Week 5: The Readings

The Micciche article was another difficult read.  Thanks be to our professor, Anne, for taking us to higher heights in our reading. :)  In this article, Micciche is making the case that we should teach grammar, but we should teach it rhetorically.  In other words, grammar should be taught not as rote exercises, but as part of an entire system of learning how to write. The remedial way that we teach grammar does not help students to connect what they want to really ‘say’ when they write.  I think the author is saying that when we teach exercises, the students somehow have a disconnect between grammar and what they truly mean to say. Micciche justifies her way of teaching grammar by arguing that rhetorical grammar instruction allows students to better express themselves and express relationships among different ideas.  Students who learn this way can think clearer about what they mean. She also talked about how we can use language as power and her teaching is used to help students observe how writers can use language to tell their perspective on political issues, amongst others. Her discussion on culture and how we use language was most interesting.  I think that by teaching students to observe different writers, periods of time, etc., they get a wider view of the political and cultural aspects of writing.

The Ehrenworth and Vinton article was an easy read and I had to laugh out loud after reading page 2!  It is refreshing to know that even English instructors have a difficult time pinpointing and defining errors. I think that the authors also did a great job discussing culture and how it affects us.  I recently read a book, entitled, “A Framework for Understanding Poverty,” by Ruby Payne.  This book discussed the hidden culture of the poor versus the rich and the fact that a person who does not understand the hidden rules of the rich culture can almost set themselves on a course for generational poverty.

The most interesting part of this work, though, was the fact that these authors teach students grammar in the process of finding their own voice as writers.  They also use stories and other literary works to help the student explore how grammar can be used to help writers make choices.  Like Micciche, they believe that the teaching of grammar should not be simple exercises whereby a student points out errors in writing, but rather a rich experience encompassing the writing process as a whole.