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Taking the G-r-r-r Out
of Grammar
Stephen Tchudi and Lee Thomas
textbook. Whatever the causes, our stu- * present the basic concepts of English gram-
mar: the nomenclature of traditional
dents have often perceived that their de-
grammar and the philosophical/linguistic
scriptive grammar course failed to give principles of transformational-generative
them the tools they needed to cope with grammar.
student- or first-year teaching.
46 November 1996
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* explore the applications of grammar in ever, traditional grammar doesn't have to be
real-world use, including writing, educa- used that way at all. It can offer descrip-
tion, literature, and politics. tions, too: that words function in different
We wanted our students to come to a ways and can be classified by "parts" of
full understanding of the idea of a gram- speech; that sentences include nouns and
mar-a system of rules, created by people verbs functioning as subjects and predi-
to describe the behavior they observe in cates; that determiners precede nouns; that
their language. infinitive phrases are often divided by ad-
We wrote on the board: verbs. One of our students observed that in
its way transformational grammar is pre-
specialists those bearded old
scriptive, since it "prescribes" the rules that
Lithuanian ten linguistics
native speakers must follow to generate
We then asked the students to rearrangegrammatical English sentences! Point taken.
the words into an English phrase, and to aWe explained that for the first part of the
person, they came up with: course we'd be interested in descriptive
grammars, trying to get a handle on how
those ten old bearded Lithuanian
those hairy old linguists and any other na-
linguistics specialists.
tive speakers of a language figure out and
We noted that "grammar" is what enableddescribe the conventions of that language.
them to make that decoding, and we asked As a follow-up for each class during the
them to articulate, if they could, the rulessemester, we had the students complete
that require "those" to precede "ten" or "lin- what we called X-squared activities: "Explo-
guistics" to follow "Lithuanian." Their strug-
rations and Extensions." These were hands-
gles helped us make the point that theon projects that had the students apply and
native speaker of a language knows a lot extend concepts we discussed in class, using
more grammar than he or she is necessarilytheir own resources, their own language,
and intuitive grammar. During the week that
able to describe! We also gave the students a
copy of Lewis Carroll's "Jabberwocky" and we explored the idea of descriptive vs. pre-
scriptive, we invited the students to:
helped them see that their intuitive, native
grammar is what allows them to figure out * write a "grammar" for a part of your life: a
that "slithy" is a description, not an action, description of the rules, laws, or principles
that "toves" is a plural something or other, that you are following to get an education,
to raise a kid, to keep or perform well on a
not the present tense of the verb "to tive."
job.
We carefully introduced the distinction
between a descriptive and a prescriptive gram- * write a "how to" grammar of something
you do well, say the basics of playing a
mar and explained that any grammar could
musical instrument or tying your shoes or
be either. Any grammar can be used as a sci- making a quilt.
entific description of how language func-
* write the elements of your ethical gram-
tions, and any grammar can be turned into a
mar, explaining how you determine what's
set of laws or shibboleths about how people "right" or "wrong."
ought to talk or write. We learned, a bit to
* create a fairy tale with a moral or "gram-
our surprise, that some of our students had mar" of human behavior.
heard about grammars in other language arts
methods courses and had developed a sim- We broke the class up into groups and
plistic set of formulae in their heads: had them discuss two key questions for the
course: Why create grammars? Why study
traditional grammar = prescriptive grammars? Students came up with such ex-
= bad planations as:
English Journal 47
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* Grammar helps us describe developmental spelling, mechanics, vocabulary, the busi-
stages in language acquisition. ness letter, and footnote etiquette togethe
* Grammar helps us make generalizations We claimed that for most people, knowin
about how people learn languages. one page of traditional grammar is enough
To wrap up our exploration of the na- a listing of the basic parts of speech couple
ture of grammar, we cautioned that the with usage items that happen to give tha
word grammar has very different meanings particular person a hard time. We suggeste
for the linguist, the teacher, the student, and that students get out a sheet of paper and
the lay person (distinctions which we think over the coming weeks, write their ow
ought to be at the core of the school lan- one-page grammar.
