What do you think?

I personally, as a high-school junior (living in the US at least) do believe that the focus on literature in the U.S English classes is far too heavy. Whereas, the grammar emphasis is not nearly enough.

Last year, as a sophomore in English, I had to read 9 books in class, 4 books out of class and lots of crap related to them, but only for two weeks (and only the first two weeks of the school year btw) did we focus on anything that was actually related to grammar.

So here I was supposed to be, the last three years of English classes to take almost no grammar whatsoever and have to read more than two dozen novels throughout the course of that time and write many vast research papers on them without any emphasis on grammar? Really?

And (no offense to anyone in particular) I have seen many fellow highschoolers with horrible grammar issues, (namely a school friend of mine who has syntax and spelling issues), horrible grades on essays due to having forgotten grammar, and yet, the schools continued to put countless focus on solely literature and not grammar.

I understand literature can help people understand the times of which said books were written, but do we really have to spend the whole year doing nothing but? How about dedicating one semester to literary analysis and one to grammar? That would probably fix a lot of issues that we students face in terms of grammar.

Is the problem worldwide or what?

I would argue that books, especially those that have been deemed "literature', are generally full of good grammar. If you are reading these books, how are you not learning grammar? That's what books are made of.

That however, is reading grammar. We are not practicing how to duplicate said grammar (and that's completely different as the English language has many "exceptions to the rule" in grammar). Reading is not what we have difficulty with (at least not in the schools I've been to).

I agree. I've won a spelling bee or two in my younger days and today consider myself to be quite literate. I enjoy reading and doing some of my own writing, and (perhaps arrogantly so) believe that I am quite skilled with the written word (when I take the time to be). I believe I have gained this skill and knowledge from reading many books in the course of my ongoing education. I can't quote rules of grammar and diction from the textbooks and still I'm not sure what a participle is or what would cause it to dangle, but I simply have an instinct for knowing what sounds correct. I'm not always right, mind you, but I think I do well enough that I sound like I know what I'm talking about. Good grammar, diction and vocabulary are all benefits of reading LITERATURE.

Hmm... Well I'd like if I could find why exactly, some fellow students who are good at reading have terrible grammar issues...

Turns out the English teacher I have this year for a change is focusing on more grammar and herself says that grammar is not being taught enough at our high-school level.

Just us though.

The only reason I believe that my grammar is good is merely because I make a habit of writing constantly, so therefore I always have to be aware of syntax, spelling, punctuation, etc.

In all honesty I don't believe there should be a debate here. Both grammar and literature should be taught in our schools, and if they are not then we (whether we be students, parents or teachers) have a responsibility to change that.

The bottom line is pretty much;

1) Grammar should already be something students are familiar enough with in highschool. Students take placement tests for it (or atleast I did way back when), so rehashing that in a non-remedial class is often seen as unnecessary.

2) Grammar, isn't a particularly interesting subject, and not something which students can really engage in learning. Either it's too simplistic, or it's using alot of complicated words to describe parts of a sentence they should already be familiar with. Books and reading, in contrast, are much easier to make interesting, and tend to be much easier to teach.

3) Grammar is one of those subjects which is not taught particularly well on any level. Many of your English teachers probably don't know the more advanced nuances well enough to really teach it themselves, and would probably be just teaching out of a book themselves.

4) Grammar is often taught in higher level English classes, atleast to a better point, when it comes to writing several page compositions. I've had teachers deduct a whole letter grade because of poor grammar. At that point, either you know it, you learn it on your own, or you fail. This is probably the best way to teach it.

5) Grammar, aside from the more obvious faults that people make, is really more of an archaic subject. Grammar in English in particular isn't that difficult so long as you follow some simple rules. The reason why it is taught less in highschool is because it isn't seen as important since most people by that point already know how to speak the language well enough to not make those more serious errors.

6) There are already enough Grammar Nazis online. Either people learn, or they never get acknowledged as having anything important worth reading... Again, best way to learn it.

On that note, there isn't a lack of grammar really, just a lack of caring when it comes to less formal speech or communication. Like it or not, this sort of language with loose grammar is still just as valid a form of communication as language with grammar. So long as the message is understood, the form of communication is valid. The unfortunate part is that this form of communication is easier, lazier, and is being established by the less educated masses, so will probably one day become the main method of communicating.


