Designed to be a handy reference tool for everyone who aspires to write and speak correct English, this pocket guide is based on traditional grammar usage. It is organized along conventional lines, with an easy-to-use table of contents and index. The guide encompasses a great deal of information on relatively few pages, and it would be wise for…

Text reordering, text rewording, text recording, and text researching offer students who must use prescriptive grammar books the opportunity to observe, analyze, manipulate, and enjoy language. (Author/RL)

Suggests that the current "return" to grammar will fail unless educators can come to terms with definitions of fundamental grammatical concepts. Considers how educators cannot go back to teaching the traditional, because the traditional no longer exists. Argues that pedagogical grammar currently has too many cooks, all trying to prepare the same…

Argues that the use of specific grammar texts, along with the books themselves, has remained essentially unchanged for over 200 years. Examines how grammar texts were established and used historically. Claims that pedagogical uses of grammar textbooks mirrors instructors' perceptions of their students. (HB)

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)

Notes the problems associated with integrating grammar study in writing instruction. Provides strategies for such integration, including a syllabus for teaching the verb phrase. (RL)

The teaching of grammar has been in sad decline since medieval times, when it included the whole skill of creating in language. Our textbook community has moved through a series of ineffective fashions, from those of Fries to post-Chomsky. All have presumed to replace prescriptive rules with realistic explanations. But all have fallen, like the…

A process-oriented freshman composition instructor who stresses invention, drafting, and revision can simultaneously integrate a form of grammatical instruction. Various methods and strategies, both from experience and research on grammar from the classical to the contemporary era, suggest such a creative integration. First, the teaching of…

Version of a paper read at the Annual Meeting of the National Council of Teachers of English, NOvember 1969, in Washington, D.C. (DS)

By identifying the cultural roots of traditional grammar, a better understanding may occur as to why grammar will continue to be taught the way it is. The idea of "grammar as cultural heritage" begins with language and literature studies, which were the foundation of middle and upper class Roman schooling and included reading, writing, listening,…

The history of grammar instruction includes two approaches: the handbook approach, which is practiced today, and the textbook approach. The handbook approach focuses on rules for correct writing and is an error-based view, while the textbook approach would treat grammar holistically and interpretively and would systematically explain new concepts…

Proposing that the utility of formal grammar instruction has never been put to the test, this booklet first explains the heretofore negative research results and explains why all the good intentions behind them have not kept those results from being essentially useless. The remainder of the booklet describes an experiment in which there were no…

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…

Describes a course for preservice English teachers on descriptive grammar. Discusses definitions and aims and what to do about traditional grammar; transformational-generative grammar; language acquisition; and applied grammar. Presents teaching strategies. (RS)

During the first half-century of the existence of the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE), the teaching of grammar aroused furious debate among its members. In 1924, Charles C. Fries assembled a panel of six language scholars to answer three questions: (1) What should English teachers know about the English language? (2) Do the usual…