page56Voices from the Middle, Volume 8 Number 3, March 2001Burke | Developing Students’ Textual Intelligence through GrammarDeveloping Students’ TextualIntelligence through GrammarJim BurkeIseem to learn the right things in thewrong places. For instance, I learnedto teach by working in an emergencyroom. There, in that unlikely classroom, Ilearned to listen in eight different direc-tions while answering the phone andcorrecting the papers I collected duringmy student teaching classes that day.These lessons served me well when Ieventually entered the classroom wherethings were no less chaotic, exciting, orurgent.Likewise, I learned some of my most importantlessons about writing and sentence structure byreading not a composition book, but TheCarpenter’s Manifesto (Ehrlich and Mannheimer).In their chapter “Structure,” they write:Structure is the guts of carpentry. It’s the soul of yourwork, the built-in strength that withstands everydaystresses. The concepts of structure . . . are basic andrelatively easy to grasp. Once you understand them,you’ll be able to design and build more efficiently,more economically. And what you build will be strongand long-lasting.” (p. 12)Central to their book is the premise of structureand design as ways of thinking: “Most carpentryprojects may seem mysterious at first, their struc-ture and manner of construction a big unknowneven to professional carpenters. Our main goal . . .is to communicate to you a way of thinking, of see-ing—a method of approaching and solving carpen-try problems” (p. 8). And so, while reading aboutcarpentry, I was learning about words, for it is withwords, from which we make sentences—the build-ing blocks of focused, well-organized paragraphs—that we create those larger written works.To push my analogy a bit further, I must un-derstand the tools and materials with which I workif I am to be able to build anything “strong andlong-lasting,” or, more appropriately, anythingpersuasive and interesting. Moreover, I must un-derstand how words and sentences work in orderto use them in my own writing, but I must alsoknow how others use words, devices, and struc-tures to elicit certain responses in their reading.We often limit our discussion of grammar to writ-ing (i.e., improving students’ writing) at the costof developing their grammatical sense that is partof their textual intelligence. I see many studentswho are able writers struggle with the complicatedgrammar of challenging writers. They get lost inthe structures and the language, thinking that somesentences are fragments and others are run-ons,while others seem to be just nonsense. We find agood example of this last point in the poem “WeWear the Mask” when Paul Lawrence Dunbar usesthe word mouth as a verb (“we mouth myriadsubtleties”) instead of the noun they take it to be.Given that authors of tradebooks and textbooksand sometimes even state-mandated tests use lan-guage this way (e.g., The California state test in-cludes a whole section on words that can be usedas either nouns or verbs, such as house, block, band,space, command), students need to know how tonavigate the architecture of the sentences theyread.Such language study hardly need confine it-self to or even be based on such grammar texts.Students’ lives are freighted with language (in theirslang and music, for example) that merits study sothat they learn to appreciate not only how the lan-Copyright © 2001 by the National Council of Teachers of English. All rights reserved.page57Voices from the Middle, Volume 8 Number 3, March 2001Burke | Developing Students’ Textual Intelligence through Grammarguage evolved but what it means. The authors ofLanguage Study in Middle School, High School, andBeyond remind readers early on that “languageshould be a central focus for study in the readingand language arts classroom and that gaining mas-tery over language can be stimulating, enlighten-ing, and enjoyable.” (Simmons and Baines, p. 3)Textual IntelligenceTextual intelligence (TI), a term I like, refers toour knowledge about how texts—literary and in-formational, on a page or a screen, spoken or writ-ten—work. TI requires that students understandthe difference between usage—where and when,or under what conditions a word or its meaning isappropriately used—and grammar—the rules thatgovern the structural relationships between wordsin sentences. For instance, a student with high tex-tual intelligence would recognize that while thesentence “I ain’t got no money” contains all thekey elements of appropriate syntax and is, there-fore, grammatically correct, it does not followStandard English usage rules.TI also applies to how texts are made, and howdifferent grammatical structures create meaningfor or affect the reader. Writers use their textualintelligence when they do everything from choosethe format (poem vs. prose vs. play) or the pur-pose (to entertain vs. to inform) or the structure(narrative vs. expository). They make TI decisionsas they choose the point of view, the tense of thestory (past tense, present tense), or the use of fore-shadowing or flashbacks. All these choices comefrom, in part, the writer’s understanding of howlanguage works. Therefore, the more a studentunderstands these workings, the more options heor she has when starting to write.I tend to think of textual intelligence as anintellectual tool belt. Let me illustrate by return-ing to my carpenter analogy for a moment. WhenI prepare to make or fix something, such as a book-case or a water-damaged wall, I have to decide whattools I need, how the structure works, and whatmaterials will work best on this job. TI asks read-ers and writers to do the same thing with the textsand interpretations they create by asking ques-tions, such as those on the list below, that leadthem to deeper understanding of the written work.• How should I write this—as a poem, shortstory, dramatic monologue, or some otherform?• What type of sentences—short, staccato, orlong rolling ones—are most appropriate forthe effect I want to create in the reader?• How do I create a dark (or anxious orsomber or comical) tone in a story?• Should I use a bulleted list here instead ofparagraphs? How do I keep everything inthe list parallel?• What words do I need to choose to makethe character in my story come alive for thereader?In short, I want students to understand howlanguage shapes meaning and causes in readerscertain