Michael Clay Thompson - Grammar of Lit

[KelseyS]

This is our second year of homeschooling (girls - 13 and just turned 11).  We've had the MCT Town and Voyage levels and have enjoyed looking through them, but didn't really fully implement them last year.  This year, we're getting started with The Grammar of Literature with my older daughter.  She's a very avid reader and always scores in the 99th percentile on standardized tests in language arts.  She's a concrete, analytical thinker (future engineer, she thinks) and MCT is frustrating her, and me too!  It's a bit embarrassing to be honest, as I have a degree in linguistics!  Maybe it's been too long ago - lol!  Is there anyone for whom MCT just wasn't a good fit?  I SO want to love it, but it's a struggle right now.  I understand that it's a different approach that's designed to inspire a true love of language and grammar.  Maybe we just need to give it a bit more time and attention?  Or find a grammar curriculum that is less flowery?  Any input would be most appreciated! 

[forty-two]

What kind of problems are you having? 

[freesia]

Sure, I don’t think every style appeals to everyone. Maybe she needs something straight forward like Rod and Staff?

[Clemsondana]

It depends on what problems you're having.  There are certainly other approaches that work fine and might be more enjoyable for any particular kid.  We started with the first level of MCT and my kids are currently 1) finishing the last of the Voyage level and about to start the lit level (my younger) and 2) working on level 6 (my older).  My kids have very different personalities, interests, and temperaments but this is one of 2 programs that worked well for both kids.  I remember one of the grammar levels being difficult because of all of the types of verbs, but I don't remember which is was.  Do you have the whole program or just the grammar?  Usually we do grammar in the first month or 2 of the program and then we're on to the rest of it...so in that sense I don't know that my kids particularly enjoy it.  Once we got past the first few 'fun with a cute story' levels, they more see it as something to learn and the move on from before we get on to the rest of it (they usually enjoy the vocabulary and poetry reasonably well).  I do think the program overall has helped their writing as they see that every word, phrase, and punctuation mark has a name and purpose, but I don't know that I'd attribute it to the grammar books vs the overall program.  In a couple of weeks we'll finish the essay book and start the level 4 grammar, so I might have more insight once I've been through it a second time.

[KelseyS]

Thank you all for your thoughts.  I think we're mainly getting bogged down in the analysis of phrases and clauses.  She prefers something straightforward.  She feels it's complicated and doesn't understand the need for the four-level analysis.  With this curriculum, there's a lot more digging required.  We do have the entire program, so maybe we'll plow through this grammar quickly and move to the other parts which I think she'll enjoy more.  Part of the issue is that she is used to things being very intuitive and quickly accomplished.  This challenges her in a new way - maybe that's a good thing.  : )  

[freesia]

4 minutes ago, KelseyS said:

Thank you all for your thoughts.  I think we're mainly getting bogged down in the analysis of phrases and clauses.  She prefers something straightforward.  She feels it's complicated and doesn't understand the need for the four-level analysis.  With this curriculum, there's a lot more digging required.  We do have the entire program, so maybe we'll plow through this grammar quickly and move to the other parts which I think she'll enjoy more.  Part of the issue is that she is used to things being very intuitive and quickly accomplished.  This challenges her in a new way - maybe that's a good thing.  : )  

That could be. I actually find the analysis very straight forward. Could it be she isn’t solid on what each part is? Maybe she needs it to slow down.

[Clemsondana]

It seems like you've got 2 issues - she doesn't see a need to learn the 4 level analysis, and she's not finding it easy.  In MCT's method, part of the reason to learn about the clauses and phrases is that he later teaches punctuation using that information.  I'm sure that other programs are effective at teaching punctuation rules using a different method, but you likely still have to pick apart the sentences to be sure that you have it done correctly.  She might find that another method works better.  I actually never learned any of this, since we learned very little grammar and wrote intuitively (if not always correctly) so I've found it helpful to learn the whys of some of the rules. If this is something that you want her to learn, is she going to find it easier or be happier to do it with another program?  In other words, what do you think the problem is, or what is your goal?  Is it that you/she don't think that learning this is a good use of time, or that you think that another program will be easier to learn from, or that she'll enjoy another program more, or ??  If she doesn't understand why she needs to learn it, she might not like learning it from any program, for instance - it's hard for us to know what the root problem is.  

Edited September 20, 2020 by ClemsonDana

[kbutton]

On 9/18/2020 at 8:56 PM, KelseyS said:

Thank you all for your thoughts.  I think we're mainly getting bogged down in the analysis of phrases and clauses.  She prefers something straightforward.  She feels it's complicated and doesn't understand the need for the four-level analysis.  With this curriculum, there's a lot more digging required.  We do have the entire program, so maybe we'll plow through this grammar quickly and move to the other parts which I think she'll enjoy more.  Part of the issue is that she is used to things being very intuitive and quickly accomplished.  This challenges her in a new way - maybe that's a good thing.  : )  

I truly enjoy grammar, and we use MCT successfully. I kind of embellish it sometimes though because I feel like he leaves some things, such as a deeper dive into verb tenses, until too late. I think it's a lot easier to find verbals if you discuss verb forms. 

