Its like one of those "duh" moments. You know the ones: putting peanut butter and jelly together, the invention of the seat belt, roasting meat over a fire, the wheel. The fact that English teachers have spent the last 100 years with grammer in one corner and writing cloistered in another just confirms the rest of the worlds suspicions: we're masochists. But not anymore! And here I was, poised to start my future teaching weeks: short story writing-tuesday, subordinate clauses-wednesday, moaning and groaning-thursday. Maybe if I squeeze them close enough together they'll congeal into a jiggling mass of wonderful writing. And that's usually what papers end up being with this format. Ooze.
So why did (do) teachers spend so much time hammaring away at the little things, prepositions ending a sentence, misused colons, capatalization errors, comma splicing (god help me, I still don't know what that means -- I got marks on my paper because of it in college...in a music class no less)? Well for one thing, it's convienent. Combining grammar and writing may seem more difficult than doing them seperately; sacrifice complexity and the students may learn better. Right? But what I thought would be an unbelievably complicated matter actually might lend itself to easier teaching experiences because "students' use of these grammatical constructions . . . simply "[emerge]" in their writing, as a result of their engagement with art and especially literature." (p. 170). So this is an instance where we don't have to drive something into the students skulls for them to understand the concept.
Still, I think a lot of it has to do with fear (or...masochism). New things are always scary and old habits die hard. If it's been going on for a century it will be hard to bring to a complete stop. Plus, we've probably spent the last 100 years trying to justify (possibly coming up with some legitimately good reasons) traditional grammar exercises. So I don't expect this force-fed grammar to stop anytime soon, but we're going in new directions, so that's good.
I have to say, based on personal experience, sentence combining may be one of the most brilliant inventions of all time (next to pb&j, seat belt ect...) In my creative non-fiction class our teacher offered us this key to great writing. Naturally I was skeptical. We drew up a paragraph (of about 5 sentences) and proceeded to combine it into one great, expansive sentence. Low-and-behold, it sounded much better than the original, more fluid, expressive and thought-provoking. It sounded like language, like poetry. Because it's such a simple concept,it would be a crime to withhold this key from our students.
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Matt, I loved reading your post, starting with the reference to Hamlet and continuing with imaginative comparisons (PB&J? Ha!). Plus, your description of grammar and writing as being confined to different corners (cloistered--great word!) was inspired. I also appreciate your example of the paragraph revised into one sentence. This is a great anecdote to explain your position and a practical device to use in our classrooms. However, I don't buy into the article as much--I'm leary of people who say good writing just "emerges." I think there was more going on that the author either did not see (like stuff at home or in other classrooms) or chose to omit because it weakened her point. I guess I'm just cynical. Thanks for sharing. I enjoy reading your writing and seeing your viewpoint. It's always insightful and well reasoned, forcing me to reconsider my own thoughts and beliefs. :)
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