We were aided in our effort to make
guage curriculum). We urged our prospec-
tive teachers, once again, to keep clear the grammar accessible by Karen Elizabeth Gor-
distinction between prescription and de- don's book, The Deluxe Transitive Vampire:
scription, and we gave them a few thou
shalt nots:
peanut
* Don't say grammar when you mean usage;
48 November 1996
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discussed the essence of peanuthood (or constitute that last word as a verb. Or to
nounhood)-what all peanuts have in com- play around with suffixes for the antidotal
mon-and the idea of modification (what verb, "kissfrog."
distinguishes one nut from another). This Some of these activities are clearly more
exercise also allowed us to introduce a sim- sophisticated than one would use in a mid-
ple tree diagram which would help prepare dle school or high school, but many of them
students for the diagrams of transforma- (e.g., 101 ways to verb a brick, figuring out
tional grammar (see p. 48). words in "Jabberwocky") have been used in
Anticipating our work in transforma- the schools for years. The point is that we
tional grammar, we had the students figure wanted to disfearize traditional grammar for
out where nouns are likely to fall in sen- our students through some serious language
tences, as well as what types of words they play, something that can be done with stu-
often hang out with. Looking at their own dents at any level.
language, they discovered the simple rule of
EXPLORING TRANSFORMATIONAL-
placing "the" in front of a word as a test of GENERATIVE GRAMMAR
nouniness-you just can't use "the" in front The expanding complexity of generative
of a verb. Or you can try the plural test to see
linguistics led to some serious soul searching
if you can make a word into more than one-
on our part as instructors. It is impossible to
one noun, two nouns-something that also teach both theory and mechanics of genera-
doesn't work with other parts of speech.
tive grammar in a single semester introduc-
We took a similar approach with other
tory class (as our past courses had miserably
parts of speech: first having the students demonstrated). So what elements of this
play around with the word in many con- model did our students need to understand?
texts, then figuring out how you can recog-
And why? We tried to answer the nagging
nize and name it in a sentence. With verbs,
questions, "What will our students ever use
for example, we had students write 101 this for?" "And their students?"
verbs that show what can you do with such
We decided that the essence of the gen-
nouns as a peanut, a brick, a candy bar, a com- erative model for our class should be, first,
puter, a brain. We got into descriptive ad- an understanding that there are different
verbs and had students translate "walk" into
units of language that can be usefully ana-
"ambled slowly," "steal" into "poached lyzed and, second, that there are different
stealthily," and "cook" into "fry oilily." Our approaches to analysis. One can focus on the
students invented new verbs, e.g., "compu-
word, the phrase, the sentence, or passages
flop" for a computer failure. They wrote of discourse through various grammatical
paragraphs using only "is/are" verbs (or
models such as traditional, structural, gener-
"verbs of being") and paragraphs of action ative, tagmemic, functional, and so on. The
verbs. (They rewrote Hamlet's soliloquy
nomenclature of traditional grammar sug-
using only action verbs to see what that does
gests a concreteness about word categories
to procrastination!) We had them invent
that is moderately useful in schools and
weird complex verb tenses (having helped
standard in the workaday world, but it is sci-
them figure out that English has only two
entifically inadequate, or at least unhelpful,
inflected verb tenses, present and past, the
in many circumstances. We felt that learning
rest being compound forms). What tense
about the transformational-generative ap-
would you call "what a person thought
proach would create a greater flexibility in
he/she might do just moments before the
our students' analysis of language as well as
decision to do that thing became neces-
develop a healthy skepticism about "right"
sary?" (Answer: "past perfect thoughtful-
and "wrong" in language. To achieve this, we
ness.") We had them do parts of speech
explored the structure of words through
cross dressing, an activity we call "Latiniza-
morphology, generative descriptions of parts
tionabilizification," where you use Latin suf-
of speech, beginning phrase structure, and
fixes to take an ordinary noun (say "frog"), just a couple of classic transformations such
turn it into a verb or action ("frogify"-
as yes/no question formation and the passive
something witches do to princes), then flip transformation.
it back into nounhood ("frogification"). We
We used Jeffrey Kaplan's book, English
invite the reader to add another suffix to re-
Grammar: Principles and Facts, Second edi-
English Journal 49
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tion (1995, Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice or frame of mind toward language. "Think-
Hall), a text which contained far more ma- ing grammatically" gives one fresh perspec-
terial than we were intent upon teaching, tives on language, and grammars themselves
and we adapted an exercise developed by offer a variety of tools to use as we examine
Bill Reynolds in Exploring English Grammar communication. Now we wanted to talk
(1974, New York: Random House). about outcomes: what knowledge of gram-
mars can do for the speaker, writer, listener,
EXPLORING LANGUAGE
thinker, reader, ... and teacher.
