Grammar and writing as chicken and egg??

[Jane in NC]

So what comes first? The diagrammed sentence or the well constructed sentence? Or is there no connection at all?

Yesterday, a friend who began teaching midway through the year at a small Christian middle school commented that they will be dropping grammar for additional work in writing. My shudder must have been obvious, because she felt the need to justify her decision. (If her charges were studying Latin, perhaps my shudder would not have been so apparent.)

My son had been subjected to formal English grammar studies through 9th grade, but continues his grammar studies in both French and Latin. I have not ignored writing by any stretch of the imagination, but I am with many participants on this board who feel that something has been lacking in the quality of our writing program.

Which leads me to thoughts on grammar and writing in general and our decisions in particular...

Perhaps I like grammar given my background in mathematics. I like axioms. I like rules of the game. But here is the question: in general, are formal grammar studies needed to become a good writer? There are anecdotal tidbits that have been shared on students becoming great writers via reading great books and ignoring grammar studies. But obviously this formula does not work for all.

How does grammar fit into your lives? Consider my friend's statement: "Knowing how to diagram a sentence does not help you write a good paragraph." True? Partially true? True for some? Just plain hooey?

I would enjoy having another of our philosophical chats.

Jane

[Beth in SW WA]

[QUOTE

I would enjoy having another of our philosophical chats.

Jane[/QUOTE]

Here is a philosophical chat regarding grammar from the old k-8 board:

http://wtmboards.com/K8currSep212007/messages/1969.html

[Jane in NC]

Here is a philosophical chat regarding grammar from the old k-8 board:

http://wtmboards.com/K8currSep212007/messages/1969.html

What an interesting thread, Beth. I can see why you saved it.

Jane

[Kim in Appalachia]

I have only a few quick thoughts, but here it goes...

You can become a good writer without a solid knowledge of grammar. You can read a lot and imitate good writers. You can practice, practice, practice until you are able to get your story/point across in a clear way, but...

I believe you will be a better writer if you have a good understanding of grammar. It is helpful to understand how a sentence works; how each part functions in relation to the other. Grammar lets you take something apart so that you can see the whole better.

The problem I think we have with grammar is that we rarely get past the "grammar" stage of grammar. It is much harder to teach the next step. It also takes a lot of time to see how each sentence works to make the whole story.

A writer who understands the parts will be better at creating the whole.

One other thought. I have read a lot of books and essays and I think you can tell when the writer understands grammar and when he does not. (and I do realize that they use editors, but even a good editor can only do so much :))

Kim

[Michelle in MO]

Perhaps I like grammar given my background in mathematics. I like axioms. I like rules of the game. But here is the question: in general, are formal grammar studies needed to become a good writer? There are anecdotal tidbits that have been shared on students becoming great writers via reading great books and ignoring grammar studies. But obviously this formula does not work for all.

How does grammar fit into your lives? Consider my friend's statement: "Knowing how to diagram a sentence does not help you write a good paragraph." True? Partially true? True for some? Just plain hooey?

I would enjoy having another of our philosophical chats.

Jane

"intuitively" learned or absorbed well-written books as opposed to poorly-written books.

However, I wish now I'd had more grammar---lots of it. Honestly, I only remember one 7th grade grammar class in which we learned a very little bit about diagraming sentences. I think I did have good writing instruction, but the grammar instruction was minimal and virtually non-existent. I suspect the same is true in many public schools today.

To me, grammar and writing are like bread and butter. You can't do one without the other---you need both to make a "whole meal." I learned more about English grammar through studying German and French in college. Going through Henle I with my girls, even though they didn't enjoy it, was even more of an eye-opener. I still have a difficult time remembering those nefarious Latin verbs!

Yes, I agree---both good grammar and good writing instruction are essential! :)

[Janet in WA]

So what comes first? The diagrammed sentence or the well constructed sentence? Or is there no connection at all?Well, in our case, there was no connection at all -- between "diagraming" sentences and "well constructed" sentences that is. However, there was a definite connection between a study of grammar and a reliably well-constructed sentence. We did very little traditional diagraming, but we did study grammar intensively and thoroughly. We relied more on what I call "reverse diagraming" (the student is given a sentence pattern and must use the pattern to construct his own sentence).

[Laura K (NC)]

I think there are students who are natural writers, for whom writing programs like IEW are more a hinderance than a help. I've never met anyone who could write something perfectly the first time without any kind of plan, or whose writing could not be improved with editing. The "plan" with writing is a diagram. Whether you learn it formally or intuitively, it's still there, and it can always be improved as a student's assignments get more complex.

I've been giving my 9th grader some creative writing assignments. He will still sit on the floor with his younger brothers and create wild battles with action figures (don't tell him I let that out), so I knew that he'd be good at writing creatively, even though we hadn't done much specific work on that before this year. I was pleased to read his creative, well-crafted story. The edits I made included some grammatical advice (have a good reason to start a sentence with a conjunction, for example) and some tweaking of the prepositions, but mostly it was clarification of thought: a pronoun wasn't clear, a long awkward phrase needed to be shortened, and a conclusion didn't follow its statements.

