Vincent  van Gogh's  Mademoiselle Ravoux  1890, Private  Collection,  Switzerland

The Primary KISS Difference — A Grammar with a Goal

     The trouble with grammarians is that they love grammar. They luxuriate in it. And they love to teach it. The fact that their teaching of it does not seem to be at all effective doesn’t seem to bother them. For fifteen years, as editor of Syntax in the Schools, I attempted to convince them that the traditional approach to teaching grammar does not work. But whether they try to teach traditional grammar, or one of the new linguistic grammars, they still take the same old, ineffective approach.
That ineffective approach is a focus on grammar as grammar. Look at any of their grammar books. You will find chapters on grammatical constructions – nouns and verbs, subjects and verbs, clauses, phrases, tenses, etc. Whole chapters! Filled with rules, exceptions, and extremely simple examples! Imposing, yes; practical, no. The chapters are not related to each other, and the whole picture is never put together. Students learn rules, exceptions, and more rules, and then, when they graduate from high school, they cannot even identify the verbs in their own writing. What good was all that instruction in grammar?
     The primary KISS Difference is a difference in approach. Instead of focusing on grammar as definitions, the KISS Approach teaches students how to identify a limited number of grammatical constructions, learned in a specific sequence, to analyze real texts – including the students’ own writing. Although this is the primary KISS difference, it results in additional major differences in what students can do with grammar. For example, once students can identify clauses they can understand questions of error, of sentence-combining, and of the length, complexity, and logic of subordinate clauses. No longer will students be dependent on someone else’s or some textbook’s rules. Students will be able to see and understand for themselves. This is especially true if students are introduced to some version of the KISS psycholinguistic model. The study of grammar then becomes the study of how human minds make sense of words and sentences.
     Seeing a problem in a new way is not easy, so I want to use as an example one of the many exercises presented on this KISS site. 
 

Aesop’s “The Ants and the Grasshopper,”  translated by George Tyler Townsend

     The Ants were spending a fine winter’s day drying grain collected in the summertime. A Grasshopper, perishing with famine, passed by and earnestly begged for a little food. The Ants inquired of him, “Why did you not treasure up food during the summer?” He replied, “I had not leisure enough. I passed the days in singing.” They then said in derision: “If you were foolish enough to sing all the summer, you must dance supperless to bed in the winter.”

     The following is the text as students might be expected to analyze it at KISS Level One:

     The Ants were spending a fine winter’s day (DO) drying grain collected {in the summertime}. A Grasshopper, perishing {with famine}, passed by andearnestly begged for a little food. The Ants inquired{of him}, “Why did younot treasure up food {during the summer}?” Hereplied, “Ihad notleisure (DO) enough. I passedthe days (DO) {in singing}.” They thensaid {in derision}: “If youwere foolish (PA) enough to sing all the summer, you must dance supperless {to bed} {in the winter}.”

     At KISS Level Two, students are taught how to expand their analytical abilities to include a number of things that most grammars ignore. These questions all fall into two related categories—the complexities of S/V/C patterns, and the complexities of prepositional phrases. They include such things as palimpsest patterns, phrasal verbs, distinguishing finite verbs from verbals, the “to” problem, and alternate explanations. Not all of these appear in our sample text. The following is the text as students might be expected to analyze it at KISS Level Two:

     The Ants were spending a fine winter’s day (DO) drying grain (DO of "drying")collected {in the summertime}. A Grasshopper, perishing {with famine}, passed byand earnestlybegged {for a little food}. TheAnts inquired{of him}, “Why didyou not treasure up food (DO) {during the summer}?” He replied, “I hadnot leisure (DO) enough. Ipassed thedays (DO) {in singing}.” Theythen said {in derision}: “If youwere foolish (PA) enough to sing all the summer, you must dance supperless (PA) {to bed} {in the winter}.”

Having learned how to distinguish finite verbs from verbals, students are ready for the most important of the KISS Levels, Level Three—Clauses. A clause is a subject / finite verb / complement pattern and all the words and constructions that modify (chunk to) it.