ACQUISITION
We turned now to children. We viewed Literature and Style. We spent some
two videos on language acquisition from time in class looking at a grammatical ap-
The Human Language Series (1995, New proach to literature. We began by (re)assur-
York: Ways of Knowing). We discussed the ing students that the first obligation of the
research on the grammaticality of "baby reader is to respond or react to a text-to
talk" and described how linguists go about laugh or cry or become angry or thoughtful.
charting an infant's grammar, looking for But then, we suggested, it's interesting to
syntactic regularities in sentences as short as
look at the language that generated a re-
two words: "Bye-bye mommie." sponse in us. Along with examining content
and rhetoric, readers can look at:
Then, in what proved to be one of the
most popular aspects of the course, we * whether the writing is nouny, verby, adjec-
brought some two- and four-year-olds to tivey, or adverby
50 November 1996
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useful alternative to the "guess what the au- ized that many "nonstandard" speakers of
thor meant" approach so common in many English are far more multilingual than we.)
of their classes. Grammar, we hypothesized, Grammar, Power, and Inclusion. We
actually empowered them to interpret liter- took up the "deficit hypothesis," that is, the
ary texts on their own. view that the "problem" of nonassimilation
We closed the grammar-and-literature or poor performance in school lies in the in-
segment with a cautionary note: "Don't take dividual child or in "deficient" family values
this approach directly into your elementary, ("They don't value education."). The topic al-
middle, or senior high school classrooms; lowed us to explore the power relationships
and don't use this approach as a back door in educational institutions. Who decides
entry to 'teaching grammar."' Rather, we what dialect or register should be appropri-
urged them to adapt the idea and to think ate in school? What does control of this di-
about the theory of the grammatical ap- alect "get" for a student or a member of U.S.
proach to literature, not the specific gram- society? How can we usefully conceptualize
matical tools. While younger learners might and work with dialects and registers? These
or might not be ready for an introduction to open questions led us to heated debate,
grammatical terminology, everybody can yielding to the conclusion that what goes on
count words in sentences, notice whether in schools is often like club membership: "If
words are long or short, break a long sen- you can't talk like me, the teacher, then you
tence down into short ones and recombine can't be in the club. And by the way it's your
it. The approach is not dependent on the fault, not mine, nor the institution's."
mastery of any particular grammar. We then turned our grammatical tools
The Nature of Standards. Language loose on the topic of gender and language.
and power relationships seemed to be a We explored sexist language at two levels:
topic that surfaced throughout the course. discrete grammatical items and the broader
We began with William Labov's classic arti- aspects of discourse. Students debated the
cle, "The Logic of Nonstandard English" use of items such as "chairperson," "he/she,"
(1969, Georgetown University Monograph Se- and "human beings" rather then "man." At
ries on Language and Linguistics, Washington, the discourse level we explored such issues
DC: Georgetown University Press). Labov as whether or not one gender "has the floor"
analyzed the dialect of Black English (BE) more often than another. Who interrupts
and demonstrated that it is both grammati- more? Who does the work of maintaining a
cal, that is, rule-governed and predictable, conversation? Who gets called on more
as well as logical, a medium for communica- often in American schools? How does men's
tion. Our students could see descriptive and women's grammar differ?
grammar at work in the habitual "be," copula Students had the opportunity to work
deletion, and other rules of BE. Judgments outside of class on all of these topics. They
that BE constructions were "wrong" or "il- could tape discourse at a formal or informal
logical" came under scrutiny One studentgathering of men and women and make an
said: "Wait, labeling items from BE 'bad analysis of gender roles in their discourse.
grammar' or 'wrong' isn't very meaningful." Students "translated" a paragraph from a
Our students began to generalize by well-known text such as the National An-
viewing BE as one dialect of many and by them, or a ritual such as a marriage into in-
formal, colloquial nonsexist language. They
recognizing that there is a prestige dialect in
the U.S. which we often call "Standard Eng- also wrote in BE, created their own defini-
lish," the so-called "educated" variety of the tions of Standard American English, and
language. It seems appropriate to assist observed teacher expectations in classrooms
young people in both understanding this concerning discourse and turn-taking.
dialect for all of its benefits while maintain- English as a Second or Additional
ing other dialects they control for other sit- Language. Our earlier work in language ac-
uations. We thought about the language quisition led smoothly into discussion of
skills of our foreign language informants the ESL student. Our students reflected crit-
and realized that to be bidialectal is like
ically on unsupported maxims such as "Use
being bilingual in many ways. (And we real-
of the first language in the classroom should
be prohibited"; "Children learn English
English Journal 51
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faster if they are exposed only to English"; Knowing Grammar. So, at last we
"Teaching literacy skills in the first language reached what was the bottom line for many
is a waste of time"; and the perennial "sink of our students: How much "grammar" do
or swim" maxim, "My grandparents learned kids need to know?
