the word “ball.” The connection between object and name develops in a mean-
ingful context; the instruction is indirect because it is incidental to the play; and
the child develops a lasting mental model of the term.
The influence of contemporary writing pedagogy is evident in the structure
of the classroom: The literacy approach emphasizes a grammar curriculum that
is based on writing as well as reading, and it is predicated on the notion that stu-
dents must write and revise frequently, using feedback from peers and the
teacher to move their revisions forward. Weaver (1996), for example, recom-
mended that students read and write every day. Teachers facilitate thewriting
processby circulating as students produce drafts, reading work in progress, and
providing helpful suggestions. In this context, grammar instruction is part of
writing instruction. The pedagogy provides that when teachers see common
problems in student work, they stop the writing activity and offer brief
instruction on the spot (see Williams, 2003a).
A couple of examples will illustrate the approach. Student writers fre-
quently have trouble with agreement owing to the influence of conversational
patterns. They will produce sentences like “Everyone took their books to the li-
brary.”Everyoneis singular, buttheiris plural, which creates an error in agree-
ment. Noticing this problem, teachers call a halt to writing activities and
explain how to change the sentence in keeping with Standard conventions
(“Everyone took his or her books to the library” or “All the students took their
books to the library”). Likewise, they may observe several students who are us-
ing the wordimpactrather thaneffect,a very common usage error: “The new
policy had a significant impact on school funding”/“The new policy had a sig-
nificant effect on school funding.” Teachers then intervene with a short lesson
on the meaning of the words and their proper use in English.
Such minilessons never last more than 10 minutes, which means that they
usually have to be repeated several times during the term before the instruction
begins to influence student performance consistently. Nevertheless, this type of
instruction is significantly more effective than the dedicated lecture or drills
and exercises (Calkins, 1983). Students learn what they need to know to solve
an immediate writing problem, and because they apply the knowledge directly
to the problem, they retain it longer. In this respect, the approach is similar to
what we see in sports and other hands-on tasks. The teacher assumes the role of
a coach who intervenes and helps students correct faulty writing behavior the
moment it appears.
The view that writing is a process that contains several phases, or stages, has
become so widespread over the last three decades that it is hard to imagine a text-
book that does not include it in part or whole. At leastmentioningprocess has be-
come de rigueur. But whether process is properly described and articulated as a
TEACHING GRAMMAR 45