3

1 Three Goals for Teaching

Grammar
he three goals presented in this chapter are intended—in
words borrowed from the introduction to the NCTE/ IRA Standards
for the English Language Arts to "embody a coherent, professionally
defensible conception of how a field can be framed for purposes of
instruction" (viii). They state outcomes in grammar instruction that
include a wide range of abilities related to grammar, from the ability
to write Standard English to an understanding of language prejudice.
You may find them ambitious and idealistic, and they are.
These goals are intended to provide direction and context for
grammar instruction up through the completion of high school. You
may have asked yourself what you can possibly teach your students
about a complex subject like grammar during the year they will be in
your class. You may not knovv what grammar, if any, your students
have been ta ught or will be taught bv other teachers. When we as
teachers are not sure whether grammar is included throughout our
curriculum, we tend to stick to the basics—the basic writing errors,
the basic parts of speech. For students, the result is often tedious
repetition. In such a disconnected grammar curriculum, students lose
out on much of grammar that is important and exciting.
In contrast, these three grammar goals summarize three
strands of a comprehensive grammar curriculum. In a language arts
curriculum that included these strands, students would not only
develop a command of Standard English, but they would also
understand at a basic level the role that language structure plays in
literature, the way language changes through time and in different
social situations, and the fact that all languages and language
varieties have grammatical structure. Ambitious? Certainly. But the
following chapters will each discuss ways that you and your students
can work toward these achievements.

About the Three Grammar Goals

Goal A
Every student, from every background, will complete school with
the ability to communicate comfortably and effectively in both
4 Chapter 1

Goals for Teaching Grammar

Every student, from every background, will complete school with

the ability to communicate comfortably and effectively in both
spoken and written Standard English, with awareness of when use
of Standard English is appropriate.

Goal B
Every student will complete school with the ability to analyze the
grammatical structure of sentences within English texts, using
grammatical terminology correctly and demonstrating knowledge of
how sentence-level grammatical structure contributes to the
coherence of paragraphs and texts.

Goal C
Every student will complete school with an understanding of, and
appreciation for, the natural variation that occurs in language across
time, social situation, and social group. While recognizing the need
for mastering Standard English, students will also demonstrate an
understanding of the equality in the expressive capacity and
linguistic structure among a range of language varieties both
vernacular and standard, as well as an understanding of language-
based prejudice.

spoken and written Standard English, with awareness of when

use of Standard English is appropriate.
"Standard English" is the variety of English that many people in the
economic mainstream and predominant social culture of the United
States speak and write. Sometimes it is called Mainstream American
English. Standard English is the variety of English that grammar books
describe. It is standard not in the sense that it is better English than
other varieties but in the sense that it is the widely recognized and
codified version of English.
A more precise name for it is Edited American English
—"Edited" since it is the version of our language that writers and
editors of books and periodicals follow, and '*American" in that it is
the language written in the United States as opposed to England,
where some spellings (color, colour; airplane, aeroplane), vocabulary
Onailbox, pillar box; gasoline petrol), and usage (e.g., the deletion of
the definite article, as in She is in hospital) are different.
Three Goals for Teaching Grammar 5

Standard English is sometimes referred to also as the Language

of Wider Communication, a name reflecting the belief that when
people in the United States talk or write to people other than friends
and family in another part of the country, this is the language that is
most likelv to be the "common currency." It is the language variety
that the stranger in an office at the other end of the telephone or letter
or e-mail will probably be the most familiar i,vith.
But the notion of a standard language raises some questions that
are obvious if you think about the word for a moment. Standard for
whom? Evervwhere? Always? In all details? Standard English is not a
single, pure type of English, although some people like to think that it
is so specific and so solid, like a yardstick made of gold, that we can
compare it with samples of language and find out easily whether the
samples fall short.
For instance, there is an important category of English known as
Informal Standard English. The American Heritage Dictionary uses
the label "informal" to designate "words that are acceptable in
conversation with friends and colleagues [but that] would be
unsuitable in the formal prose of an article written for publication in
the journal of a learned society" (3rd edition, xxxvii). Wish list is an
example of Informal Standard English.
In addition to this categorv, there are what linguists designate as
regional standards, the entirely acceptable, clear, and "normal" ways
that people talk in specific geographical regions. Regional standards
may differ in some ways from the specifications in the grammar books
of Edited American English. And yet to ask whether, for that reason, a
certain regional phrase is "correct" makes no sense. Martha Kolln and
Robert Funk illustrate this point well:
Imagine that your job is to record the speech of
Pennsylvanians. In Pittsburgh and its surrounding areas, you
hear such sentences as "My car needs fixed" and "My hair
needs washed" and "Let the door open. " In Philadelphia, three
hundred miles to the east, you hear instead "My car needs to be
fixed" and "My hair needs washing" and "Leave the door
open." As a linguist are you going to judge one group's speech
as grammatical and the other's as ungrammatical? Of course
not. You have no basis for doing so.
. Many of the sentences that get l.abeled "ungrammatical" are
simply usages that vary from one dialect to another, what we
sometimes call regionalisms. (7)
So keep in mind that "Standard English" is a concept with some
flexibility to it. It has its gray areas. Nonetheless, clearly an essential
6 Chapter 1

goal of education is for students to gain as much mastery of Standard

English as they can. Goal A recognizes that students, no matter which
language variety they speak and hear at home, will be expected to use
the codes and conventions of Standard English in many situations. In
the workplace, a written report or memorandum will require Standard
English, as will most conversations with supervisors. Outside of the
workplace, students-turned-adults should be able to communicate with
professional people such as lawyers or doctors in Standard English.
The study of grammar is by no means the only, or even the primary,
method for achieving this goal. More important, as English teachers
know, are generous amounts of reading, speaking, listening, and
writing. But students need a conscious knowledge of grammar so that
they can talk about sentences and about the conventions of Standard
English.

