A few months ago I came across a Pinterest post linking to an article about students not retaining the eight parts of speech. How many English teachers have lamented this fact? Time and again in meetings and breakrooms and even during dinner and drinks, we teachers vent about our students not retaining grammar concepts and especially the eight parts of speech. Why is it that even my high schoolers, juniors and seniors, could not describe what an adjective is or does? Why does the function of an adverb, which has its function in its name, elude them?
English language instruction has undergone many changes over the last century. We are still embroiled in the debate between phonics versus whole language approaches, and we love to debate the use of the Oxford comma. Many people tout themselves to be Grammar Nazis, boasting an above-average knowledge of English grammar, yet they are far from understanding the intense complexities of our mess of a language.
Students don't fail to learn basic grammatical concepts because they aren't taught or reinforced; there is a multi-pronged issue in the way that grammar is taught in schools that keeps them from making connections between the concepts and their bigger-picture function.
Grammar concepts are typically taught through rote memorization and identification. Students are taught what the eight parts of speech are and are then taught to identify them in use in various sentences. Many students can shoot off the names of various parts of speech but they can not recall their function. This is due to them being taught and recalled in isolation.
While students must memorize the names and purpose, much like multiplication tables, they must also apply this knowledge meaningfully in the analysis of written language.
Many students can identify a noun in a sentence, and even tell you that a noun is a person, place or thing, but they can not tell you what that noun's function is. In language, this is called "case".
Grammatical case denotes what a noun's function is in a sentence. Although English borrowed many grammatical structures from German, it also abandoned many parts of those structures that made them make sense. In English, we only use cases for pronouns: we identify the difference between a subject pronoun, an object pronoun and a possessive pronoun. But we do not teach this in school. This leaves students knowing the name for a word, i.e. that "run" is a verb, but they can not tell you what its function is within the sentence. This is why the names of parts of speech are easily forgotten.
It is not meaningful for a student to know that, in the sentence "Johhny threw the ball to Michael", "Johnny", "ball" and "Michael" are nouns, "threw" is a verb and even that "to" is a preposition. A student really needs to know that Johnny is the subject, the actor in the sentence, and this will tie into bigger concepts like identifying key details, main idea and even writing a summary.
Herein lies the real issue: students' ability to write effectively and to analyze written texts effectively.
Research on the effectiveness of explicit, isolated grammar instruction focuses on either
the ability to recall information or
overall writing ability (which has more to do with the ability to structure your thoughts than grammatical use). However, curricular standards, standardized tests and workforce needs dictate that citizens be able to do more with written language. Ultimately, teachers are trying to get students to be able to analyze an author's meaning when reading a text, something that all of my students have struggled with because their knowledge of language is limited, and to be able to write concisely and with clarity. We can not clearly express information if we do not understand that the placement of a prepositional phrase clarifies the meaning of the sentence.
So, while many articles
call for the removal of explicit grammar instruction, it is not the explicit instruction that is the problem; it is how it is being done.
Much like with arithmetic, students simply must memorize certain facts, like the multiplication table. They then use these facts and their understanding of them (multiplication means adding groups of quantities together) to apply to math concepts (algebra, calculus, geometry, etc). Rather than having English teachers teach the same concepts over and over from elementary on through high school, the vertical scale should move from introduction and memorization of concepts to application. A sixth grader should not still be identifying nouns and adjectives in a sentence; they should be analyzing how an author uses words to make meaning to the reader, and how they, as writers, use these words to express their own ideas.
What's a way this can be done?
While many people abhor sentence diagramming, it should be an important rung in the ladder of language development.
Many resources support that sentence diagramming is the bridge between explicit grammar instruction and reading and writing.
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Diagramming isn’t an arcane assignment designed to torture the student. It forces students to clarify their thinking, fix their sentences, and put grammar to use in the service of writing—which is, after all, what grammar is for."
https://welltrainedmind.com/a/why-diagramming-matters/?v=7516fd43adaa
"Burns Florey and other experts trace the origin of diagramming sentences back to 1877 and two professors at Brooklyn Polytechnic Institute. In their book, Higher Lessons in English, Alonzo Reed and Brainerd Kellogg made the case that students would learn better how to structure sentences if they could see them drawn as graphic structures."
https://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2014/08/22/341898975/a-picture-of-language-the-fading-art-of-diagramming-sentences
"...diagramming sentences requires students to use critical thinking, a skill the Common Core prioritizes. In that respect, the practice is in line with CCSS goals."
Do sentence diagrams have a place in the Common Core?
https://brighted.funeducation.com/News/Common-Core-State-Standards-News/do-sentence-diagrams-have-a-place-in-the-common-core
Common Core and many state standards have encouraged curriculum writers to change their approach to instruction in ways that develop deeper understanding and build stronger critical thinking. Where elementary math curriculum includes instructional strategies such as using number lines to give a visual to numeracy, arrays for deepening understanding of multiplication, and drawing to create visual representations, English curriculum stands to make similar adjustments if we want our next generation to have the skills necessary for the high cognitive demands of our tech driven world.