Anyway, the analysis part has been really beneficial for my kids' brains, but neither of my kids uses the analysis the same way at all. One is very linear, and the other skips all over the four levels going back and forth from line to line. We talk through our analysis until the kids get the hang of things. We also diagram, and we add a few things to the analysis, such as whether prepositional phrases are being used as adjectives or adverbs. 

If there is any way you could borrow additional levels to peek ahead to see if there is something taught later that would help now? Or maybe get a traditional grammar resource (Warriner's maybe?) that could provide a different perspective. You can get used copies of Warriner's online very inexpensively. 

[Matryoshka]

On 9/18/2020 at 9:02 PM, freesia said:

That could be. I actually find the analysis very straight forward. Could it be she isn’t solid on what each part is? Maybe she needs it to slow down.

I also find the 4-level analysis very straightforward. And not even a little bit flowery - the teaching might be a bit flowery, lol, but the analysis is not.  But it has to be taught - OP said upthread that the books had only been 'looked through'.    

Though I will admit that I also teach the MCT analysis a bit differently than he does.  Instead of doing Level 1 (parts of speech) then Level 2 (parts of the sentence) then Level 3 (Phrases), I start with Level 3, using the Easy Grammar method of eliminating Prepositional Phrases.  That makes finding the subject/verb fairly easy, and once you've found all that, the parts of speech are stunningly obvious.  The key is that FIRST you identify what words are doing in a sentence before you try to identify their part of speech.  MCT does drive this point home quite a bit, that words don't have an inherent part of speech, but that parts of speech are predicated on what function the word is serving in the sentence - but then he has you start the analysis with PoS.  Upside down, imho.  I'll agree that PoS have to be taught first, but once you get to 4-level analysis, it's sooooo much easier if you start with eliminating the prepositional phrases in Level 3.  And other types of phrases also become obvious once you start looking at Level 2, as they sometimes function as subjects and objects.  Figure those things out, and parts of speech are always easy peasy.  It's pretty much a pure logic exercise, nothing flowery, nothing to memorize or guess at.

Edited September 21, 2020 by Matryoshka

[Clemsondana]

Hah - until others said it, I hadn't realized that we, too, don't do the 4-level analysis in order sometimes.  It depends on the sentence...sometimes my kids will do subject (which may mean they find the gerund) and then verb, sometimes they find the phrases first, often they figure out how many clauses there are as a part of figuring out subject and verb.  But, the helpful thing is that every word has a place to go, so once they label the easy things (subject, verb, prepositional phrases) then they can figure out what the remaining words are.  At that point, the options are limited - conjunctions, adjectives, and adverbs, usually, unless there's a phrase.  

[domestic_engineer]

FWIW, between here and Facebook I'm noticing a lot of unhappiness with level 4, especially using it as an entry point to the MCT-universe.  Since it's the newest book in the series, I wonder if it's a poor place to start the MCT journey for whatever reason.  We skipped level 4 (as I used the logic of the-program-was-good-enough-for-years-without-this-level) but came back to MCT level 5 the following school year.  ........... just my 2 cents.

[Clemsondana]

Level 4 is different than the others.  It's like the first 3 go together and the last 3 seem to (we're on the 6th one, which flows naturally from level 5 so far).  I think that 4 was intended to be a bridge because the gap is big.  

[EKS]

I just looked at The Grammar of Literature and I see your point.  I love the four level analysis (with the exception that I don't think it deals with modifiers, well, at all) but the new t-model thing just looks confusing though I get that it is an attempt to rectify the modifier problem.  Why not just teach diagramming?

[Matryoshka]

1 hour ago, EKS said:

I just looked at The Grammar of Literature and I see your point.  I love the four level analysis (with the exception that I don't think it deals with modifiers, well, at all) but the new t-model thing just looks confusing though I get that it is an attempt to rectify the modifier problem.  Why not just teach diagramming?

I've never seen the Grammar of Literature, and I agree that a possible weakness of 4-level analysis is what's modifying what, but I usually just go over that using arrows if I feel like someone's not getting something - although if you start with level 3 and 2, parts of speech and what modifies what usually becomes really clear without any additional fuss.  I also teach figuring out what modifies what by figuring out what question the word is answering (what kind? how many? which one? when/where? how/to what extent? etc.).  I'm not sure what the t-model is, but it sounds like something that is complicating something that is elegant (in the computer programming meaning of simplified down to the most efficient model).  I have never felt a need to diagram (which is likely why I like the 4-level thing so much - and it's elegant!), but if you're going to start branching systems, yeah, I'd say just go with the diagramming.