Designed to encourage students to discover that grammar merely represents the patterns that exist in language, this book presents lessons on 19 grammar points: nouns; pronouns; verbs; subjects; capitalization; end punctuation; commas; sentence fragments; run-on sentences; contractions; possessives; quotation marks; adjectives; adverbs;…

Presents three teachers' suggestions for teaching grammar. Discusses how the first teacher suggests studying active and passive voice, the second teacher has students construct slang dictionaries, and the third teacher uses sentence combining that engages students and encourages carryover to their writing. (SG)

THE PRIMARY OBJECTIVE WAS TO TEST THE HYPOTHESIS THAT WRITING PROFICIENCY IMPROVES AS WRITING FREQUENCY INCREASES. THE SECONDARY OBJECTIVE WAS TO ESTABLISH A CORRELATION BETWEEN GRAMMATICAL AND MECHANICAL ACCURACY AND THE ABILITY TO WRITE WELL. TO THIS END, 6 EXPERIMENTAL COLLEGE FRESHMAN SECTIONS WERE ESTABLISHED, EACH 2 SECTIONS WRITING 20, 8,…

This "new English grammar" textbook blends four systems of grammar: (1) the traditional, providing most of the terminology; (2) the historical, providing the historical background; (3) the structural, providing the sentence patterns; and (4) the transformational, providing the variations of the sentence patterns. The author points out the…

Examines the sentence-based pedagogies that arose in composition during the 1960s and 1970s (the generative rhetoric of Francis Christensen, imitation exercises, and sentence-combining) and attempts to discern why these three pedagogies have been so completely elided within contemporary composition studies. Concludes that this erasure of sentence…

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…

Common approaches to composition teaching are satirized. (JH)

This teaching guide is built around a method (called the "Caught'ya" method) of teaching grammar and mechanics with humor. The guide contains story ideas and three sets of 100 Caught'ya sentences, as well as a chapter which discusses specific ways to use the Caught'ya at home. Following an introduction, the guide is divided into the…

Describes a program in which five children (ages 8-13), including two with profound deafness, were taught English using whole language strategies combined with mini lessons in grammatical structure. The lessons were reinforced with assigned written language practice for classwork and homework, which was incorporated into the students' journals.…

Provides suggestions on various English instruction topics. Includes (1) "Argumentation Exercise," Hari Vishwanadha; (2) "How to Survive Developmental (or Any Other) English," Sally Russell; (3) "Reach Out to an Expert," Norma A. Register; (4) "Summary and Response Writing," Alec Valentine; (5) "The Living Journal," Blair Spencer Ray; and (6)…

This basic grammar book for beginning to low-intermediate level students of English contains 106 units. The units are divided into the following categories: Present; Past; Present Perfect; Passive; Future and Modals; Imperative; "There" and "It"; Verb Forms; Auxiliary Verbs; Negatives; Questions; "To" and "-ing"; Reported Speech; "Get" and "Go";…

During the first half of the 19th century, written composition was seldom taught in American high schools. Speech writing was the only writing required of high school students until the mid 1800's when associationist psychology, with its emphasis on developing thinking habits through systematic, realistic exercise instead of memorization and…

Answers to questions asked of college freshman composition students indicated that one-third lacked confidence in their ability to write because of their ignorance of the rules of grammar and inability to use correct grammar. This may be a result of the textbook presentation of grammar as a straightforward set of rules to be mastered without…

To learn correct grammar, developmental students must practice writing correctly. However, the traditional exercises offered in handbooks, workbooks, and textbooks not only fail to provide habituation in correctness, they actually provide practice in "wrongness." Instead of isolating individual problems, they promote confusion by linking them.…

A basic writing course designed for college freshmen who do not score high enough on entrance examinations to qualify for regular composition courses emphasizes the positive aspects of a student's writing. The nongraded course consists of four components: journal writing, grammar instruction, in-class paragraph writing, and controlled composition.…