Spring 2027

Bad Grammar and Metalinguistic Awareness

Examines prescriptive vs. descriptive grammar, exploring linguistic discipline views, historical traditions of grammar writing, and corpus-based variationist studies on phenomena like preposition stranding and who/whom distinctions.

no offering record for this termCredits unavailable
Recorded instructors · Spring 2027 No instructors listed

Summary

1 / 3

Recent recorded grades — Fall 2023: 3.69 GPA, 83.3% A/AB (n=18 letter grades); Fall 2025: 3.84 GPA, 90.9% A/AB (n=22 letter grades).

What you’ll be able to do

  • understand the difference between prescriptive and descriptive approaches to grammar

  • formulate and test hypotheses about English grammar with data-based tools and methods

  • design and present a research project on grammar variation and change

Source: UW Guide

Grade history

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average GPA
letter grades
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AB
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Prerequisites

Course map

Sophomore standing

  • Sophomore standing
ENGL 412

This is a best-effort interpretation; check the catalog requirements above.

Prerequisite text tree
  • Sophomore standing

Professors

Spring 2027

No instructors recorded for this selection.

Historical instructors & teaching patterns

Recorded history may be incomplete and does not establish a future schedule.

Calendar & sections

Spring 2027

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SectionModeEnrolled / capacityWaitlist

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Meeting source records
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Student experience

the class

Recent recorded grades — Fall 2023: 3.69 GPA, 83.3% A/AB (n=18 letter grades); Fall 2025: 3.84 GPA, 90.9% A/AB (n=22 letter grades).

difficulty & workload

No workload feedback recorded.

Topics

  • Prescriptive vs. descriptive grammar and the role of prescriptivism in linguistics.
  • Historical traditions of grammar writing and variationist corpus-based studies on specific grammatical phenomena.
  • Historical and cultural roots of beliefs about 'good' and 'bad' grammar, including linguistic tools for checking claims.

Skills

  • Distinguish between prescriptive and descriptive approaches to grammar.
  • Formulate and test hypotheses about English grammar using data-based tools and methods.
  • Design and present a research project on grammar variation and change.

Grades

Latest available · Fall 2025— not enough history to project Spring 2027.

average GPA
A / AB grades
letter grades
Instructor

Grade distribution · % of letter grades

A
AB
B
BC
C
D
F

Grades over time

Through Fall 2025

More grade details Grade mix, volume & source data

Not enough comparable courses for Spring 2027 in UW–Madison.

Sources & history

UW–Madison

Catalog & offerings

Descriptions, prerequisites, and recorded course offerings.

Catalog observation history

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Student reviews

Original comments behind the course and instructor summaries.

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Madgrades

Grade history

Recorded grade distributions by term, section, and instructor.

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Dataset & model

Recorded 2026-10-14

View the dataset on Hugging Face
Model outputs & technical records
Qwen/Qwen3.8-27B
LLM outputs across runs
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Full model traces

Recorded model configuration, reasoning, and tool conversations.

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Model & dataset provenance 
{
  "model": "Qwen/Qwen3.8-27B",
  "model_revision": "1d4bf0f2ff6012fd82039f2fa52739d0dd7c60c0",
  "task_version": "17",
  "output_id": "66e66b51dff777d230b0719ed0eab324a69c6ddad16b156b76eb71ed59e54c66",
  "requirements_status": "valid",
  "dataset_revision": "fc1811fa52e581ea57a35c0cf3343f8740a8ffbf",
  "observed_at": "2026-10-14 17:50:09.728220+00:00"
}