Full Description

In this book, the crucial questions about the place of grammar in the writing classroom are asked and answered. Teachers and researchers explore the role of grammar in the teaching of writing and describe ways that grammar instruction has been, is, and should be used in our writing programs. The contributors share their insights from a variety of perspectives: as college composition teachers, as writing center directors, as rhetoricians, as students, and as writers themselves. They are not grammarians in the conventional sense. Rather, they are voices from various writing settings who show college writing teachers how to reconnect writing and grammar.

Divided into three sections, the book allows for a progressive observation of the places of grammar in writing instruction. In the section on past attitudes toward grammar instruction, the contributors discuss the history of teaching grammar as it relates to teaching writing. In the section on present concerns, contributors re-evaluate the belief that little grammar instruction is needed to teach writing. In the final section, contributors evaluate what we have learned with a view to what we need to learn or teach the next generation of writing teachers about the role of grammar.

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Contents

Contents:
Introduction: Re-examining the Place of Grammar in Writing Instruction, Wallace I. Past Attitudes Toward Grammar Instruction 1. When Grammar Was a Language Art, Glenn 2. A Question of Power: Why Frederick Douglass Stole Grammar, Olson 3. Reasserting Grammar's Position in the Trivium in American College Composition, Claywell 4. "Grammatical Monstrosities" and "Contemptible Miscreants": Sacrificial Violence in the Late Nineteenth-Century Usage Handbook, Boyd 5. The 1945 NCTE Commission on the English Curriculum and Teaching the Grammar/Writing Connection, Ross II. Present Concerns About Grammar and Writing 6. The Rainbow and the Stream: Grammar as System Versus Language in Use, Edlund 7. The Use of Grammar Texts: A Call for Pedagogical Inquiry, Mullin 8. Grammar for Writers: How Much Is Enough?, Shuman 9. Grammar in the Writing Center: Opportunities for Discovery and Change, Glover & Stay 10. Rhetorical Contexts of Grammar: Some Views from Writing-Emphasis Course Instructors, Bushman & Ervin 11. Grammar and Voice in the Teaching of Creative Writing: A Conversation, Brown, Boswell, & McIlvoy 12. Teaching Grammar for Writers in a Process Workshop Classroom, Bishop III. Future Places of Grammar in Writing Instruction 13. Reconceptualizing Grammar as an Aspect of Rhetorical Invention, Blakesley 14. Teaching Grammar Affectively: Learning to Like Grammar, Brosnahan & Neuleib 15. Taking Computer-Assisted Grammar Instruction to New Frontiers, Hobson 16. Correctness or Clarity? Finding Answers in the Classroom and the Professional World, Daniel & Murphy Afterword: Repositioning Grammar in Writing Classes of the Future, Hunter