> > I'm taking a Foundations of Education class this term so I thought I'd tackel this.
> >
> > > Then came John Dewey and the Progressive Education movement, in the 1930's I believe. I consider the Dewey Decimal System to be an excellent tool; I couldn't find my way around the library without it. But I can't say I agree with his views on education. Now we've got "Whole Language" and "New Math". These supposedly new and improved learning techniques just don't hold a candle to time-honored methods. If Whole Language works, then why are our high schools graduating illiterate seniors?
> >
> > Whole language means learning to form paragraphs rather than the deffinition of the titles of kennings and adjectives. I'm a college students, an English Lit major, I get A's and B's on my papers, but I have trouble with Ad-Lips because I'm not always sure what an adverb is. The basic fact is I don't need to know what an adverb is I just have to know how to use the words.
>
> I have to take issue with this. Yes, you *do* need to know what an adverb is. How do you expect to "know how to use the words" if you don't know these absolute basic facts about English? And knowing what an adverb is IS an absolutely basic fact. I seem to remember learning it in school when I was about eight.
> Basic facts like learning the definitions of the parts of speech should be vital steps in any child's language education. As should learning the difference between words like "they're", "their" and "there". And correct punctuation. And correct spelling. And even (horrors!) correct grammar. I'm afraid that you *do* need to know how to put together a sentence in such a way that people can understand precisely what you mean. THAT IS THE WHOLE POINT OF *HAVING* LANGUAGE.
> This is not some sort of elitist literary snobbery. It is a fact. And please don't take this personally, Speedball, but it is terrifying to me that any college student majoring in English Lit and getting As and Bs does not know what an adverb is and, to put it bluntly, can type a line like "I'm a college students".

OK, that last one was just my misspelling.

> Brunnen-"I honestly don't mean this to sound as rude as it probably does. Sorry"G

But I do think you are missing my point, Whole Language does teach the parts of gammer, but not as in depth as they used to and they don't harp on it as much. In class the Prof. listed a bunch I never heard of, stuff like Jarens (he didn't write them on the board and this was back in September). I never even heard this word before, but chances are I use Jarens and use them correctly. Because after years of writing and reading I know what makes up a sentence and a paragraph. Once you learn how to use it you don't have to remember what they are called.

I used to bash my brains out on a yearly bases. Each english class I had would start with a go over of gammer and I would have to learn what all those things mean again. Then we would move on to actually reading stuff and writting and my grades would shoot up. I *knew* how to write a sentince, I just had trouble remembering the deffinitions to words that I only used about once a year.

What is more important in Whole Langugae is the ability to write compleate sentances, constructe essays and letters. In other words the use of Language is paramount over the mechanics of language. I think I'm rather good at the use of language, even if I have to look up what an adjective is each time I play Mad-Libs.

Speed'No offense taken Brunnen-G'ball