Mulroy's War

In David Mulroy's The War Against Grammar, the title of chapter one paints a clear picture of his feelings towards grammar - America the Grammarless he proudly declares. This statement is followed by examples of what other professors do to correct student grammar, showing the ignorance of college students who do not understand basic concepts of grammar. Mulroy goes on to attack the NCTE at some length. He is outraged that the NCTE does not feel the need to teach "formal" grammar to high school students; he also mentions Peter Elbow and his approach that people should ignore grammar altogether to help their writing. Mulroy's four straws in the wind feel like a direct assault on my generation. He makes many comments on how our test scores have fallen over the years and how this is a direct result of ability with language.

I agree with Mulroy that I as an English major need to know grammar on a "formal" level, but I do not agree that all students need to go through a crash course in grammar in order to be a good writer. I feel that the NCTE and the Writing Next report have it right with their embedding techniques. Students who do not need formal grammar could benefit from having grammar lessons withing their writing lessons, i.e. sentence combining exercises. I must admit that I was irritated when I first read this chapter, taking it too personal, but after some thought; I realized that his points were alarming and I (if I teach) need to find a better way to improve student writing other than this forced grammar.

Grammography: Wall Of Shame

I have a jaded past when it comes to grammar. I never liked it and never will unless something changes. For the most part, this is because of my superb teachers who would treat grammar like Auschwitz. The wonderful Wall Of Shame in my 9th grade English class was the definition of scare tactics. Like a preacher pounding his fist on the pulpit, threatening eternal damnation with brimstone and fire; my teacher warned us against sounding like uneducated Okies. Anytime a student in the class would use incorrect grammar they would have to go to the wall and write the sentence as they had used it incorrectly and then sign their name next to it. This soon turned into a joke for me, misusing grammar left and right just so I could write my name on the wall, but my teacher soon caught on and ignored me, not letting me write on the Wall Of Shame anymore.

Grammar has always been a set of snobbish rules to me, having people correct me when I say something wrong has always been a pet peeve (maybe because of the "Wall"). It seems that when I have an encounter with grammar outside of the classroom, it is just a pretentious person trying to make others feel dumb. Keeping this in mind, even when people use incorrect grammar, I can understand them. I don't feel there is any need for people to harp on grammar unless it interferes with the communication. So here is my pedagogical approach to grammar as of now - I will stress the need for writing over grammar. If grammar becomes and issue for a student I will help them correct the problem. I want to stay away from addressing grammatical problems to the class as a whole, when at all possible; I would rather work one-on-one with a student and keep the grammar within the context of their personal problem.

Now that you know my feelings about grammar, I invite you to participate in my own little Wall Of Shame. Feel free to come make a post that shows any incorrect grammar. You might even want to start by dissecting my horrible display in this post. Or, if you would like, share some times when grammar really does make a difference and the meaning of a sentence is lost within the errors.