In the October 2012 Atlantic, Peg Tyre reports on an effort to reimagine the teaching of writing at one Staten Island high school: The Writing Revolution. One brief sample:
“We spent a lot of time wondering how our students had been taught,” said English teacher Stevie D‘Arbanville. “How could they get passed along and end up in high school without understanding how to use the word although?”This article should be required reading for anyone who cares about public education.
[Students also end up in college without understanding how to use although, which is a subordinating conjunction, not a conjunctive adverb.]
comments: 4
I've run across education professionals who use 'however' as a conjunction (if I am remembering things aright)--as in, "You will receive a complete report, however this will not be available for two weeks." Plainly, there's a sort of grammatical/syntactical Typhoid Mary out there teaching things that are just plain wrong.
Our daughter came home one day and mentioned that they were studying 'the LAR-nix.' And her science teacher had a Master's degree.
I was once a frequent user of however. In so many sentences though, but serves just as well. A non-professional might even write “You’ll have the report in two weeks.” :)
"They didn’t understand that the key information in a sentence doesn’t always come at the beginning of that sentence."
Thanks for the link to the article. A lot to think about.
You’re welcome. This piece has turned into the next reading assignment in my writing course.
Post a Comment