not think you can reason. That's huge! One mistake in a letter can label you for the rest of your tenure ant a job.