ABSTRACT
For what seems like forever, teachers have struggled to teach grammar and students have struggled to learn it. This chapter presents some (very) brief highlights of the author's students' thoughts about grammar instruction. Hoffman provides a number of cases where teachers and researchers outright reject to teaching grammar using what teachers would call a traditional, "drill and (s)kill" method. When teachers continue to teach students about misplaced modifiers and adverbial clauses, they are missing the bigger picture about why grammar matters: to offer options for creating meaning. In the 1980s, researchers and teachers drew more lines in the sand while the national conversation around education hardened, too. A closer look at the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) reveals that there is both an emphasis on grammar instruction as well as an emphasis on the use of technology. This chapter also presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book.
