For a writer and for everybody, grammar should be a “natural tool.” As Stephen King makes clear in his On Writing, one has either already grasped the sense of grammar since her earliest years of writing or she will never learn. According to King’s view, students in school can only learn the name of the grammatical rules. Other than that, if one arrived in college not knowing the mechanic and the style of her own language, she will never learn it. Grammar is to a writer as walking is to a baby. That is, a baby learns to her own how to walk. Then, when the time comes, she will walk!
Most American students seem obsessed with grammar. Why? Nobody, in middle or high school, taught them the rules? Perhaps, in their earliest years of school they did not find the right teachers. Grammar should be funny. It is nothing to be frightened. Students need only some goodwill and a strong backbone able to hold on negative feed backs that are not always “bad,” but they are constructive most of the time.
Language and grammar shouldn’t be an obsession, but an integrated sphere in everybody’s life.
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2 comments:
I don't know if you've checked your Angel email for this class lately, but I sent you a message. Thanks for all of the kind words!
I think the biggest grammar problem we face as American students is inconsistency and boredom. When we were taught grammar, it was sometimes being used as a punishment (trust me, it happens all the time). Most teachers did not bother to make grammar 'fun' at the middle or high school level. The only fun grammar education I remember during that time in my life came from my middle school language arts teacher, Ms. Charles. Bless you, Ms. Charles, for encouraging us, when writing prepositional phrases, to be as zany and off-the-wall as possible.
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