(no subject)

[meganbmoore]

Do they seriously not require grammar for English majors anymore?  Mapping sentences that take up a full page? Analyzing and dissecting every type of phrase or word known to the English language?

ARE PEOPLE TRULY NO LONGER REQUIRED TO TAKE THAT COURSE?

It was the most feared course at my university!  English majors trembled at its coming! Getting a B- was cause for celebration!  I still catch myself mapping sentences without even thinking about what I'm doing!  And you don't have to take the course any more?  Or, at least, not everyone does?

EXCUSE ME PLEASE!  I MUST GO HATE ON EVERY ENGLISH MAJOR EVER WHO IS YOUNGER THAN ME AND/OR WAS NOT REQUIRED TO TAKE THAT COURSE BY THEIR UNIVERSITY!

ETA:  I should mention that I had the Junior High and High School versions, too, and, while hard, there wasn't much comparison.

Comments

[chaos-harmony.livejournal.com]

O.O Which university were you at?

(Er, if it makes you feel any better, I had to do that in junior high, then again during one of my first two years of high school? It was sheer misery, but probably character-building in the long run.)

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

Angelo State. Medium sized Texas university. I took it in Junior High and High School, too. Believe me, those were hard, but no comparison.

[etrangere.livejournal.com]

... In France, we did that in highschool, that's where I got my best grads.

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

Oh, we have it in High School here, too. The high school one was no comparison, though.

[ryanitenebrae.livejournal.com]

. . .As a possible future English major, I tremble before you.

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

As well you should!

[kakkobean.livejournal.com]

I have no idea about the requirements of english majors since I'm an art major (ouch), but of my friends who are english literature/creative writing/linguistics majors, I have yet to hear a single one of them freak out over a grammar course.

Which is a shame, because grammar keeps getting cut from lower level education requirements. *sighs*

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

*cringes*

I've noticed. (Not that my grammar is anything resembling perfect, but...)

[retsuko.livejournal.com]

Grammar is on the outs, teaching-wise. When I worked at two community colleges in my area, most of the students had never taken grammar, to the point that they did not know what nouns, verbs, and adjectives were. It made me want to scream sometimes. (And then count my blessings for having an English teacher who was a stickler for grammar.)

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

I MUST DESPAIR OVER THE FUTURE NOW!!!

Uhm...the then-head-of-the-English-Department and the teacher of my course has probably given up on the human race over it.

[chomiji]

I hate to break it to you, but I never had to take such a course during my degree program. And at that time, UVa had the 3rd-best undergrad English department in the nation.

(Hmmm, looks like it's still pretty good. I hated it while I was there, but it's a good school academically.)

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

I had the impression that, in the form I knew it in, the course was relatively new-ish (as in, 15~ or a little less years) because the material wasn't being taught as much in the "normal" courses.

[artillie.livejournal.com]

Pfft. One of my chefs is harder on our SPAG than my English professor, to the point where she actually grades us on it. I don't think I've ever had an English teacher grade me on my usage.

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

Clearly, your English teachers are very lenient! Too lenient!

[lady-ganesh.livejournal.com]

I had to diagram sentences only once, in eighth grade.

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

*hates on principle*

*it won't last*

[advance.livejournal.com]

I'm not an English major but I've never ever even seen that course. o-o Even when I was looking up classes to fill up my schedule in collage and I ended up taking a lot of the English major courses.

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

*sorrow*

[mistaria.livejournal.com]

I'm a Professional Writing major specializing in editing/publishing so I'm required to take a 300 level and 400 level grammar and style class for my degree. As far as I know our English department students aren't required to take anything like this but maybe they are? ::looks:: No, I'm not seeing anything related to that in the English courses available through my university.

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

At least some are still required to take it!

[redbrunja.livejournal.com]

I'm actually embarressed about how much grammer I DON'T know as an English major. I learned most of it from pictionary.

I honestly WISH I had a class like that required.

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

Admittedly, most people who care about such things are going to pick up some of the important parts by, you know, reading, but (IMO) it provides an important perspective on and understanding of what comes out of your mouth and fingertips.

But the increasing regularity of people who don't seem capable of forming a complete, linear (or at least logical) sentence or voicing a coherent thought is depressing.

[livvylove.livejournal.com]

I'm a computer science major and took the bare minimum when it came to English and decided against a school because they made too many English requirements for CS majors.

Luckily my SATs where high enough that I only had to take one English class in college. I enjoyed the class because I had a good teacher but if it wasn't required and was just a suggested elective I would have taken anything else. I found the business writing class more practical although I skipped it for speech. The good thing is because people like me exist technical writers are there to help with documentation.

