The War Against Grammar

by David Mulroy

Provocative, thoughtful, informative, combative-a book that challenges us to come to terms once more with the teaching of English grammar.

How can we improve the verbal skills of American students? How can we strengthen them as readers and writers? How can we best prepare America's youth to succeed in the study of a foreign language? According to Classics professor David Mulroy, the most important answer is grammar! Whether championing the grammatical analysis of phrases and clauses or arguing for the vital importance of sentence diagramming, Mulroy offers a lucid, learned, passionate account of the history, importance, and value of grammar.

Both erudite and entertaining, "The War Against Grammar" disagrees with the establishment view that the teaching of traditional grammar is a waste of classroom time. According to Mulroy, both history and commonsense make clear that students benefit from diagramming and learning their parts of speech-both during their school years and beyond. Drawing upon his classical training, Mulroy offers a close reading of the history of language study and of linguistic research to support his view that English teaching must revitalize grammar education-and that it will produce a generation better able to read and write complex texts.

Smartly conceived and soundly executed, "The War Against Grammar" should initiate renewed debate on this critically important subject within the discipline of English Studies.

Genres: Education, Nonfiction

128 pages, Paperback

First published August 21, 2003

Reviews

[Teri · Rating 5 out of 5]

American schools are in so much trouble. The NCTE (National Council of Teachers of English) is to English teachers what the American Medical Association is to doctors, and this is their official stance on the teaching of traditional English grammar:

In view of the widespread agreement of research studies based upon many types of students and teachers the conclusion can be stated in strong and unqualified terms: the teaching of formal grammar has a negligible or, because it usually displaces some instruction and practice in composition, even a harmful effect on the improvement of writing.

This book, on the other hand, champions traditional grammar. Anyone with a brain stem knows that to improve communication skills, one must have a good grounding in not only the parts of speech, but how these parts function together. This book gives a historical overview of how the teaching of traditional grammar has either been embraced or dissed over the centuries. Just as Michelle Malkin has exposed "fuzzy math" for dumbing down our kids, David Mulroy has done likewise in exposing speculative grammar and progressive education.

Anyone who teaches grammar will find value in this book. This is pro classical trivium. It emphasizes learning grammar rules and using sentence diagrams. I found it highly readable and recommend it to home educators.

[Angie Libert · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love the history of education, so this book was a perfect fit for me. I now better understand the history of grammar teaching from the ancients to the present. I also gained a firmer understanding of why grammar is important, and why specifically the teaching of grammar has a positive, rather than a negative effect on students.

[Hilary · Rating 3 out of 5]

David Mulroy, professor of Classics at the University of Wisconsin, lays out the case for intentional, incremental instruction in formal English and Latin grammar for all elementary-aged children. Grammar, he says, allows us to clearly understand why our language works the way it does and facilitates nimble usage of our mother tongue. A knowledge of the structure and relationships of a language is also easily transmitted to a non-native language and allows for much deeper and quicker grasp of foreign tongues.
Modern critics of traditional grammar disparage its tendencies toward subjectivity, although they are able to offer no suitable alternative which allows for the same level of comfort and mastery of the written word.

I agree with Mulroy's assertion due to a first-hand knowledge of my own dearth of grammatical understanding which has frequently rendered me unable to construct sentences to my satisfaction or intention. I thought Mulroy belabored the point in this little book, however, and made 120 pages out of what could easily have been a pamphlet of 20.

Quotes:
Mulroy cautions that the liberal arts were never meant to be the end of education. They are humble tools to be used to facilitate learning of specialized, practical fields. What makes the liberal arts special is that they can be innately discerned by calling upon one's own ability to reason and in-born "knowledge of the true." Specialized fields to which liberal arts may be applied include those that, although possessing great practical application, are not internally apparent (viz. medicine, architecture, engineering, law, etc.) One must not mistake the liberal arts as ends unto themselves. If we do, we risk becoming "mere skeletons, stranded on the subtelties of the ancient sophists." (while simultaneously being both unbearable and utterly useless as individuals.)

In speaking of the health that literature imparts to the human psyche and in making an argument for its (admittedly impractical) pursuance, Cicero writes:
"Other diversions do not belong to all times, all ages, all places. Literary studies sharpen the minds of youth, entertain the elderly, glorify successes, offer refuge and comfort in adversity, give delight at home, are no impediment in society, stay with us through sleepless nights, on foreign journeys, in the lonely countryside."

Emily Dickinson's Poem 501:
"This World is not Conclusion,
A Species stands beyond -
Invisible, as Music -
But positive as Sound...
To guess it, puzzles scholars
To gain it, men have borne
Contempt of generations
And Crucifixion, shown - ...
Much Gesture, from the Pulpit
Strong Hallelujahs roll -
Narcotics cannot still the Tooth
That nibbles at the soul - "
(Mulroy comments on the usage of sentence diagramming to get at the meaning of the line "And Crucifixion, shown...")