If anything, the real problem is that certain works... A Raisin in The Sun, To Kill a Mockingbird, The Great Gatsby, to name a few, are often over stressed (or atleast were for me) to where students are being forced to read them about every year from middle school on. This leads to a sort of stagnation and lack of interest in reading since students who keep getting the same book year after year usually only read it once, then just flip through when it comes time for a quiz. Maybe the selection of books teachers can assign has improved over the years, but wouldn't be surprised if this sort of thing still happens because teachers like to teach the books they had to learn when they were students.

They do overstress literature, but too much grammar is boring. Even if they just added really a few weeks (4-5) per year of grammar (maybe I should lessen from a semester) that would be sufficient. But spending a whole month on a single book and having to write a paper for it and repeating that process for 9 months is too much (which was my case last year in English). At least take one of those months off for grammar. Maybe even at the beginning, so they have a refresher for the papers later in the year - and a second one in the middle of the year or start of the next semester.

I think now that'd be a better way to deal with the grammar issue.

Yes, however, some people (at least for sure on the net) write with poor or lazy grammar, but in truth may actually be very smart with grammar. They just may be lazy (no offense intended to anyone).

But what you're missing is that when you're writing those papers, you're also being checked for things like grammar, punctuation, and spelling, not just content. For a highschool or before paper... Usually 5 paragraph essay garbage*, most of what the teacher is probably looking at is just the grammar, punctuation, and spelling. Afterall, you can't expect a person to read through 80-90 papers on a single book (20-40 people per class, 3-4 class sizes) and not just be bored sick, or go crazy and start just tearing apart a paper for having concepts which are poorly constructed. There's only so many topics that people can write about for any given book.

* a quick word about 5 paragraph essays... They aren't garbage because they're a pain to write, they're garbage because the whole structure only works when you're dealing with a subject that you don't need to go into too much depth about, and only need to discuss 3 points which refer to the thesis. The 5 paragraph essay is designed more so that teachers can quickly look through it, find what they feel is important, and move on. When you start dealing with 10+ page term papers, you still need a solid thesis, you still need to be concise with how you support that thesis, but often have to devote pages just to clarify, describe, and support (with resources) those supporting concepts which tie back to the thesis. At that point, the content and how the concepts are arranged and illustrated are of greater importance... But you're also not as likely to be writing on a topic that anyone else has written on or constructed, so is much more bearable for a teacher to deal with. Remember to thank your 5th and 6th grade teachers for putting up with all that substandard writing if you should ever run into them.

I like to have less emphasis on grammer in dialogue but more in other aspects of writing such as narrative or description. Less face it, most people do not speak with correct grammer especially if in a hurry, under stress, poorly educated etc.......

I have been told off by Grammer Nazis for making an ignorant peasant speak with out proper grammer.

Creative writing is not just about grammer, it is about good story telling, good communications and strong believability (the ability to suspend disbelief).

Those Grammar Nazis obviously don't know anything about creative writing as it relates to narratives or about how to create a believable fictional character.

Perhaps the solution to this debate would be for all schools to practice what some already do (colleges, for example): the study of Literature is kept in its own course while grammar and other writing skills are taught in a separate course.

There, problem solved. What's the next debate?

The problem there may be "Well, how many courses does a student need to take of grammar and how many of literature?" Of course, my opinion would probably say that one year of grammar and the rest in literature.

Now when a student has to take one course or the other, that may either have to be up to their discretion or left to the teachers to decide the layout of the courses.

Actually, no it isn't, quite the contrary. One of the hardest parts of writing a story can be in explaining/presenting ideas in a way that people can understand it, and maintaining a certain voice or format thoughout. If supporting concepts aren't clear, or don't use good grammar, often the concept gets misunderstood, and can end up making the story alot more difficult to read/tolerate. Even in dialogues, while some poorer grammar might fit for some characters, it won't fit for all of them, so being able to phrase things in both ways, at differing degrees, is quite paramount. You need to know how language is structured in order to know how to break apart that structure in a way that is believable. Forcing bad grammar never works out well, and having an ignorance of grammar only tarnishes any work you put that effort in. There is so much importance of grammar in creative writing that there are people paid specifically to go through and find those faults... They're called editors, little gets published and printed without their stamp of approval, and they have the paychecks to prove it.