Goal B
Every student will complete school with the ability to analyze
the grammatical structure of sentences within English texts,
using grammatical terminology correctly and demonstrating
knowledge of how sentence-level grammatical structure
contributes to the coherence of paragraphs and texts.
This goal emphasizes the value of understanding the basic components
of and relationships between sentences. This understanding is valuable
not only for helping writers understand the conventions of Standard
English but also for helping both writers and readers understand how
sentences work together to create coherent, meaningful text. Often,
you may have found yourself teaching students about the parts of
speech and the word groups that make up sentences only to find that
neither you nor the students could put that knowledge to much use in
writing a clear essay or in appreciating literature. The grammar lesson
is finished, the work sheets are handed in, the students open up their
literature books, and the grammar is left behind. Goal B is about not
leaving grammar behind, Chapters 3 and 4 focus on these topics of
terminology and coherence.
Goal C
Every student will complete school with an understanding of,
and appreciation for, the natural variation that occurs in
language across time, social situation, and social group. While
recognizing the need for mastering Standard English, students
will also demonstrate an understanding of the equality in the
expressive capacity and linguistic structure among a range of
Three Goals for Teaching Grammar 7

language varieties both vernacular and standard, as well as an

understanding of language-based prejudice.
We use the term language variety in this book instead of the word
dialect. In linguistics, dialect refers to any variety of a language in
which the use of grammar and vocabulary identifies the regional or
social background of the user. African American Vernacular English,
now generally referred to as African American English, is a dialect of
English. For linguists, so is Standard English. But the word dialect
carries some serious baggage. For many people, and perhaps for you
as well, dialects are "bad" English—nothing neutral about them—and
it seems contradictory to think of Standard English as a dialect. So to
minimize the confusion, language specialists recommend using the
term language variety in its place. Language variety refers to any
socially or regionally distinctive pattern of grammar and vocabulary
within the larger language. This is the practice we are following in this
ATEG guide.
Goal C includes the word vernacular: "a range of language
varieties both vernacular and standard." Vertlacular is both a noun and
an adjective that refers to the everyday language of a region and to
everyday language in general. Sometimes it is used to distinguish
between "plain" conversational language and "flowery" literary
language. Also, as here, it distinguishes between ordinary speech and
formal Standard English (in either writing or speaking). "Me'n Jim'r
goin' over his house after school" is an example of the vernacular of an
eighth-grade boy who is speaking to his friends.
Although vernacular does not carry the same intensely negative
connotations that the term dialect does, it often brings out our
assumptions, perhaps unconscious ones, about "better" and "worse"
language. It may be hard to resist the belief that a sentence in the
vernacular such as the example in the previous paragraph is a sloppy
and careless sentence—one that, understandably; people may say in
the rush of conversation but that nonetheless would be "better" if the
pronoun case were corrected—I instead of me—if the to were added
after over, and if the pronunciation were clearer.
Goal C asks that we look at such examples of vernacular English
not with suspicion about their adequacy but from several different
perspectives: First, with an appreciation of the natural variation of
language—this speaker was, presumably, speaking in exactly the style
and with just the grammatical structures that his listeners found
appropriate. Second, with an appreciation that such a sentence is
equally effective and expressive for its listeners as the revised standard
version would be (Jim and I are going over to his house after school) if
8 Chapter 1

the audience consisted of his teacher. Third, with an understanding

that such a sentence does not have "less" grammar than the standard
version; it follows common grammatical patterns to the same degree
that the standard version does. For instance, in the conversation of
many young people, the objective pronoun regularly appears in
compound structures (me and Jim, her and Mary, him and me) that
play the role of sentence subject. Such a pattern is different from
Standard English, but it is not random. (It has its own complexity: the
speaker would certainly use the subjective pronoun if it stood alone—
I'm going over to Jim's house—but uses the objective pronoun in
compounds.) Fourth, with an understanding that for many people,
prejudice against such language may have its roots in prejudice against
the people who speak it. Just as Standard English seems "right"
because the people who use it are held in high regard, many people
view vernacular language as "sloppy" or "uneducated" because that is
how they view many of the people who speak that way. A vicious
cycle is created. Prejudice about certain people leads to prejudice
about their language, which deepens the prejudice about people.
Certain features of vernacular English (subject pronouns in the
objective case, the omission of certain prepositions, the double
negative, an irregular verb form, as in I seen it) come to be considered
"bad English" because the people who use them are looked down on
by others. Then, in turn, other people may be looked down on when
their speech includes those stigmatized features. This is what Goal C
means by "language-based prejudice.'
Goal C encourages the view that knowing grammar can foster
an appreciation of all language varieties. When students have grammar
as a tool for discussing the basic parts of any language, you can help
them acquire a broad and democratic understanding of language
variation. You can show them that they use different grammatical
structures when they talk with their friends (me and Jim) compared to
when they talk with their teachers (Jim and I). You can encourage
them not to look down on or make fun of the ways other people talk
by showing them how language that often sounds "wrong" or "weird"
usually follows a pattern of its own that is just as consistent as the
usage in mainstream English. We will look at lots of examples in the
next chapters

How well do your grammar lessons help students meet these three
grammar goals? Ask yourself the following questions about your
grammar lesson plans:
Three Goals for Teaching Grammar 9

Are students applying grammar to a real communication

context?
• Does the lesson take audience and purpose into
consideration? Will the lesson broaden the students'
understanding of and spect for different varieties of English?
Different languages? Are students using grammatical
terminology correctly?