[_::_] Response to Mulroy's Myth of the Bad Old Days
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According to Mulroy:
Groups such as ATEG who stand behind the idea that Grammar should be taught are accurate in their beliefs and will soon receive a surge in followers. However, there are things holding them back. For one, they view the traditional teaching methods of grammar as fundamentally flawed. This may not be the complete truth, granted that many individuals owe their knowledge of grammar to the old ways of teaching. So, it could be said that the traditional methods do not need a complete overhaul.
Reed and Kellogg might agree. With exorcises found in their text books they urged students memorize rules and read examples (a traditional way to teach grammar).
Nowadays students are given kernel sentences and urged to combine them all into a simpler sentence with all the given information. Reed and Kellogg did something similar in giving students sentence they must complete by inventing the appropriate phrase (with prompts of time, place, and manner for example). This method allows for creativity.
Reed and Kellogg also make use of sentence diagramming. They use a method which relies on lines and separation of function - and similarly a fellow by the name of Clark makes use of bubbles. Some people have remarked that sentence diagramming is too confusing with lines going in all directions - which is a gross overstatement. There are only three types of lines used in the Reed and Kellogg sentence diagramming. Compare this to the newer idea of tree diagramming, which is held back by the fact that it MUST result in "as-spoken" sentences, not to mention the numerous branches and titles trickling down, and you can see how the traditional sentence diagramming is more understandable. Keep in mind, both methods relay the same information and show the same knowledge of grammar. As an added perk, diagramming can help one understand difficult sentences of English as well as other languages!
My response to this:
I agree that sentence diagramming is useful. I did it for the first time in my Grammar course with Dr. Benton just this semester. I felt I learned more in that section of the class than in any other.
I agree that tree diagramming looks over-the-top difficult. I wouldn't want to do it at all.
I agree that the traditional teaching methods of grammar were useful and did teach students about grammar. I even agree that we don't have to completely overhaul the entire history of grammar teaching to continue teaching effectively. In this case, I can see change as going either direction - it takes off, or it crashes and burns.
To sum my opinion up, I agree. There wasn't much room to disagree when the majority of that discussed points to common sense stuff. As in, grammar is good, the history of teaching grammar taught grammar, and diagramming sentences works. On a happy side note, I can make a wall of side-ways bricks with text, watch: i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!i!