You should read some fan fiction some time, some of it is bad enough to make your eyes bleed. And that's stuff that people thought was good enough to have readable online.

Given the level of grammar that I see not only in high school-age kids, but also in college students*, I'd say there is definitely a shortage of grammar instruction in school. You might rebut that with, "but kids aren't paying attention," but even then, some blame rests on the school for passing such kids on.

*- I was able to look over a few papers written for a college sophomore-level composition course recently, and a disturbing number of them were quite shameful.

I strongly agree. When I was a sophomore in high school I found it extremely difficult to understand how one of my classmates had made it to the same grade level without being able to read. Things like that should never happen in our schools.

That's exactly how I feel. It doesn't help to know that the Tennessee English Gateway Test is offered to highschool sophomores, but said test is written at an 8th grade or lower level. It doesn't get accurate results of where we really are for our age.

[quote name='jaosals42' date='Sep 9 2009, 09:57 PM' post='1288236']
What do you think?

I personally, as a high-school junior (living in the US at least) do believe that the focus on literature in the U.S English classes is far too heavy. Whereas, the grammar emphasis is not nearly enough.

Last year, as a sophomore in English, I had to read 9 books in class, 4 books out of class and lots of crap related to them, but only for two weeks (and only the first two weeks of the school year btw) did we focus on anything that was actually related to grammar.

So here I was supposed to be, the last three years of English classes to take almost no grammar whatsoever and have to read more than two dozen novels throughout the course of that time and write many vast research papers on them without any emphasis on grammar? Really?

And (no offense to anyone in particular) I have seen many fellow highschoolers with horrible grammar issues, (namely a school friend of mine who has syntax and spelling issues), horrible grades on essays due to having forgotten grammar, and yet, the schools continued to put countless focus on solely literature and not grammar.

I understand literature can help people understand the times of which said books were written, but do we really have to spend the whole year doing nothing but? How about dedicating one semester to literary analysis and one to grammar? That would probably fix a lot of issues that we students face in terms of grammar.

Is the problem worldwide or what?
/quote Hmmmm, intresting topic. Well I see how pieved you would be, however school is a necessity and we all need it.
Now I'm not a nerd, or a school fan, but face it you need it, its just one of those things you'll have to indure. But I agree thats outragous, such work would melt my brain.

Once again, reading IS grammar study. You read the book, you see how sentences are supposed to look. Maybe the problem is that teachers are forgetting to connect the two together. In Highschool I had 3 semesters of mixed English class, 1 semester of speed reading, 1 semester of creative writing (only remember 2 of those 3 years ever happening though for some reason (most of Sophmore year is kinda a blank really (then again I think I had to take it in summer school one year for some reason (so 4 years worth technically))). From what I remember, the only specific grammar work was freshman year. After that it was reading and writing papers. Again, writing papers are a way of testing someones grammar abilities. So it's not that you aren't getting the content, it's that you aren't really acknowledging it, or are spending too much time using cliffnotes and word processors to act as a shortcut around thinking and doing.

Anyway, Highschool is the 4 most important years of your life which are only important until you get into college. If you don't personally try to learn those skills in highschool, you will either not get into a good college, or will be spending quite a bit of time and money learning those skills.

As history has shown, trying to hold back the whole class and force them through formalized grammar studies because a few people don't care, aren't paying attention, or simply don't get it, will only end up hurting everyone else. If you honestly feel that your grammar is lacking, you can always spend a few moments of your time to work on it... Often, learning how to do things on your own is the only way you'll ever learn.

The reality is that those people without grammar skills are either lazy, don't care, or can't be bothered to learn. Sure, they may still graduate highschool, but they probably won't amount to much after that unless they actually try to improve on their own at some point.

Do you really want to sit through several 1 hour classes learning about grammar just because one person in the class doesn't get it, or doesn't care to? Atleast reading is somewhat entertaining.

