Sawyer, W. 'Knowledge about language' and grammar

Sawyer looks at the historical background and the connections between grammar and 'knowledge about language' (KAL). 

Grammar has a narrower and traditional context which teaches the skills and processes compared to KAL which is seen as a social phenomenon (Myhill) and looks at how language enables the effective interaction and communication of not only knowledge, and skills but attitudes, feelings and opinions (Australian National Curriculum 2009). Sawyer explores the connection between the two with reference to past research studies that have been conducted, in particular looking how grammar has influenced writing.

I feel that Sawyer does not 'throw the baby out with the bathwater'. In spite of numerous studies focusing on whether formal grammar teaching improves student's writing skills (and concluding in the negative), Sawyer acknowledges that we do need to consider the 'how the grammar was taught' and "whether the teaching made connections between grammar and writing". 


Sawyer certainly sees a place for grammar, but I believe he agrees with Andrews that teacher professional judgment re teaching 'abstracted grammatical rules' or grammatical terms is of crucial importance. I can imagine a classroom scenario whereby a teacher explicitly teaching grammatical terms to a class or individual would benefit, and other scenarios where teaching or referring to grammar could only confuse the student. As Sawyer states "Let us be clear here. Clarity matters. Effectiveness matters. Effects matter".

It does come down to the context, and Sawyer acknowledges that for the last 30 years or so, the specific approach to grammatical knowledge has been "seen as most effective in the context of actual writing, throughout the writing process and over time". 

Sawyer agrees with Nancie Atwell's teaching of the mini-lesson. Teaching those skills at the zone of intervention when they are most needed by the student. This comes down to knowing your subject or the topic, your students and again coming back to a teacher's professional judgment. 


I liked Sawyer's scenario of sitting down and writing. He is correct. We do not start from a grammatical base, but rather write with 'content in mind, a conscious sense of audience', purpose and hopefully 'a general sense of overall organisation'.  Our knowledge of grammar particularly comes into play explicitly when we are reflecting on our writing, and going through the drafting processes of reflect, edit and refine.


The key questions that Sawyer reiterates (and we need to ask ourselves) are:
"what kind if knowledge about grammar might be of use in the secondary classroom?" and "how can this best be deployed to be of benefit to students". When explicitly teaching grammar we want the student to be able to transfer their knowledge of these skills to new writing contexts.