Albert Rouzie
ENG 5890
Construct Proposal-- Revision
9/4/12
Writing
Right: An Article on the Debate of Correct Grammar in Creative Writing
Are you fully dressed if you don't wear socks? By use of extended metaphor, is a sentence "fullly dressed" without a comma where one should be, to be grammatically correct? Is it okay for your shirt to not match your pants, or again, what if noun plurality doesn't match the verb conjugation? Sure, it can be confusing, but isn't it your creative choice? The argument of whether to be grammatically correct in creative writing has been two-sided for many years: yes, you need to be grammatically correct or no, you do not. More recent sources, such as Anna Leahy, Kathryn Mincey, and Susan Myhill--all educators, argue that it's not if a writer should be grammatically correct or not, it's when we as educators should introduce grammatical rules and when to let students deviate from them. My reason for exploring all sides of the argument is to evaluate if it does matter when standard grammar rules are abandoned for creative purposes and whether or not the evolution of language has been taken into consideration. We are not the students our grandparents were. Grammar has changed into a new outfit. But are we just holding onto the same old coveralls?
Christina, this is an argument that we had at an all-county English teachers' meeting. So many of the high school teachers vehemently argued that elementary and junior high teachers need to do a better job of teaching proper grammar to students because of all the writing "errors" they were seeing at the high school level. I'm really interested to see what your sources said regarding when grammar should be introduced and then deviated from. The evolution of language made me think of Professor Dutton! :)So interesting!
ReplyDeleteThis is a great metaphor, Christina! It is at once playful and informative. You do a great job developing your voice as a creative writer and researcher. Are you going to include poets, too? This will be a fun project!
ReplyDeleteCJ,
ReplyDeleteGrammar and when correctness is mandated and when to teach grammar (I don;t see "if" just 'when' here). I see a problem from the getgo with focusing on creative writing (rather large). Main problem with that is that it is widely held that authors can mess with grammar all they want to if it furthers their purposes. There are exceptions, of course. Why does Faulkner choose not to use apostrophes? When we move writing into rhetoric, the question of grammar and correctness shifts and gets more controversial. There's a whole lot of research that doubts the effectiveness of grammar (as typically taught) in improving writing. Recall the sample paper on that. I suggest that you not limit this to creative writing although it would be interesting to see what that field's discourse about it says.
AR