Okay, you've earned a reply. Why? Because you've made me laugh. How? Well, I just couldn't help but picture a horde of middle-school teachers cracking open some Faulkner and announcing to their poor students that this is how sentences are supposed to look.

They absolutely shouldn't. Creative writing (which literature relates to) and technical writing (where grammar is important) have completely different goals and rules. Teaching students proper grammar through literature makes as much sense as grading bar graphs based on artistic flair.

Hell, technical writing ought to be split off as a separate course in eighth grade. Have the little monsters read Tufte and do drills reorganizing paragraphs. By tenth grade, they should be discussing interesting articles they spotted in Science that week. For kicks, relate stuff back to French and Latin, or touch on the cultural factors in organization. Throw some speech in there too, even, and call it "communications."

Everyone could learn to communicate more effectively, especially at high-school level. And even just a refresher on basic grammar would be worthy material for a high-school level class (this is how you form a plural; here are the rules on capitalization in running text and title text; prepositions are appropriate to end sentences with; you absolutely can start a sentence with "and," "since," or "but"; and Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo).

You're talking about the majority of the US population here. We all have horrible grammar and communicate ineffectively.

Things like enjoying to read literature, you mean?

By the time you get to high school you should be very proficient with grammar, and ready for literature.

I remember learning the bulk of my grammar lessons in 6th grade: dissecting a sentence, identifying its parts: conjunctions, adjectives, adverbs, nouns, verbs, the subject and the predicate, dangling participles, never end a sentence with a preposition, or a prepositional phrase. What the hell are you doing screwing around with those in high school?

Marxist male without a father, how dare you end your sentence with a preposition? Where is your brain at? And who told you that's okay?



And that is most definitely not what I said!

And by the time you exit high-school, you will have had time to forget most of it. Grammatical knowledge needs to be refreshed, and built upon, until the point where students are regularly writing five-page (ten-point serif, single-spaced, double-column, kerned and full-justified) analytical essays. Grammar must be taught in high school, and can be filled out with things like speech and philosophy of language when necessary.

EDIT:Oh, and students also need to know how to properly split infinitives. And the difference between em dashes, commas, and parentheses. (En dashes – well, why not?) Capitalization after colons, too: That's useful. If you think you learned all there is to grammar before age 10, you're just ignorant of how much you've missed out on.

I was 12 in sixth grade. Maybe a refresher for math as well. I don't see the point of wasting precious high school time on a foundation that middle school teachers should have established.

If you don't build on that foundation, it will simply deteriorate. And as I've said time and time again, there are lots of interesting and worthwhile ways high-school–level students can build on their grammatical knowledge.

If you think grammar is just about verb tenses and whether commas go inside or outside parentheses, that's because your teachers just chose to leave that thread hanging. (Did you notice how I masterfully switched from one stupid extended metaphor to another? Grammar!)

Don't start putting words in my mouth. I don't even disagree with most of this, except that you're completely illogical if you think you know my position, chapter and verse, on this subject. You have no idea how invested I am. Where did I say not to build on that foundation? That's actually what reading literature is supposed to enhance. You're starting to talk out your butt, because no one has suggested some review isn't necessary at all. It seems to me that the majority think you should have covered most of this ground well before high school, and educators could be doing a much better job of it, if it's necessary to teach sixth grade grammar to 12th grade students.

Although I will agree that there are differences between technical writing and creative writing, I believe my sentiments are still just as valid. Even in creative writing, such as novels and short stories, you still have a need for grammar, and still find mostly grammatically correct sentences. It's only when you get into dialogues, or abstractions that grammar is secondary to getting the vision across. The goal in both is in trying to effectively communicate an idea to the audience, and you cannot do that effectively, long term, without some understanding of how grammar works. Most of the novels being assigned are also probably more in line with more normalized language than abstractions and experimental prose... Or do you know many highschool teachers who are assigning Faulkner, Hemingway, or Kafka (translations not withstanding)? Which is why my point is still quite valid. Additionally, the other side of learning grammar is in seeing where it isn't being used right. This other side is also what makes those writers who make use of abstracts seem more unique, would you have even mentioned Faulkner if this wasn't the case? You have to know grammar to break the rules of grammar and still convey the meaning you wanted, you also have to know grammar to appreciate when those rules are being broken for the right reasons.