"Reading a book with attention has a value that pervades one's life in ways that cannot be measured by educators and..objective questions are the only practical way to induce students to do so and ascertain whether they did."

"I have observed that individuals who understand grammar well often memorized lists of prepositions, traditionally defined, as youngsters. This is valuable because it helps people identify the grammatical nuclei of sentences by first eliminating prepositional phrases."

"Individuals who understand [grammatical] concepts have a distinct advantage over others where use of language is involved - and that means everywhere."

Books I want to read now:
- The Language Instinct by Steven Pinker
- The Name of the Rose (character: Bernard Gui?)
- Graded Lessons in English by Alonzo Reed and Brainerd Kellogg
- Higher Lessons in English by "
- Understanding English Grammar by Kolln
- Grammar and Usage in the Classroom by Mark Lester

[Frode · Rating 4 out of 5]

Since this is my field, I had a strong interst in what he had to say. Poor Americans in public school are systematically being dumbed down because they don't have formal grammar classes any more. The National Council of Teachers of English is the primary culprit. 'Nuff said!

[Meredith B. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastic overview of the changes in American education, specifically in regards to grammar and the ramifications of our increasingly illiterate society.

[Rehab Dynasty Amy Lee · Rating 5 out of 5]

It’s clear how we have mucked up grammar & the vital image form of communication when one views our modern societies today. This was a great read. Presenting both sides of the debate, of course biased to the need for formal instruction in grammar. It’s more about building discernment & comprehension than creativity. I’m blessed I was able to read this in our journey.

[Nathan Douthit · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great read. Some of it definitely went over my head but I really enjoyed the read. The author is very convincing on the importance of formal grammar education.

[Cady · Rating 2 out of 5]

I've been bothered in my rhetoric and comp. classes, and by the same thing that bothers David Mulroy: the complete disregard in which everybody seems to hold sentence mechanics. From what I have observed, there's an upsetting tendency of white tutors/teachers to tell themselves that it is somehow wrong to supply non-white students with the tools that they want (they're constantly asking the tutors in my program for help with sentence mechanics) and in some ways need (because Standard American will be expected of them at pretty much every decent job everywhere). A lot of concern about whether or not it might be racist or insensitive to talk to someone who speaks African American Vernacular about questions of grammar, for instance, seems to have left my fellow tutors (and some of our composition instructors) paralyzed. Me, I'd rather give instruction that helps individual students better their lives, the instruction they are asking for, without adapting the condescending (and honestly, also pretty racist) view that a person's being born into a certain "discourse community" means he or she somehow won't be capable of learning how employers expect apostrophes to be handled.

I read this book to get a firmer idea of where and how a person like me might fit into a writing center, what sort of tutor I am, and what work has been done in composition studies to justify or dispute the idea that nobody really needs to learn what an adverb is. I liked some of the arguments, and a few resonated with me in a profound way. Linguistics is not the same field as composition and shouldn't be treated as such. Linguistic research has not debunked the notion of grammar study. Dialects also have rules about how to handle adverbs, and completely ignoring the issue of how to handle adverbs is not the way to teach students who speak a variety of dialects.

But in the end, this is not the book I was looking for. I'm sure this was not the intended effect, but there were a few distracting pages in which the author tried a little too hard to tie his ideas about grammar to a somewhat right-leaning worldview and his abiding interest in Classical studies, and in those passages I was deeply put off. I'm not totally sure that I care about Mulroy's comparisons of today's overenthusiastic amateur linguist composition instructors to the practitioners of Medieval scholasticism, and I really don't need a two-page rant about what the author views as political correctness leading to unacceptably "euphemistic" usage. I emphatically do not need that.

[M.G. Bianco · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a pretty good book. It came to me recommended by Leigh Bortins of Classical Conversations.

The author discusses the current war against grammar as seen in the public school system, as well as historical battles for and against grammar. He also shows the results of the initial establishment of grammar and later revivals of grammar. In doing so, he lays out a good foundation for why we should teach good, old-fashioned, sentence-diagramming, parts of speech grammar.

Good book.

[Sharon]

Picture a national assembly of English teachers at an annual meeting and then picture this:

"..I found myself among twenty-some intellectual guerillas, drawn from the entire nation-Pennesylvania, Missouri, California-members of the despised, pro-grammar sect, not quite filling a single classroom in North Hennepin community College, plotting ways to sneak terms like participle and infinitive into English classes." David Mulroy

[Jenny · Rating 4 out of 5]

I teach English, so this book was interesting to me. I found it very readable. It was most informative in giving the history behind why teaching grammar is so important--it's a beginning, not an end, to understanding complex writing and being able to express oneself more eloquently.

[Mai]

I'm really grateful for the author. It's a excellent book! It provides us an overview of the real value of Grammar in the process of learning language.

[Chris Wood · Rating 4 out of 5]

For anyone who's frustrated over the dearth of grammar being taught today, Mulroy feels your pain.

[Ryan Patrick · Rating 4 out of 5]

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[Lisa · Rating 3 out of 5]

Strong start but slow in the middle...