English with no special help, so students We argued (as we had modeled in the
today should, too." course) for a user-friendly introduction to
Discussion groups used what they had traditional grammar. We campaigned against
learned about dialects and registers and the six-weeks-every-year approach and
concluded that the acquisition dynamics as noted that a quick review of parts of speech
well as classroom dynamics are indeed quite takes a few minutes or days, not months.
similar for students who do not control the We proposed that secondary teachers might
prestige dialect and students who do not initially introduce parts of speech grammar
speak English. in the middle school and review it occasion-
The Grammar and Usage Fair. Know- ally in the senior high years. This treatment
ing political and schoolhouse realities, we would be a far cry from the annual voyage
had to tackle the question of usage. Adapt- through "grammar" advocated by the typi-
ing a technique we learned from Celeste cal textbook series. It would also differ in
Resh at Mott Community College in Michi- tone. "Teach the parts of speech quickly and
gan, we had our students demonstrate in a playfully," we begged. "And above all," we
hands-on way that they knew the difference added, "don't immediately link grammar to
between grammar and usage. We presented matters of correctness and usage; teach tra-
a list of usage items that typically give peo- ditional grammar as a set of tools for discus-
ple problems-lay/lie, sit/set, effect/affect- sion and analysis." We also reminded the
and we asked each student to adopt a usage prospective teachers that they should not be
item that had given him or her a hard time perturbed about students who didn't "get it"
over the years. Students then studied usage immediately (or late), and we urged them to
handbooks we had placed on reserve out- dedicate themselves to finding alternatives.
side our offices. We asked them to study the We proposed that teachers show their
grammar underlying usage rules and then kids how to use that knowledge of gram-
to develop teaching visuals to present diffi- mar to consult a usage handbook or a com-
cult usage items. Our students created puter "grammar checker." There are many
posters, mobiles, mock newspaper reports, ways for students to get their writing into
and even skits to teach about a grammatical audience-acceptable form, including edit-
menagerie of troublesome items: who/whom ing conferences, peer-group proofreading,
and whoever/whomever; subject-verb agree- using charts and posters of usage demons,
ment; sexist language; split infinitives. At developing a personal usage file (kept as
our usage fair, students milled about exam- part of the writing portfolio), and writing
centers.
ining the displays, taking tear-off reminders
that some students had supplied, and writ- What about transformational-genera-
ing notes for their own future use. Students tive grammar?
took away many ideas for teaching usage in Here we advocate a motor cruise at the
52 November 1996
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of grammar at work in the language of our taking a grammatical perspective on lan-
guest preschoolers, non-native speakers, guage helps us analyze children at different
and classic writers, and we pointed out that levels and to understand why, for example,
as teachers they can do similar explorations. "invented" or "phonetic" spelling makes
Knowing Parents and Administrators. great sense in the early elementary grades
Thinking pragmatically, we urged students but is less appropriate at the high school
to get to know the school and state curricula: level or why one might want to crack the
what is truly required in grammar mastery? correctness whip with graduating seniors
We reported our experience that some while focusing language development in the
teachers seem to think that the school cur- middle school on factors such as fluency and
riculum requires a great deal of grammar, or voice. We suggested that our prospective
that nationally standardized tests are gram- teachers use their grammar, not primarily as
mar-based. Our observation is that grammar something to teach to children, but as a tool
is not overly-stressed in most school and to understand what kids are doing with lan-
state guidelines and that current standard- guage and how to determine the ways the
ized tests such as the California Test of Basicteacher can help move them to the next lev-
Skills and the Scholastic Aptitude Test, while els of understanding and performance.
including usage items, do not test students Finally, having covered those areas of
over grammatical terminology. grammar knowledge, we went back to Frost
We tried to prepare our prospective and "the road not taken." The projects
teachers for the reality that in many but by no which our students had been working on all
means all schools, they would be stereotyped semester now came center stage.
