Revolutionary Grammar
Faculty are invited to participate in an upcoming workshop hosted by the Writing Across the Curriculum program. Faculty Associates from Bard College's Institute for Writing & Thinking will lead two concurrent all-day workshops entitled "Revolutionary Grammar" on Friday, February 20.
Everyone—inside and outside the academic community—has an opinion about grammar. Parents, CEOs, and of course teachers worry that students graduating from high school and college do not know grammar. But what does it mean to know grammar? If it were simply a matter of learning rules, teachers would not be struggling to correct grammar in paper after paper. In any case, basic grammatical rules don't stick.
This workshop looks at both philosophical and practical questions surrounding the teaching of grammar, investigating connections between philosophical and pedagogical approaches. What assumptions about written language's relationship to grammar do we bring to our teaching of writing? Using diverse literary texts and our own writing, we ask what grammar is, what it is for, what it contributes to the making of meaning and to creative expression, and how it fits into the more fluid models for teaching writing that we value. Workshop participants learn practical approaches to teaching grammar that do not focus on rules so much as incorporate rules into students' intuitions and habits as writers. This workshop is for teachers of English, composition, or grammar, as well as for any teacher who addresses issues of grammar in whatever subject they teach.
Time: 9:30 am to 5:00 pm
Location: President's Conference Rooms #s 1 and 2 (Rosenthal Library)