On a side note, throughout highschool and before there were teachers who would grade things wrong for starting a sentence with a preposition, made it clear that you "cannot do that" as it is "improper English", and just left it at that. It was only when I got into college that the rule was even attempted to be explained.

I agree, there are people who have horrible grammar, and there is some need for competent grammar instruction, but the reality is that you just won't find that sort of thing in highschool. The teachers don't have the time to go over it and meet the reading and writing requirements of the state. And the students, as previously mentioned, don't seem to be particularly motivated to learn it. People can always learn grammar on their own if they feel they need it. The same goes for communication. Why should a teacher take the time to drag everyone through remedial education, even if it has some minor value to the rest of the students, just because someone can't form perfect sentences? Isn't it generally more important that people just be able to read at something close to their grade level? You can get by and be successful without having perfect grammar skills, but you cannot get by, or be successful if you can't read and understand what you read. Teachers only have so much time to instruct, so they have to make a decision and hope the other part is already satisfied by the time a student comes to them. In a perfect world, any student which is not up to par should be held back, or sent into remedial education, but the world isn't perfect, and doing any one of those is seen as being more harmful to the student's self-confidence than being an idiot.

The school system is different in France, but we have the same problem : spelling, grammar, teached with old methods are inconsciously considered fascist and old fashioned.

I believe in the hard way : learning by heart. Forcing students to learn by heart there grammar rules first all reduces inequality. It gives a chance to the not very smart student to succeed, by hard work, and obliges the little genius to put his face in the mud of work. Moreover, learning by heart leads to an instinctfull knowledge, and not a cold, objective knowledge of the language, as one would think. It settles in your heart, and you will write as you breath. In France, spelling has become a big problem. In a lot of firms, employers are paying junior high schools teachers to learn to 20-40 years old well diplomed employees to speak and write the language correctly. This is directly related to an ideoligical state of mind that thought that grammar was an invention of the dominant elite to select and close their clan to the outsider.

I believe in rules. I also believe in breaking the rules. To break a rule, you have to know it by heart.

You see, Rimbaud was a revolution of liberty and heroism in the poetry forms and language. Yet, Rimbaud, at the age 14, was the 1st Price of the "Concours general the vers latins", which is a prestigious latin poetry contest. The guy wrote latin fluently, in alexandrins... at the age of 14. Unconcievable today.

If learning latin and the mother-language in old ways, can give us other Rimbauds, then I will do anything to come back to it.

I don't think they focus on literature too much. The English class I'm currently in mostly does writing. I know for a fact they focus too much on bad literature. I like to think of myself as well-read, and nearly all of the books we read in school are complete jokes, that are for some weird reason considered "classics".

I wholeheartedly agree. I believe it's a pathetic country we live in that our own citizens speak the national language much less fluently and grammatically correct than foreigners who take English as a second language for business and/or personal gain.

Take Japan for instance. Many of the corporate leaders in Japan have to know fluent English in the phonetic and grammatical senses in order to do away with middle-men in their dealings with the U.S. and U.K. and THEY speak English more "Properly" than 90% of the American population, and definitely a sizable chunk of the United Kingdom's population (Great Britain being the birthplace of "Proper English").

Focusing on literature is fine so long as it doesn't cripple the basic foundations of English grammar and spelling in the process of massive misappropriation of time and effort on the subject rather than balancing grammar, spelling, AND literature.

I also think that a big reason for improper grammar is the fact that most American variations of English involve frequent use of improper grammar. The Southern United States is home to two distinct forms of English. "Redneck English", and "Southern English". There are vast differences between them. Where Southern English is involved, it's much less offensive to the ears and mind than Redneck English, though still mind-numbingly bad if you're going for true prowess in English.

And places like Chicago and New York, the places with the biggest areas of Slums and "Ghetto" areas, also gives rise to the "Street Trash Dialects", including "G-Unit Language" which calling it English is an insult to America and Britain both, and "Ese Speak", which is the Latino equivalent to "G-Unit Language", and is also equally offensive to the educated individual.

