Teaching grammar
from the writing teacher's perspective

To hear some people talk, you'd think teaching grammar is all there is to teaching writing.

(Those same people usually lump a myriad of writing mechanics like punctuation, spelling, capitalization, usage, and even formatting under the heading of grammar. They don't belong there, of course, for the time being, we'll let them stay.)

Of course, there's more to writing than grammar — even if you add in all those other writing mechanics.

Grammar is basic to writing but we don't have to teach it before we teach writing. Our students already know enough grammar to get them started. We can shape and refine their knowledge as we go.

Limit what you teach thoroughly

What we must do before launching into teaching writing is to decide what grammar rules and concepts are essential for students to know to write competently. The list is surprisingly short.

The list of essential knowledge required for correct punctuation is even shorter.

Correct spelling and usage are a different matter. There are as many "rules" as there are words and idioms.

Fortunately, most people use only a faction of the English language words and idioms. All anyone really has to do is master the correct use of the words and phrases he or she actually uses.

In effect, the instructional hodgepodge that goes by the name of teaching grammar boils down two tasks:

1. Teaching students to apply the few essential rules of grammar and punctuation every writer must be able to apply when they write, and

2. Teaching students how to avoid mistakes they personally make in spelling and usage.

For #1, you need to know what the essentials are. (I'll help you there). Then you have to teach students those essentials.

Exercises are not teaching grammar

Teaching grammar essentials is the hard part. Having students read a text, do exercises, or complete worksheets is not teaching, but presenting. Some students will learn enough from the presentation to use the information in their writing, but many will not.

(My experience has been that fully half of college students did not learn third grade grammar well enough to apply concepts like sentence and subject.)

Part #2 of is mainly a matter of planning, organizing, and training students in using a few simple tools and strategies. (I'll help you get started.)

Setting things up initially is rather a nuisance, but once things are set, you spend much less time correcting and grading.

Test grammar knowledge in writing

You won't know from looking at results of multiple choice tests or fill-in the blank exercises whether your students understood the grammar you taught. You won't know until you have them write. If you use informal writing activities, you can identify stumbling blocks before they get to be wall-height.

If there is a problem, teach the material again. Keep teaching the grammar material different ways until all students master it.

Teaching is the process of turning yourself upside down and inside out trying to see what students misunderstood and then presenting that material to students a different way.

Thoroughly teaching grammar students need for writing dramatically decreases the number of writing mechanics errors in their work. The time and effort you need to spend on teaching and grading also decreases dramatically.

What's not to like?