Exploring the two sources about grammar and the use of it in everyday language compared to the use of it on written paper, I was informed on other points of view on the subject. Linda Christensen wrote an intriguing article on the teaching on the standard of English. In many ways I felt as though I could relate to this article. If not from solely first experience, I have been classmates with many people who have struggled to hit the “standard” that many feel needs to be met in the United States. It is important, as Christensen said, to make sure students know the benefits that being able to follow this standard will bring but I appreciated how she emphasized that it does matter how these students are taught the lesson. The very last sentence in this article says “I was an outsider, a foreigner in their world, my students won’t be”(Christensen,104) which, in my opinion, says a lot coming from someone who now teaches grammar.

In “Grammar Alive!” they talk about how different everyday conversations are from correctly written out grammar. This isn’t emphasized quite as much in the article by Christensen but I think that they are both making the same point; students are all different when it comes to their grammar. [Two closely related sentences joined by a semicolon]. Different students may need help with different things. The authors write “...It is not language itself that is the crucial issue here; it is people, and the match between the language they use and the circumstances they find themselves in” (Haussamen, 11). I completely agree with the emphasis the book puts here on how important it is to know the different kinds of languages that should be used in different circumstances but it isn’t necessary to always use perfect grammatical sentences or proper tones.

In the second chapter the book also talks about some examples of standard English that some people may find no problems with but can be very confusing to students that just may not understand them yet. One example in particular is the word you. The book says “Stand English requires us to use you regardless of whether we are addressing a whole group or just an individual within that group, an inconvenience that we learn to adjust to”(Haussamen, 12). I like this example in particular because personally, I have heard many different things from different teachers throughout my education career about it. I had one extremely intelligent English teacher in high school but he scolded us for ever using the word “you”—which was a commonly used word in many of our vocabularies. I very rarely used the word throughout my freshman/sophomore years of high school but looking back I think he made a mistake in telling us to never use the word in general. As the book says in the quote above, the word you is “required” in standard English. The article by Christensen also relates to this; she had one bad experience with being taught a lesson when she was young and now she is hesitant to use certain words that she has perfected but still feels unsure about.[Two closely related sentences joined by a semicolon]. The word “you” could be one of these words for some people because they may get confused when they attempt to use it and then not use it at all—this is a mistake because this word is required in standard English! [emphasis of an important point].

Christensen, Linda. Reading, Writing, and Rising up: Teaching about Social Justice and the Power if the Written Word. Milwaukee: Rethinking Schools, 2000.

Haussamen, Brock. Grammar Alive!: A guide for Teachers. Urbana, IL: National Council of Teachers of English, 2003. Print.