as new teachers and as members of the X-
generation who don't know nuthin' about
PRESENTATIONS AND EXTENSIONS The word
Each student had been working on what
grammar and don't care neither. We reported
we called the "G-r-r-reat G-r-r-r-ammar Pro-
grammar has
instances where the old guard (old in spirit if very different
ject." They were to think about grammar in
not in age) might well have tried to disabuse
meanings
the broadest sense, to choose an area whose for
new teachers of their "liberal" college educa-
grammar they wanted to research, the linguist,
to collect
tions. We argued that the approach to gram-
the teacher,
a "corpus" of examples of that language, to
mar we had advocated, coupled with their
new or rediscovered knowledge of grammar,
write about its grammar, and to make the student,
a pre-
sentation to the class. Here some of the roads
would get them through with an intellectu- and the lay
not taken merged. Our students wrote gram-
ally respectable teaching of grammar and person.
mars of television's McLaughlin Report,
allow them to communicate successfully with
baseball rules and lingo, American Sign Lan-
the guardians of grammar. We strongly rec-
guage, Shakespeare's plays, McDonalds' TV
ommended the idea of developing an infor-
ads, the English Only movement, the Inter-
mation sheet for parents and administrators
net, political correctness, foreign languages,
explaining what the teacher is doing, e.g.,
Gaelic (with help from texts), and bumper
* Why errors on papers are marked
stickers in the university parking lot. We had
selectively
grammars of mathematics, debate, history,
* The concept of a varieties of "good
rock-and-roll groups, romance novels, bas-
grammar.
ketball coaching, and job interviewing.
* How the teacher is helping non-native
There was a Grammar of Road Signs, a
speakers learn English.
Grammar of Music, a Grammar of Fashion,
* How "home" dialects are respected.
Gang Grammar, Football Grammar, a Grate-
* How kids can learn to help themselves ful Deadhead Grammar, an Electrician's
with usage.
Grammar, a Grammar of Fairy Tales (which
* How parents can help kids with usage mat- tracked two fairy tales through three ver-
ters and proofreading.
sions, including a politically correct one),
Knowing Young People. Most impor- Twin Language Grammars, Code Switching,
tant is that teachers need to know their stu- African Drumming Grammars, and a Gram-
dents' abilities and growth patterns. There is mar of Tarot Cards. Last, but not least, was a
no magic moment when a spoonful of gram- grammar of arm and hand gestures based on
mar will make all linguistic ailments disap- a videotape of one of the instructor's class-
pear. Most important, we stressed, is that room mannerisms.
English Journal 53
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Those last days of the class were action-
packed and richly informative, reminding us CALL FOR MANUSCRIPTS.
TRACKING AND GROUPING
and our students of the amazing range of
possibilities in the study of that old devil
The Committee on Tracking and Grouping
grammar. We had obviously packed a great Practices invites educators at the middle and
deal into the course, probably, like most am- high school levels to submit manuscripts to be
bitious instructors, included too much. Nev- considered for-a proposed Classroom Practices
ertheless, we believe that packing all the publication on the theme, "Teaching without
Tracking-Successful Strategies for the Het-
components of grammar into a single course
erogeneously.Grouped Classroom." We wel-
was important for a matter of perspective. come manuscripts presenting successful
Our prospective teachers (like kids in the classroom practices which promote heteroge-
schools, parents, and administrators) need a neous grouping of students and alternatives to
broad perspective on language, a big picture tracking. We seek classroom strategieswhich
are inclusive of mixed ability levels and which
that puts some of the day-to-day items, from
may represent schools with diverse popula-
spelling glitches to sexist language, into a tions based upon geographical, ethnic, racial,
pattern of linguistic understanding. and class affiliations. We would like to hear
We didn't imagine that we had turned about how the shifts in pedagogy and curricu-
lum occurred for you at your school. Manu-
our students into linguists or grammarians,
scripts can range in length from two to ten
but we did think that we had successfully double-spaced pages, with actual examples of
defanged the g-r-r-rowling demon that was student work and teacher-created lessons,
g-r-r-rammar. handouts, and graphics encouraged. Please
submit two copies, with the author's name
Lee Thomas and Stephen Tchudi teach in the English
and address appearing only on separate.title
Department at the University of Nevada, Reno. Lee
teaches in the areas of sociolinguistics and English as a pages..Manuscripts should be receivedhby
second language, and she is especially interested in the February.28, 1997. Please submit them to:
effects of the English Only movement. Stephen works Cynthia.Evans, 1683 Hooker Oak Avenue,
principally in composition and rhetoric and also Chico, CA 95926; phone: (916) 899-0629.
teaches introductory language courses.
p
9. ~ j .
:t
54 November 1996
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