In editing his story I definitely called upon grammar to recommend changes, and because of the common language of grammar my son was able to understand what needed to be fixed and he trusted my advice. But the corrections also required a logic that had nothing to do with grammar.

I think there is a good parallel in math. Algebra requires a logic that a grammar stage child might struggle with developmentally, but if one postpones math instruction until the child is ready for abstract concepts, the child will be crippled by a basic command of arithmetic. As my oldest son gets into algebraic problems that take a half page, I can see that they are very much like an essay... full of little well-crafted parts that have to be logically tied together. Of course with writing there's a lot more creativity involved, but the structure is very much the same. The grammar must be second nature so that one can scan a paragraph or an essay and immediately see the improvements that must be made. My 9th grader can't do that yet. His story is good; it is his grammar (as well as his logic) that is still weak.

Intuition can take you only so far in writing. When I was in my 20's I got A's on writing assignments in college and I had a high opinion of my abilities. Now 20 years later I struggle with punctuation and prepositions and can't believe the improvements I've made in my writing in the past two years. I think I've benefited from the Rod & Staff books I'm using with my kids.

SWB had a blog entry on editing recently here (http://susanwisebauer.com/blog/?p=158). The entry is relevant even for those of us or our children who will never publish anything more than a letter to the editor. (See there... those of us and our children? Those of us or our children? Any of us? Grammar should be helping me here, but I still have more to learn. :) )

[Colleen in NS]

So what comes first? The diagrammed sentence or the well constructed sentence? Or is there no connection at all?

How does grammar fit into your lives? Consider my friend's statement: "Knowing how to diagram a sentence does not help you write a good paragraph." True? Partially true? True for some? Just plain hooey?

Those R&S books seem to teach the grammar and the diagraming side by side, instead of one before the other. Teach the grammar concept, then diagram a few sentences that are constructed according to that concept, so the student can see how the sentence fits together. Then add another grammar concept, learn to diagram it. In my very limited experience so far, the two skills seem to reinforce each other.

For your friend's statement, I'd vote "partially true." After reading SWB's essay in her upcoming new writing book, I'm thinking that diagramming and outlining from a well-written non-fiction text go hand in hand. Her explanation of these skills made sense to me. Diagraming is for taking a sentence apart to figure out how to make it grammatically correct, and outlining a text is for figuring out how others construct paragraphs, before writing extensively on your own.

How does grammar fit for us? I am teaching it (learning it finally!), and can see how it will be useful down the road.

Just following the WTM road here, and so far, it all makes sense to me! :)

[Beth in SW WA]

After reading SWB's essay in her upcoming new writing book, I'm thinking that diagramming and outlining from a well-written non-fiction text go hand in hand. Her explanation of these skills made sense to me.

Where did you get a copy of SWB's essay? Thanks!

[Jan P.]

Where did you get a copy of SWB's essay? Thanks!

I think this is the essay that she was referring to:

http://peacehillpress.com/samplepdfs/04-three-stages.pdf

HTH,

[Laura Corin]

I really think it depends on the person. There are those who can absorb decent writing through reading; others need explicit instruction. I have two children who fit the former description, so I won't be wasting their time on years of formal grammar instruction. They learn parts of speech and punctuation through their general English books - that is as far as I feel they need to go.

Best wishes

Laura

[Rhondabee]

I agree whole-heartedly! That's the reason why writing is so hard to teach, I think.

I'm hoping that doing Logic next year, and the WTM Rhetoric recs will help in this area! Too often, ds just doesn't see what's "wrong" and I just finally give up trying to explain and either let him keep it as is, or force him to change it to "my" way against his will.

I can see how studying parallelisms in sentences (and in diagrams) can lead to better writing, too, but we just covered that this week, so....

Just gonna trust SWB on this one
:D

[Colleen in NS]

I think this is the essay that she was referring to:

http://peacehillpress.com/samplepdfs/04-three-stages.pdf

HTH,

Yep, that's the one. See pages 10 and 13 - the italicized subheadings under the logic stage section - those subheadings (and explanations) caused a lightbulb to go on in my mind.

[Colleen in NS]

I agree whole-heartedly! That's the reason why writing is so hard to teach, I think.

I'm hoping that doing Logic next year, and the WTM Rhetoric recs will help in this area! Too often, ds just doesn't see what's "wrong" and I just finally give up trying to explain and either let him keep it as is, or force him to change it to "my" way against his will.

I can see how studying parallelisms in sentences (and in diagrams) can lead to better writing, too, but we just covered that this week, so....

Just gonna trust SWB on this one
:D

Here's a rabbit trail...

corrections required a logic that had nothing to do with grammar.....

I was just coming on here (well, K-8 board) to post about my latest discovery through self-education (I've conquered A1 and A2 of MindBenders this week - which I didn't think I could do)....it seems to me that to do logic puzzles, one has to know some grammar, to be able to turn the reasoning of the sentences backwards and forwards to solve the puzzles - I found myself mentally taking sentences apart...so, the newest lightbulb flashing on in my mind is that grammar is useful for logic, too! (and in turn, logic is useful for writing, it seems, from LauraK's post - which would lead me to the conclusion that all three are intertwined) But you all probably knew that already. :)

Just excited about my newest discovery and thought I could fold it into this thread somehow.....