Teaching writing (was FWD: Illiterate America)

[Kat Nagel/MasterWork <katnagel -at- EZNET -dot- NET>]

Arlen's description of his two daughters' experiences learning english
certainly hit home for me.  I went through school in the 50s and 60s.  Ours
was the first class to be taught to write without 'confining rules' and to
do math without 'mindless memorization.'

Fortunately, I had a mother who was a traditional-style math teacher, and
who had a reverence for language.  She taught me my times-tables (it's a
great way to keep a squirmy 7-year-old occupied on long car trips!).  She
also dug out  -her-  old high-school grammar books [(c) 1940].  I taught
myself to diagram sentences, and she proof-read all my homework until I
reached the 6th grade.  No, she didn't  -correct-  it; she just marked
stuff she thought was wrong and let me figure out how to fix it.

By the time I got through high-school, I  -loved-  to write, while most of
my classmates dreaded it.  There is so much less stress involved when you
are confident that you  -know-  how to do it right.  You can concentrate on
the content, and not agonize over the structural details.  And it's  -lots-
of fun to explain to a teacher why --- in this particular situation ---
it's appropriate to bend or ignore the rules.  :-)

If I ruled the universe, all first-grade teachers would start leading
grammar games.  And by fourth grade, kids would be diagramming sentences as
though they were fitting jigsaw puzzles.


@Kat_____ Kat Nagel
          MasterWork Consulting Services     Rochester, NY
          LIFE1 (techwriting/docdesign) katnagel -at- eznet -dot- net
          LIFE2 (vocal chamber music)    PlaynSong -at- aol -dot- com