Only 1% of students at each grade level performed at the advanced (above aver-
age) level (U.S. Department of Education, 1999).^6
On this account, we should begin to understand that we cannot continue to
define good writing merely in terms of form, of structure. Good writing—and
thus good teaching—should focus on content, on having something worth-
while to share with readers. The focus on form, on grammar, therefore seems
fundamentally flawed. Equally important, we should begin to recognize that
the unrestrained emphasis on private writing, on personal experiences, fails
mightily to help students master the kind of writing that will be demanded of
them in college and the workplace.
A Comment on Errors
That people sometimes make mistakes whenever they use language is a given.
We are all familiar with slips of the tongue and malapropisms. Because speech
is transient, we tend to let these mistakes pass by and to focus on the substance
of what is being said.^7 Writing is different because it is more or less permanent
and exists on the page for us to study and analyze. Any mistakes in writing,
therefore, are much more apparent and annoying, so the world expects writers
to demonstrate control over their work by making it largely error free. Errors
that appear (such as the ones that inevitably will be found in this book) are
deemed to be the result of copyediting or printing problems that somehow were
overlooked, not the result of the writer’s lack of knowledge or control of writing
conventions. When writers cannot produce essentially error-free writing, they
are viewed either as incompetent or as having no regard for readers. Neither
judgment is desirable, so we rightly devote a vast amount of effort in our
schools to produce competent, if not good, writers.
An Empirical Question. Without a doubt, underlying this effort is the
most pervasive assumption in language arts—that grammar instruction improves
writing and reduces or even eliminates errors. Chapter 1 traced the roots of this
assumption, and now we need to examine it closely. An important first step is to
understand that this is an empirical question: It can be tested. Moreover,informal
testing has been going on for countless years and takes place daily in our schools.
Operating under the grammar-improves-writing assumption, teachers in-
struct students in grammar terminology and rules, and they do an admirable
TEACHING GRAMMAR 25
(^6) At the time of this writing, the 1999 NAEP report is the most current available.
(^7) There are obvious exceptions. President George W. Bush inspired several websites and books de-
voted to “Bushisms.”