It’s interesting to me how there are gray areas in grammar. I always thought grammar was right or wrong—black or white. I was always taught that if there is an “s” at the end of a noun and it was supposed to be a possessive noun then all one had to do was put an apostrophe. Granted, I knew that it could be Chris’s vs. Chris’, but at I thought that was just a matter of preference. I didn’t know that there was such a thing as “house style grammar” where there were multiple gray areas in regards to apostrophes, dashes, ellipses, commas (before an “and” or not?).
One “house style” which I noticed in People magazine is in regards to numbers. I had always been told that when a number is less than ten, you spell it out; if over 10, then you could write the number. But People magazine seems to spell numbers out only when they are used as a noun—which seems odd to me, because of what I have been taught, but at least they are consistent in this method (at least, as far as I have seen). They also only use periods between acronyms if they are part of the title of the piece, otherwise they leave the periods out.
I honestly can’t figure out whether gray areas are a good thing in grammar or a bad thing. Gray areas make it difficult to pin down exactly what to use, but they also leave freedom to create style. These gray areas are FUN, STYLISTIC, CREATIVE. But they are also DIFFICULT, INCONSISTANT, TROUBLESOME. It’s hard to pin down whether it’s a good or bad thing that there is gray, rather than simply right and wrong answers. There are benefits and downfalls to the lack of regularity in grammar.
For example, I think it’s cool that writers can choose their own “house style,” since it’s a writer’s style that makes them individuals and separates them from other writers. But my problem is in teaching grammar, how does one know what to teach? Do we need to teach every rule, every style, and every gray area? It seems rather inconstant, since what one teacher says is right might not be true for another teacher who would mark it as wrong.
However, in a lot of ways, the lack of congruence is unfair. After all, my students are going to be taught one way of grammar, but another teacher later down the line may use a different form of grammar. Who is right? How is this fair to students who are being taught more than one way? Wouldn’t that seem to make teaching grammar inconsistent and confusing for them?
As we're learning about the gray areas in grammar, I think it's important to teach them to our students as well. I feel like it is much more important to teach a student to write well with strong convictions, steady focus, and logical organization than to drill them in the proper usage of punctuation.
ReplyDeleteBy teaching them the options and creativity that can be used with grammar, you can give them the power to make choices in their writing. Teaching grammar is important, but it should not override the importance of teaching good writing.
I agree with Katy. I think it is important to pick a style that is most comfortable for you to teach. YOu want to be confident in your instruction, but I would also suggest presenting the other options to your students as Barbara did for us. Let your students know there are multiple ways they will find grammar rules followed in the real world but for the purposes of your class you would like to see "______".
ReplyDeleteI agree with everything that's been said. Just one other point about how to teach grammar: always do it in context of assigned reading. Or if students need a particular kind of apostrophe in an upcoming report--say, dates and numbers--then talk about how to show plural of dates and how to abbreviate numbers. Most of the time, however, you'll just be teaching and reteaching basic apostrophe usage. Nothin' fancy.
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