Journalist encourages teachers to teach grammar, style

While we live in an age where teaching grammar appears out of fashion, only fifty out of 350 journalism majors tested can score 80 percent or higher on a basic grammar test, Jennifer Johnson of The Arizona Republic told 35 high school journalism teachers on June 19. This begs the question: Should we make grammar fashionable again?

While the general public's take on grammar is that it is boring, I found Johnson's presentation quite interesting, complete with jokes, a power-point presentation, and many provocative questions where the teachers had to question their prior knowledge. She reminded me of why I actually loved grammar as a teen: It was like a puzzle to be figured out. If grammar is treated like a game, then kids will be more receptive.

Johnson also reminded us to teach our kids about using an "economy of words." Because my laziest of students naturally turn in short stories and my high achieving students tend to turn in long stories, I have been hesitant to discuss this need to be concise with my students too much. I suppose I was afraid that the excessively short stories would just get shorter. I really like this concept of an "economy of words" because I can apply it to ridiculously short stories as well. After all, those are not economical either. The reader wants the most amount of information for the least amount of space, so whether the writer is not providing enough information (too short) or robbing other writers of space to write on another topic of reader interest (too long), the writer is not being economical. Our writers have to be like Goldilocks, finding a happy medium, where the length of the story is "just right."

Finally, Johnson suggested we use www.newsroom101.com with our students. I browsed around it and found multiple choice grammar questions. I feel so lucky to live in an age where I do not have to reinvent the wheel, where I can very easily embed some grammar practice on the internet through such resources. (Of course, I will also teach it as well.)

Jill Bhowmik
Granite Hills High School
El Cajon, Calif.