The Hopes and Fears of Grammar

I never learned grammar officially. I don’t remember ever receiving grammar instruction beyond attempted sentence diagramming and the difference between long and short vowels. Grammar has been a great and unspoken fear of mine since entering formal education.

In the first grade I was pulled out of my regular classroom and put into a special classroom for students that didn’t understand contractions… and looking back I realize I was pulled out for not understanding grammar lessons I believe I must have selectively removed from my memory. I was told nothing about my writing.

In sixth grade I memorized a helping verb song. I was told my writing had hope, but was simply grade level.

In high school we began writing research papers—lots and lots of research papers. I became quite skilled in the art of academic and research writing. I found a style and used it from then on. I was never recognized for writing well.

In my sophomore or junior year of college I was pulled aside in an introduction to the English major class and asked to meet for office hours. He told me that my writing was brilliant, but formulaic. He asked me about my history and I admitted to him, for the first time ever to another person, that I didn’t understand grammar beyond the ability to write coherently. He empathized and told me to challenge myself. I never quite figured that out.

In graduate school my cohort members were all in the writing center, and I wanted to be in the writing center with them. I felt unsecure about my skills despite now knowing that I do, in fact, write well. Once I found out I would be working there I made plans over the summer to catch up on twenty years worth of grammar instruction. I was unsuccessful in that attempt.

This week has been yet another week of feelings, but also of grammar and feelings about grammar. My own students have been learning about literacies and how we acquire our languages and skills and I felt compelled to briefly look at mine (above). My writing experiences have been tumultuous and wrought with frustration and a want to be better without knowing how to do that. Reading has always come easily to me and I read avidly, but writing did not because of my fears of words like “adverb,” “preposition,” and so on.

And now we have traveled through time to this week and the beginning of our grammar specific classes. I sat next to Ariel, and Skyler joined our jeopardy group; the two of them are brilliant in the ability to identify parts of a sentence. Your game was hilarious and Monica could barely read the questions aloud but I was unable to answer any of the questions on my own. Let the record show I read Chapters 1 and 2 in great detail. My greatest fears of being this honest about what I do not know about grammar identification have to be pushed aside. After each question I asked one or both of them to explain. They both offered to help me outside of class and I plan to take them up on the offer.

Because I will be in the writing center as well as plan to teach English abroad after graduation the time has come for me to learn the wonderful world of knowing what I am doing when I write… and being able to explain it to tutees and future students when they ask. I know that the Writing Center and people you have employed are finally the safe space I have needed to catch up, and I look forward to adding the grammar vocabulary to my knowledge base. I feel hopeful that I can finally learn.