Few books thrown from a throwaway pile ever make a pervasive change in my thinking, Grammar for Teachers: Perspectives and Definitions by Constance Weaver is an exception.

Rescued from the trash bin when I noticed one of my university professors throwing it away, this book helped solidify in my mind the necessary place of grammar in the classroom. The necessary, essential, undebatable role of grammar that Constance elaborates upon in her volume is that language grammar and mechanics knowledge must be thoroughly embedded and understood in the mind of the teacher.

The first chapter of Weaver’s pea green volume elaborates on the psycholinguistic nature of grammar and implies that in a perfect world teachers could just teach the language rules and be finished with the lesson.  Yet the unfortunate reality that Weaver embraces is that not all children will learn these rules, even with a teacher’s best efforts.  Developmental, cultural, and attitudinal barriers militantly guard the way.  Her solution is for teachers to provide both structured and unstructured opportunities for students to manipulate and create language and to intuitively learn that unclear, ungrammatical writing is inherently inferior to properly written prose. However, the only chance for teachers to provide these learning opportunities is if they already have a thorough understanding of grammar.

Weaver continues by explaining how grammatical structures and morphemes are combined in increasingly sophisticated sentences and thoughts as brains learn and mature. The meat of her book explains specific examples about how teachers can integrate grammar instruction into reading and writing lessons without the requirement of teaching specific rules. Her most compelling call during this section of the test is her plea for properly facilitated sentence combining activities. The final chapters explain the essentials that teachers should know about traditional grammar, the content that has traditionally been taught in primary and secondary schools, and structural grammar, the methods that modern-day linguists use in their field of research.

It is true that some of Weaver’s claims will come across as radical, especially her contention that punctuation, agreement, and other prescriptivist features of writing can be facilitated intuitively in a way that is similar to how a child learns to talk.  However, her main contention, that all language teachers must know grammar, should not be debated.  Whether you teach explicit grammar rules or use more indirect forms of persuasion, whether you accept whole language or phonics in the reading development debate, there is no question that teachers must know and understand grammar.

The book of Proverbs promises that when fully trained a student will “become like his teacher.” If I ever become a principal, I will consider giving prospective grammar and language teachers a short quiz during the hiring process; because, most assuredly, if the teacher does not understand the content, the student never will.

Constance Weaver teaches at the University of Western Michigan and has a homepage.

You can help me maintain this site by purchasing this book through my Amazon Affiliates link.

This book can also be purchased through the National Council of Teachers of English. The organization graciously has one chapter of the volume available online.
Grammar for Teachers: Perspectives and Definitions