Grammar is the gatekeeper to a culture of power, yet it is also the power behind the startling beauty and robustness of the English language. In The Power of Grammar, Mary Ehrenworth and Vicki Vinton show you how these two notions of power can help your grammar instruction address the practical and aesthetic needs of your student writers. Ehrenworth and Vinton explore the impact of conventions on writing, and they offer you new and compelling ways to show adolescents how informed and purposeful grammatical choices can transform their writing from competent to original and innovative. Through contextualized lessons embedded within your writing curriculum, you'll guide students to an understanding of conventional written English, then show them how to manipulate conventions to produce artful writing. Grounded in the latest research and tested in the field, The Power of Grammar also contains resources that support good teaching, including: a concise, to the point, reproducible primer that highlights and defines the most important and useful grammatical conventions in English; a wealth of mentor texts that allow students to examine conventional and unconventional constructions from the work of published authors and practice composing their own sentences based on the example; detailed samples of four kinds of grammar minilessons, each of which can be used in their entirety or as a template to teach any grammatical point; tips for designing and aligning minilessons to those stages of the writing process where they best reinforce grammatical concepts; and examples of student work that show you how successful Ehrenworth and Vinton's method can be. Ehrenworth and Vinton also share their passionate belief in the potential of adolescents. By including stories of individual students who discovered and fashioned unique voices and styles by apprenticing themselves to mentor writers, The Power of Grammar will renew your faith not only in your students and the English language, but in the power of good teaching to change lives.

Ch. 1. Introduction : teaching grammar to achieve power, beauty, and voice -- Ch. 2. Putting conventions in our in-tray : planning grammar curriculum -- Ch. 3. Teaching usage : punctuation, conventions, style -- Ch. 4. Love and sedition : getting intimate with grammar by breaking the rules -- Ch. 5. The sentence and the apprentice -- App. A. Usage lessons -- App. B.A narrative of conventions and desire.