Finds serious flaws in the research asserting the uselessness of teaching grammar to composition classes. Proposes that writing teachers acknowledge the presence and importance of grammar in the writing class. (RL)

A conscious understanding of the grammar system can have value for student writers. Unfortunately, the positive value of teaching grammar in an instrumental, or functional, way has been overshadowed by the negative and irrelevant data concerning "formal grammar." However, if teachers were to use "rhetorical grammar" and emphasize the importance of…