Subjective Morality

I was in AP calculus the other day and several of the junior girls in front of me were talking about how they weren’t going to go into AP English next year (a class that I’m currently in) because English is so hard. They were talking about how they don’t know when to use a comma and a semicolon and all the other punctuation marks. I really wanted to butt in and teach them, but I didn’t. They brought up an interesting idea though: a high-school class for grammar. They complained that they didn’t know the precise rules of English grammar because none of their English teachers ever taught them, which is probably a part of the whole “descriptivist” trend in education that’s been going on since the 70’s; foster critical thought by giving the students a prompt and having them write about it. It’s true, you don’t see English grammar taught like it was in the fifties, where the teacher stood at the front of the class and had the students memorize what he wrote down on the board. The last English class I took that taught any sort of grammar was in sixth grade, and even then it was just the basics of clauses. I pretty much taught myself proper grammar by studying what I read, back in 9th grade. That method worked pretty well for me, but it depends on what you read. If you’re studying fan-fiction on the net, don’t expect to find good grammar there.

So, back to the idea of a grammar class. It could be optional, giving students a choice in whether they take it or not, but I think it should be mandatory. Grammar is essential when you get to college English; you can’t expect to get a good grade on a college English paper and not know where to put a comma. It should be taken in either sophomore or junior year, because freshman year is too early and senior year is too late. The curriculum would be moderately paced, so that no one’s left behind. They could cover certain relatively short books, like Camus’ The Stranger, and study the grammar and syntax, to help them understand.

It appalls me every day how many kids at my high school don’t understand basic English grammar, and I think this class would go a long way in resolving this problem.