I recently came across an interesting grammar artifact.
The California Department of Education’s 1986 “Handbook for Planning an Effective Writing Program: kindergarten through 12th grade” offered this advice for parents, attributed to the National Council of Teachers of English: “Watch out for the ‘grammar trap.’ Some people may try to persuade you that a full understanding of English grammar is needed before students can express themselves well. Some knowledge of grammar is useful, but too much time spent on the study of grammar steals from the study of writing.”
The handbook also offered some advice for educators: “Perhaps the most widely ignored research finding is that the teaching of formal grammar, if divorced from the process of writing, has little or no effect on the writing ability of students.…This is not to say that the study of grammar has no place in a writing program.…However, it is best taught when a specific need for it emerges in a student’s writing, not in isolation from actual writing.”