I don't know WHY schools are crippling students in terms of linguistics by overly intensive focus on literature (How many times will students tolerate Shakespeare in that period of K-12 schooling anyway?), but as far as I'm concerned, we may as well be saying to our students "We don't care if you can talk and write, just so long as you can keep lining our politician's pockets with your hard labor and unquestioning support".

From my experiences, I'd say schools are setting their students up for failure not only by enlisting students for more in-depth classes and testing, but by failing to provide them with balanced educations. It seems k-12 is all about being the "Popular guy with the iPhone and Cheerleader girlfriend" and less about getting a real education. The fact that there's nothing done to deter harassment and other detriments to education is a big part of this.

My big example of this is that I was teased and eventually beaten by several of my peers for my sexual preference (Me being gay). They basically got off with a "It won't happen again, will it?" from their coach, and because they were varsity football players, nothing more was done and the coach flat-out told me to "****ing drop it. It can't be helped.", when I damn well know that they should have been kicked straight off the team and even expelled. I ended up having to explain to my own mother that the school is unwilling to help and will do whatever they can to protect their football players, regardless of it being an actual crime they took part in. But with a case like mine, purely "He said, he said", even if we wanted to we couldn't have pressed charges because the school didn't see anything.

The football players in question went on to win Districts, but lost State, they dropped out of College, and one was put in jail for an unrelated assault on a gay man near a local bar.

My point is that the school's priorities are skewed at best, utterly cluster****ed at worst.

English Grammar is the least of the problems they face now.

Two points you missed in the opening there.

1: English is NOT the official language of the United States of America. Politicians are simply too spineless to declare anything of that sort. The US does not, at current, have any official language. Spanish street signs are already becoming common in some places. So the ability of speaking or even reading English is not really required for anyone.

2: Unlike the average highschooler, most foreigners who intend to come to the US, or do business with the US, take their study of English seriously, and feel they have some reason to learn it. More over, due to all the media attention the election last year, many students around the world have become almost fanatic about learning to speak proper English. So not only do these "foreigners" take speaking English seriously, often they have a deep interest in learning the language and being able to communicate effectively in that language. The same interest and dedication to the language is just extremely rare in American highschools among native speakers. But, I'm sure that if you really wanted to look around, you would find that a fair percentage of students in any highschool around the world have a general disdain for learning the nuances of their native language.

As an aspiring author, I don't really believe too much emphasis is placed on literature- literature is culture, culture is context, and context is necessary for understanding. I do, however, believe that not enough attention is paid to grammar. From the day I left elementary school to the day I graduated high school, I can't remember a single lesson that focused on word-craft instead of the interpretation of written works. I believe that I have a more than satisfactory grasp of how to use the English language, but most of that knowledge is self-taught. I learned grammar because I needed it to develop my craft and because I have a fascination with the power of words, not because anybody actually bothered to teach it to me.

I tend to blame our societal obsession with standardized testing for that deficiency, and many others as well. There simply isn't enough classroom time for all of the material that should be taught; teachers are required to devote too much of the year to test preparation, which contributes little to the learning experience and serves to undermine the average student's interest in learning anything at all of value.

Grammar, however, isn't the end of language instruction. Like it or not, there is no real "proper" way to use any language, let alone one as varied and dynamic as English is. What we know as Proper Grammar is merely the foundation of understanding the language- the mechanics of constructing a sentence so that it may be understood regardless of the meaning or even the spelling of a word. Each dialect has a slightly different manner of using the base language- the fundamental rules remain the same, but peripheral guidelines may or may not (i.e. double negatives, which are not considered proper grammar yet see common usage in certain dialects without compromising the ability of someone who does not use those same dialects to understand the speaker). That much, however, should be the focus of elective writing courses- the core curriculum should deal with the most basic, standard usage. An understanding of the adaptability of English grammar is really only necessary if one's focus is on creative writing, where dialogue calls for language as spoken since not everyone speaks using proper grammar.

All that said, the grammar I've seen in papers written by my peers, when asked to review each others' assignments for class, has more often than not been absolutely awful. This sort of awful, to be more specific: