Patrick Hartwell vs. Holt, Rinehardt and Winston

Patrick Hartwell is correct.  Direct grammar instruction doesn't work.  Only the fear of having to instruct others in such matters as gerunds and irregular past participles does the trick.  I must confess here and now that I actually like grammar.  It is a game that I finally get.  I struggled through algebra and all the sciences, so here is a set of very strict, formal rules that I can internalize and feel good about.  Yet, after teaching middle school for six years, I can tell you with absolute certainty that direct grammar instruction is a waste of time.

I was hired directly out of CSUDH's very fine, highly up-to-date teaching program to teach seventh grade English (Language Arts).  I was informed almost immediately at my new job that I must cover the entire Holt Handbook Grammar Book.  Thanks to Dr. Zoerner, the resident wizard of syntactic arts here at Dominguez, this was not a problem...except for the fact that students never retained any of this stuff.  One week it was parts of speech; the next it was fun with phrases, followed by crazy clauses, culminating in sophisticated sentence types, yet students did not retain these concepts.  And more importantly, it did not result in fewer errors in their writing.  Hartwell's discussion of the three-year experiment in New Zealand makes this clear.  The study concluded that "the formal study of grammar, whether transformational or traditional, improved neither writing quality nor control over surface correctness" (Hartwell 107).  And even in my efforts to create a wildly engaging, collaborative classroom, whether I had students holding parts of speech and moving around the room in highly kinesthetic ways (verging on interpretive modern dance) or had them correct silly sentences that featured their names and hobbies (stuff I worked on late into the night), direct grammar instruction proved meaningless. Teachers cling to it for various reasons.  The woman I worked with, and whom I was asked to follow CLOSELY, looked at the lessons I was teaching (journal writing, poetry, short stories, articles, group discussion prompts and other fluff) and said that "she did not have time for that nonsense."  Every day this well-intentioned educator (and I truly mean this) pounded the grammar.  She used the Holt textbook and made packets of Holt's additional practice books, then she tested students with the Holt series ten-question multiple choice tests.  At the end of the day, she went home with a clear conscience and few essays to grade.

The good people over at Holt, Rinehart and Winston ought to have the last word on this, or at least on this post.   Their introduction reads:
           "To Our Students
          Why should I study grammar, usage, and mechanics?
            Many people would say that you should study grammar to learn to root out errors in your speech and writing.  Certainly, the Holt Handbook can help you learn to avoid making errors and to correct the errors you do make.  More important, though, studying grammar, usage, and mechanics gives you the skills you need to take sentences and passages apart and to put them together, to learn which parts go together and which don't.  Instead of writing sentences and passages that you hope sound good, you can craft your sentences to create just the meaning and style you want.  Knowing grammar, usage, and mechanics gives you the tools to understand and discuss your language, to communicate clearly the things you want to communicate, and to develop your own communication style.  Further, mastery of language skills can help you succeed in your other classes, in future classes, on standardized tests, and in the larger world, including the workplace."*

*  If I weren't giving the Holt people the last word, I might add the ability to impress people at cocktail parties.