Thoughts on Composition and Grammar Education in the Home

Depending on the time of life, this post's topic is either my favorite or my least favorite! Grammar and composition, specifically in English, was my least favorite subject growing up and being homeschooled--but it has grown enough so that I was able and happy to use it in part-time work for several years during college, in the academic resource centers at two different institutions. Because I didn't like it when I was going through the childhood-era education years, I'm putting this post toward the end of my homeschooling-thoughts series. You can check out previous posts in the series here: health education, life sciences, history, geography, math, and foreign language.

Here's a related tidbit about my upcoming book: one of the later chapters will address how neurodiverse parents can address practical skills instruction if they're not necessarily strong in those skills themselves. In parents with autism spectrum disorder, language skills can be impaired, so that would fall into this category.

Basic Information

Grammar tends to be a fairly granular subject (pun intended). In that spirit, let's talk a little bit about necessary vocabulary and the place of this post within my series sequence. (Now, we're finally talking about language arts!)

Terminology

My source for this section is ThoughtCo slimmed down from 100 words on their list. Despite my prolonged background in working with college students on their mechanics, there were a number of terms that I didn't know at the time of writing this post. I haven't included those, so you can guess what they were/are if you check out the source!

Active and passive voice relate to forms of verbs (action words). Active voice generally names the speaker/actor ("names" is in active voice)--with passive voice, the speaker/actor "is named" (equivalent example).

Verbs themselves may be transitive, intransitive, regular, irregular, or linking. Transitive verbs have direct objects while intransitive verbs do not. "I like music" uses a transitive verb; "I walk" uses an intransitive verb. Regular verbs follow the same patterns of conjugation, while irregular verbs are exceptions that need to be learned individually and are more common than I thought in English. Finally, linking verbs' only "action" is grammatical (e.g., seem, be).

Verbs also have moods which indicate how probable the speaker/writer thinks the fulfillment of what the verb is saying. Indicative mood is the most confident, imperative expresses a want, and subjunctive expresses a possibility.

Nouns (persons, places, or things) must agree with their verbs in person (I versus you versus we, etc.), number (singular or plural), and gender (if the sentence requires it--this is more noticeable in gendered languages such as German, Latin, and Spanish).

Prepositional phrases include a preposition (word generally describing "location" somehow, like at or through) and a complement (often a noun phrase). They are tremendously varied.

Finally, a compound sentence has at least 2 independent clauses; these are joined by a semicolon (see what I did there?).

Placing Composition and Grammar in Sequence

I’m fairly committed at this point to using a Charlotte Mason philosophy of education in developing my methodology for our homeschool. In her method, language arts are accessed first by exposure to adult patterns of spoken language and read-alouds, then by oral narration, and finally by written narration that the teacher may provide feedback on for mechanics. There's not necessarily formal instruction in composition and grammar here--all is contextualized.

I did use a grammar textbook growing up (more on that below), so my received education was not "pure" CM. However, in terms of subjects I enjoyed it was pretty low on the list. In adulthood and early motherhood, though, I've enjoyed it more, and do feel comfortable implementing formal grammar education in a couple of years. If we stick to a purer CM philosophy, though, I won't be as comfortable because I don't know as much about how she would have addressed the finer points. Therefore, it is at the end of my sequence in this blog post series.

How are Composition and Grammar Taught in Schools? 

My sources for this section are Common Core and Language Arts Classroom's blog post.

Standards

In the Common Core standards, long lambasted but also still in use in large parts of the United States, English language arts (ELA) standards articulate connections among language arts, historical literacy, scientific literacy, and technical literacy. I found the standards summary helpful as it describes students who have integrated their knowledge of ELA.

What do these students look like, by 12th grade? They . . .

• Are independent in textual grappling
• Possess wide and deep content knowledge
• Can vary content delivery depending on audience and other factors
• Prefer to understand before critiquing
• Place high value on evidence (however, this can backfire in worldview--as discussed in the essay collection Faith & Rationality)
• Strategically use technology well
• Can understand other cultures

Common Curricula

Because I don't do affiliate links (at least not now), I won't link to any of the big publishers. However, I found it interesting that all but one link on the first page of search results was from publishers marketing specifically to homeschoolers--not public-school decision-makers. So, if you're going along the homeschool route, you have your pick!

From the Language Arts Classroom's post, it seems that many teachers may have considerable autonomy to craft an engaging year-long curriculum in, say, high school. The author suggests use of various prompts, connection of grammar to its usage in writing (a la CM), selection of high-quality "mentor texts" or novels to engage with, and avoidance of overuse of "drill and kill."

How can Christian Homeschoolers Teach Composition and Grammar?

In the spirit of the Westminster Shorter Catechism, Christian educators (homeschoolers and others) should teach each subject toward "the chief end of man." Pertaining to composition and grammar, I see the features of order, regularity, and gracious verbal expression as ends of this aspect of education that are in line with God's attributes.

Before I recommend specific sources, I want to stress to you from my own experience that it is not required that your child enjoy every subject in which you're educating them! As children, we had to do at least the bare minimum in each subject but could work ahead in ones we liked. Suffice it to say, I never worked ahead in grammar. 😂 However, the job I held for the longest time in college--at 2 institutions--was a writing consultant position. I was good at it and I loved it. A big part of this job was giving feedback on . . . grammar and style.

Now for my favorite resources that, I think, can provide a Christian homeschool with a strong foundation grounded in a worldview reasonably similar to mine.

• Approach: CM. Resources abound, but my favorite philosophical one is The Commonplace.
• Grammar textbook: Warriner's English Grammar and Composition. It's a classic and has been around at least since I used it growing up; I plan to use it in my homeschool later on.
• Reading role models for excellent use of language. What can you read aloud to your children, and what can they read themselves later? Here are four of my favorite childhood authors to start:
• C. S. Lewis
• Kenneth Grahame
• J. R. R. Tolkien
• Edith Nesbit

What are your favorite resources, and how do they fit into your educational philosophy and approach? Feel free to discuss in the comments!