Remember when you were learning to speak? No? Then maybe you remember watching your child -- or someone's child -- learning to speak. Either way, no doubt you fondly recall how the adult teacher presented the grammar of the English language in all its nuances in order to facilitate the acquisition of spoken language by the young learner. You recall the instruction regarding the proper formation of sentences: "A sentence must have a subject and a predicate. The subject must be a noun or prounoun (the name of a person, place or thing or the word that represents that person, place or thing), and the predicate must be a verb, a word that shows action or state of being, such as 'is'...."
You don't remember that? People don't learn to speak by first studying the conventions of grammar? Really...
Then what makes you -- well, maybe not you, but most folks -- think people should learn to write not by mimicking what writers do, but by studying grammar?
We learn to speak without knowing a SINGLE thing about grammar. Not one whit. Nada. We hear other people talk, and we try to do the same thing. And that's the best way to teach writing. Great writers don't need to know a SINGLE thing about grammar. Not one whit. Nada. All kids -- or anyone else -- learning to write need to do is mimic good writers. Being able to identify a conjunction doesn't make anyone a better writer. Research actually supports that common sense notion.
So knock off with the grammar already. You want to teach kids to write? You want to teach adults to write? Throw away the grammar books. Replace them with examples of the kind of writing the students want to do: a personal essay, a literary analysis, a movie or book review, a sports story, a report, a legal brief, a medical diagnosis... Do that and you'll teach someone to be a great writer, and to love writing.
But if you want to teach someone to be a poor writer and to loathe writing, teach grammar.
Whether it's speaking or writing, we learn best by following good models. Imagine what would happen if we tried to teach kids to talk the way too many people still try to teach them to write...
-- (Copyright) Mike Kielkopf, May 12, 2005
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