These two units of the Minnesota Project English curriculum employ transformational grammar in an attempt to make eighth-grade students aware of fundamental facts about their language. Concepts taught in the first unit are (1) that an infinite number of English sentences exists, (2) that a few basic transformations are the basis for a large number…

Individualized lessons, based upon inferred instructional goals of The Roberts English Series," were developed by Program for Learning in Accordance with Needs (PLAN). (RD)

THE AUTHORS HAVE DESIGNED THIS GUIDE FOR NON-LINGUISTICALLY ORIENTED ENGLISH AND LANGUAGE ARTS TEACHERS WHO ARE FACED WITH THE PROBLEM OF TEACHING "THE NEW GRAMMAR." THE INTRODUCTION PRESENTS A RATIONALE FOR THE TEACHING OF LINGUISTICS IN THE CLASSROOM--"THE NEW GRAMMARS, INTELLIGENTLY APPLIED, MAY HELP CHILDREN NOT ONLY UNDERSTAND THE SYNTAX OF…

Discusses the continuing controversy over how to teach grammar. Finds that the traditional, structural, and transformational approaches each have their strengths and weaknesses, with none clearly better than the others. Suggests that the teaching of grammar, while not the key to improvement in written English, will always have a place in the…

Because of the tentative nature of linguistic theories, the lack of proof that linguistics is an efficacious approach to language study, and the prescriptive nature of many of the books themselves, a textbook series based on linguistics is not recommended for use in the classroom. True linguists suggest theories about the structure of language and…

This study examines eight evaluative abstracts on grammar instruction, to determine the effects of such instruction on student writing and to trace the development of sentence-combining instruction, which helps students write with increased syntactic maturity. On the basis of the evaluative abstracts, the study concludes that traditional grammar…

THE OREGON CURRICULUM STUDY CENTER, WITH THE COOPERATION OF STAFF MEMBERS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF OREGON AND TEACHERS FORM SEVEN SCHOOL SYSTEMS IN OREGON AND WASHINGTON, HAS WRITTEN AND TESTED AN EXPERIMENTAL CURRICULUM IN ENGLISH FOR GRADES 7-12 FOR APPROXIMATELY THE UPPER 70 PERCENT OF STUDENTS. THE CURRICULUM CONSISTS OF EXPERIMENTAL TEXTBOOKS IN…

Traditions and emerging trends in the teaching of linguistics and composition are examined in this collection of papers. Joseph Mersand predicts a future emphasis on the subject of English as a discipline, leading to a more adequate preparation and increased supervision of English teachers and a greater stress in the classroom on written…

This unit is intended to give ninth-grade students a brief survey of the changes in the study of language from the time of the Greeks to the present. Organized to proceed from the teacher's introduction of a subject to class examination and discussion of an excerpt from a grammarian's work, the unit focuses on the belief that a grammarian's…

This Minnesota Curriculum Center report recounts the development of teaching materials on the nature and uses of language for grades 7-12 and presents the first of five seventh-grade units. A description of the origins, purposes, and personnel of the Center is followed by brief discussions of (1) the Center's underlying assumption that a study of…