Grammar for writing
Tweak oral grammar and you've got it

Before we can discuss how to teach the grammar students need to use in their writing, we need to define the term grammar so we are both singing from the same piece of sheet music.

Grammar definition

Grammar is the name we give to the complex system of interrelated elements that make up language. Grammar describes how the system works. Every language has its own grammar, even if the language is not written down.

As with any system, each grammatical element is defined with reference to other elements. That interdependency makes grammar study difficult unless the student has grown up among people who use that language.

It is impossible, for example, to define a sentence without using the term subject, and equally impossible to define subject without using the term sentence.

Written languages have two ways of knowing grammar. To teach grammar for writing efficiently, you need to understand how the two differ.

"Given" grammar

To a great extent, teachers do not need to teach grammar to native speakers. Rather, they need to make students consciously aware of the grammar they have unconsciously absorbed.

Everyday exposure to a language gives a child a foundation in the language that isn't easily duplicated by grammar study. Children may not know the formal terms for grammatical elements and relationships, but they understand grammar in a basic and pragmatic way.

By the time a child who grows up in an English-speaking household learns to walk, that child knows the normal English sentence pattern is subject - verb - object. Children can live happy, productive lives without ever learning those grammatical terms. They can even become fine speakers and writers without learning those terms.

For convenience, I'll call this basic, unwritten knowledge of grammar given grammar. It isn't too much of a stretch to say that given grammar is the lowest-common-denominator of a language. It contains the language elements used routinely by both the poorest peon and the head honcho.

Studied grammar

For lack of any better term, I'm going to use studied grammar to refer to the rules of grammar found in English textbooks and grammar books.

Studied grammar is not merely descriptive. It is also prescriptive. It not only describes what how native speakers use language, but attempts to elevate language use by ordinary people.

Remember Henry Higgins in My Fair Lady teaching Eliza Doolittle to speak correct English so he could pass her off as an aristocrat? That's what studied grammar is all about. You might call it upwardly mobile grammar.

Studied grammar, like designer clothes, is primarily a tool for getting ahead socially and economically. It has relatively little to do with clear communication.

Studied English grammar, for example, attempts to teach everyone to use whom correctly. Ordinary people almost never speak or write a sentence that requires use of whom. The only people who regularly use whom, and use it correctly, are typically highly educated, affluent, socially prominent individuals.

Implications for teaching writing

To teach grammar efficiently so students learn to use it in their writing, you must:

• Identify the given grammar you do not need to teach.

• Identify the fewest grammar rules you must teach.

• Identify the most basic grammar terms you can use to teach those few essential grammar rules.

The procedures for teaching grammar for writing that I describe here are those I use in classes I teach.

My students asked for help to keep on developing their ability to correct their own grammar errors after our course together ended. The material I wrote for those students is now available to others an e-book: Grammar Abusers Anonymous .

The book guides mature high school, college, and adult students in learning how to study grammar using their own error-riddled writing as practice exercises.