I have struggled a little bit with chapter 6. I'll be the first to admit that I am a grammar fanatic....and I hate it. I hate that I notice every time someone uses "nonstandard" grammar, which apparently I'm not allowed to call "bad" or "incorrect." But I do. After reading this chapter, I realize that I am much more of a verbal grammar fanatic than a written one. I don't get really uptight about comma splices, split infinitives, etc as long as it doesn't distract from the writing as a whole (and who honestly knows exactly how to use a comma in every single instances??). But to talk to someone and encounter "poor" grammar (yes, I said poor) drives me crazy. I work in a fairly professional environment. My co-workers and I often find ourselves on the phone with law firms, Federal Reserve personnel, VISA personnel and a host of other fairly professional entities. So when I hear someone in my office ask, "Was you gonna send us that file?" I want to cry. And I swear, I have heard it more times that I can count. To me, it is bad grammar and it makes my office look very unprofessional. It makes the people I work with seem very uneducated. It honestly bothers me. (Don't tell them but in the course of one work day, I wrote down every time I heard someone use bad grammar and I think I counted about 30 different times....another reason to cry).
So then I read Christenbury, whom I have gained a tremendous amount of respect for over the last 5 chapters. And I struggle when she talks about how its not really "bad" or "poor" grammar and we shouldn't tell our students this. I disagree. Maybe its not necessary with family and friends. Maybe we don't have to use proper grammar when we are on the basketball courts with our friends. But if our students want to be taken seriously after they leave the school environment and enter adulthood, they have to know how to speak standard English. To me, I see poor grammar as a separate world than a regional/racial/social dialect. There are ways that the two overlap, but poor grammar is poor grammar, no matter what you call it.
While I want my students to know how to speak well, I also know that giving them tons of grammar worksheets is not going to accomplish it. The nerd in me would love to diagram sentences for days, but my students will string me up by my eyelashes if I even suggest it. So I am always looking for creative and innovative ways to approach grammar in my classroom - and maybe even verbal grammar more than written. So I liked some of her ideas. But I am still trying to think of more.....and if I remember correctly, Katie did her I-search on teaching grammar....so teach us, Katie!
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When I think about all that we want to try to accomplish as teachers in one school day it is pretty mind boggling. It seems that it would be much easier to just give students worksheets in some instances.
I think that its important to not overwhelm our students with grammar, grammar, grammar. But they do and will need to have a good grasp on the standard grammar rules that society accepts to be successful. We must be creative and introduce them to what is considered correct. Its almost as if we need to sneak it in on them here and there throughout the year. Its a tough line, not boring them to death and being hung by our eyelashes, and getting across to them what they need to know.
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