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

The thing is that even less in terms of grammar and vocabulary and how to use them is being taught at any level. So the less that's required, the poorer the average person's understanding and ability to properly understand and express his or her self is.

[kingcrankycat.livejournal.com]

I was in the last batch of English majors at George Mason that had it required. It was removed the semester after I graduated (they replaced it with another composition class, I think).

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

...

Because there aren't 5000 composition classes out there. (Or at least, there were at my university.)

[mystickeeper.livejournal.com]

We did not have to take that course, although I wish I could have!

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

It was torture, but the torture was beneficial!

[southerndave.livejournal.com]

Doesn't sound like anything I had to do at high school either... sure, I knew what words did what, but I don't remember analysing stuff an entire page at a time, or anything like that.

[mycenae.livejournal.com]

I was an English major and I didn't have to take a grammar class. In 9th grade my honors English class did basic sentence diagramming. I took an into linguistics class in college (as a science GE) that got more into sentence structure and phrases, but in a general, non-English specific way. And I remember almost none of it.

What's the point of a grammar class? I'm really asking. I don't get it. It just sounds like busy work to me.

[mistaria.livejournal.com]

::cries::

Well... I guess there is no point if it's not something you need to use in your career. For someone like me who wants to work in editing/publishing you can understand the necessity though, right?

[cavechan.livejournal.com]

I am confused as to how an English major doesn't have any grammar courses.

I just feel like that would be like if I didn't have any Typography classes in my Graphic Design major. (I had 4 required classes of Type.) It's like the backbone of what you're doing... isn't it??

And then if English majors don't know grammar, then who am *I* supposed to turn to when I am completely lost since English is weird?!

Also, if you don't know how to properly form sentences, then how can you properly be expressionistic with them when you want to screw them up? (ala, House of Leaves, I think the book was...)

btw, I think I just did the mapping thing in 8th grade, though we did do some in 9th grade. I just remember the bitch I hated asking me from across the room during the final exam, "Heather, what's an adjective?!" (Stupid, naïve teach leaving the room briefly.) I just didn't say anything. >_>

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

Exactly.

And I admit, I sometimes have to go through mental filing cabinets over what should be the simplest words, but no one over the age of 12 (if that old) should ever have to ask that question if English is their native language.

[wistfulmemory.livejournal.com]

My college still requires that course, and I took it as a requirement to graduate with my English degree. Not requiring English majors to take it is just wrong.

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

Yup.

[buymeaclue.livejournal.com]

If it helps at all, we had to do that in high school! Freshman or sophomore year, I can't remember which. Only in the Honors class, but still. Misery to keep yours company!

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

Nope, no help! Because I did too.

[irysangel.livejournal.com]

Haven't taken grammar since 7th grade. I was terribly disappointed it wasn't required in high school, because it's something I could have gotten a lot of use out of, rather than, say, Chaucer and Shakespeare. :P

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

I'd say you can get use out of all three.

[woodburner.livejournal.com]

I cannot do those. At all. I mean, I just can't. My grammar usage is fair, but I do not understand grammar one little bit.

[re-weird.livejournal.com]

My entire 7th grade year in English was nothing but grammar and vocabulary tests. I learned nothing from it besides an abiding hatred of diagramming sentences. I've learned grammar much more from taking a foreign language especially because what case it's in changes the ending of the word entirely.

[madame-manga.livejournal.com]

Hmm. I don't recall having diagrammed sentences at any point except in junior high, and that was a minor part of the 'honors' English course. I grew up in the '70s and '80s, which were a black hole for rigor and tradition in any discipline, and the few teachers who still believed teaching the basic rules was important stand out in my memory like stars against that background. For the most part, I taught myself classic English grammar by osmosis while reading 19th-century British novelists, the champions of the compound-complex sentence.

And... I think that's the best way in any case. Yes, teach the basic rules to everyone, require that their schoolwork follow those rules, and mark 'em down for mistakes until they get it right. But don't take it too far. Students who read good prose are going to learn by ear what sounds right and what doesn't, and students who don't read are not going to absorb heaps of advanced technical information only a linguist could love. Language may have certain discernible rules, but it is not science; it's human instinct. Speakers and writers make a language what it is, not codifiers, and language will never stand still for analysis no matter how upset some people may get over its mutations.

Case in point: I can only snicker at the self-appointed online "grammar nazis" who jump down a writer's throat for the smallest deviation from what they've been taught is "correct". I've had pompous little kids who apparently just got an A in high school English try to scold me for using sentence fragments in a fight scene, or contractions in third-person narration. Puh-leeze, little kids, just go study some more for your SATs...