Response to Teaching Grammar in the Context of Writing

I though this article was very...different. At time I didn't know whether to be refreshed or horrified.


I the very first quote used was so strange to me "Grammar is taught with the purpose of making clear to the students the orderly structure of their language, a picture of God's orderly plan for the world and for their lives". I don't really even know what to think of this. I think grammar does have the purpose of showing students the orderly structure of their language but to compare grammar to to God....something doesn't feel right with that.

I was blown away by the part that talked about research not really showing that formal grammar being taught in classrooms didn't really have an effect on students composition. This made me think that well maybe grammar is a waste of time. But then I thought well their has to rules and guidelines to written language or it would all be a mess and nobody would understand each other.
It has to be taught for people to effectively communicate with one another or you end up with situations like this:



It did get me thinking though, are there other ways to teach this without formally teaching it in the classroom. There must be otherwise formally teaching would have an effect one way or another on a student's composition. Student's must be learning it from somewhere.

I loved it when Weaver talked about the flaws of behaviorist theory and how if you make students practice practice practice good grammar they will understand and repeat good grammar but that's not the case. Like I always say practice makes permanent not perfect. Forming ones own theories, making assumptions, thinking critically and assessing ones knowledge on a particular subject or topic such as grammar is much better than repeated lower order thinking practice.