     The study of clauses does not add many words to the number analyzed, but it does bring together many of the words previously explained into an understanding of sentences. In KISS, we put brackets [ ] around subordinate clauses and a vertical line | after each main clause.

     The Ants were spending a fine winter’s day (DO) drying grain (DO of "drying")collected {in the summertime}. | AGrasshopper, perishing{with famine}, passedby andearnestly begged{for a little food}. | TheAnts inquired{of him}, [DO“Why didyou nottreasure up food (DO) {during the summer}?]” | Hereplied, [DO “I hadnot leisure (DO) enough]. | Ipassed thedays (DO) {in singing}.” | Theythen said {in derision}: [DO [Adv.“If youwere foolish (PA) enough to sing all the summer], youmust dance supperless (PA) {to bed} {in the winter}].” |

     As suggested by Jerome Bruner’s idea of the “spiral curriculum,” at Level Four, KISS spirals back to verbals, explaining them positively rather than negatively. Here students learn to distinguish gerunds, gerundives, and infinitives. They learn more about the subjects and complements of verbals, and they can study what verbals add to style. Obviously, all of the exercises in KISS Level Four include verbals. As for our progress chart, we can now turn the negatively defined into positive understanding. Overall, however, in the KISS sequence verbals to not add many words to our chart. In the version below, the only word that has additionally been explained is the second “enough.”

     The Ants were spending a fine winter’s day (DO) drying grain (DO of "drying")collected {in the summertime}. | AGrasshopper, perishing{with famine}, passedby andearnestly begged{for a little food}. | TheAnts inquired{of him}, [DO“Why didyou nottreasure up food (DO) {during the summer}?]” | Hereplied, [DO “I hadnot leisure (DO) enough]. | Ipassed thedays (DO) {in singing}.” | Theythen said {in derision}: [DO [Adv.“If youwere foolish (PA) enough to sing all the summer], youmust dance supperless (PA) {to bed} {in the winter}].” |

     The constructions in Level Five are here because they are generally less important (and less frequently used) than the constructions in the first four levels. Some of these constructions, like the Noun Used as an Adverb, can be taught much earlier. As noted above, our text does not include some of the important Level Five constructions, most notably appositives, post-positioned adjectives, delayed subjects, and noun absolutes. For more details on these constructions, see the “Overview of the KISS Levels.”
     Here all we need to note is that in our analysis we have one word still unexplained—“summer” in “all the summer.” It should be fairly obvious that in the phrase “to sing all the summer,” “summer” indicates how long one would sing. Thus “summer” is a noun used as an adverb, and we have analyzed 100% of our sample text.

     One of the things that you may have noted is that students are able to explain approximately 80% of the words in this text at KISS Level One! In some texts, working at this level, students will be able to explain every word! With other texts, of course, the number may be lower, but at Level One students are usually able to identify more than 70% of the words in any text. Not only does KISS have a clear primary objective—it enables students to accomplish more than half of it very quickly and relatively easily. And nothing motivates students as much as success does.
     This essay has been an explanation of the primary KISS objective, but on the way to that objective, students can be taught all the important questions regarding errors, punctuation, logic, and style. How to do this is explained in some of the other “Background” essays. Especially when they get to KISS Level Three, students can analyze the style of their own writing and compare it to that of their classmates and/or to samples of students’ writing from state assessment documents. Are their sentences too long or too short? Too complex, or too simple? Well-punctuated, or full of errors? These are just some of the questions that students can intelligently discuss and use to evaluate their own writing.
     One of the major problems in the teaching of grammar is that most teachers themselves have not been taught how to identify prepositional phrases, subjects and finite verbs, clauses, etc. As a result, they are very nervous about even attempting to teach grammar. The KISS site, however, already offers hundreds of passages, with analysis keys comparable to those given above. Teachers (and parents) can thus start with some of these exercises until they themselves feel comfortable analyzing sentences. The KISS Differences are summarized in the following table: