The language shortcuts used in text messages are becoming evident in students' academic writing assignments. This qualitative study sought to determine if the use of the shortcuts has an adverse impact on developmental students' spelling and grammar skills. This research was based on the constructivist theory, which rationalizes that students use…

Presents a simple classroom exercise that transforms a remote future need for grammatical competence into a more practical, immediate, and useful skill. (HTH)

Once students can identify main (independent) clauses and main ideas, a simple graphic system will demonstrate whether their sentences are strong and unified. The student underlines the main clause of a sentence and circles the main idea. In a strong, unified sentence, the circle will sit on the line. If the circle does not sit on the line, the…

Suggests grammatical problem solving, grammatical worksheets, and grammatical poetry as ways of helping students acquire grammatical fluency. (DD)

Presents an exercise for teachers which illustrates the limitations of workbook drills and rule study by teaching a brief hypothetical grammar text of five rules and exceptions, then employing those rules in standard drill exercises and a writing assignment. Claims that traditional pedagogies of formal grammar are not effective in improving…

Some insights into the nature of functional grammar can be useful for teachers of composition. There are four ways that functional grammar stands in opposition to common linguistics in the United States. First, for functionalists (those practicing functional grammar), the starting point is with kinds of meanings, not with kinds of structures; the…

Describes an exercise in which students demonstrate what they have learned by working in groups to find incorrect grammar in newspaper writing. (SR)

Describes a method for teaching writing in which a series of passages are rewritten by the student, altered by progressively difficult transformations and manipulations, as an alternative to grammar instruction. (HTH)

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…

Noting that grammar is alive, changing, and controversial, this book offers a combination of guidelines and creative language use for people who have already been exposed to the rules of grammar to help them start building their own style of speaking and writing. The first part of the book "Recalling the Parts of Speech," provides a…

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…

Most students today have been reared on television and have had only slight brushes with the parts of grammar. Nevertheless, a variety of sentence pattern exercises and sentence combining lessons based on the students' own writing can be used to augment, challenge and improve students' writing skills and vocabulary. In the first exercise, students…

Common approaches to composition teaching are satirized. (JH)

Based on a successful workshop, this book presents the basic elements of narrative and a series of exercises that offer a self-guided set of discussion topics and exercises for a writer, a small group of writers, or a class interested in the craft of narrative prose. Topics addressed in the book are: the sound of language; the narrative sentence…

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)…