Fear and Loathing in Grammarville

Grammar. It’s a word that causes most high school students and younger to shudder in fear. It’s a weakness. Sally is a poor speller, Mark can’t get his subjects and verbs to agree, and Shana just runs on through the sentences.

As a junior high school student, grammar was as unrelated to reading as it could possibly get. There were two separate classes with two separate teachers to cover the grammar and reading lessons. God bless Mrs. Wall—she had the most hated job in school. She drilled grammar into us on a daily basis through 7th and 8th grades. She was unrelenting. She was the grammar drill sergeant.

But I know my grammar. Is it because it was kept separate? Is it because grammar was drilled into my head for an hour every day? What makes my grammar abilities stronger than those of my students whom I teach? Is it the way it was taught or is it because I was an honors student? And could it possibly be that I am better at grammar after my college grammar class than I ever was in high school? Shudder at the thought, but could I have possibly been as bad as the students I teach at naming nouns and pronouns and verbs.

The times have changed and high school teachers often see freshmen that cannot tell the nouns from the verbs. (I love the commercials: Verb, its what you do.) The current generation of high school students are media based. They are thrill-seekers. They are looking for the easy way out and rote memorization and knowing-it-for-the-sake-of-knowing-it just will not do. Grammarians must look for new ways to pass on their love of the standard written word. While they may shudder at making grammar lessons fun, surely its better than hearing yet another politician butcher the pronoun “myself”. It is time to change grammar lessons. Out with the DOL! Out with the memorizing! It is high time to relate grammar to the students and the reading that they are expected to do. It’s time to make grammar more accessible to all students—even the ones that aren’t honors level. So be proud, grammarians. Make your lessons fun and spread the grammar love.