This is an extract from "Politics, Reading and Knowledge about Language", the author's address to the 1991 annual conference of the National Association for the Teaching of English. It describes the moment in 1988 when Kenneth Baker, then Secretary of State for Education and Science, received the report of the Committee of Inquiry into…

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…

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)