The Grammar Plan Book: A Guide to Smart Teaching

Thanks to Connie Weaver, generations of teachers have come to understand that the most efficient way to teach grammar thats relevant for writing is to embed it within writing instruction. Now her Grammar Plan Book is designed with precisely one thing in mind: to be the best resource youve ever used for teaching grammar to strengthen writing. This new book helps you apply a limited amount of grammar instruction directly to writing and enables you to map out instruction in the way that best serves the needs of your students.

A complete planning tool, The Grammar Plan Book has two complementary parts. Part One describes an overarching framework for high-quality grammar instruction in conjunction with the process of writing. It offers:

• engaging examples of effective teaching
• demonstrations of how that teaching has improved students use of grammatical options in writing
• suggestions for deciding which editing conventions to teach
• an informal analysis of the grammatical content of typical ACT practice exams.

The Plan Book also contains ideas for encouraging students to make independent use of what theyve learned in their own writing and about how to apply grammatical insights to enhance and improve their writing, from adding details to editing appropriately.

Then in Part Two, Weaver presents an exceptional tool for preparing to teach grammar related to improving writing: a minimal grammar handbook for teachers that doubles as a lesson planner. Everything you need to know to teach major grammatical options, stylistic features, and conventions is included:

• basic grammatical functions within the sentence
• grammatical options for adding details and sentence fluency
• connectors (transitions) for organizational flow
• parallelism and other rhetorical devices for emphasis and effect, style, and voice
• stylistic options (dialect versus standard) for different audiences and purposes
• conventions most important for edited American English
• "rules" that dont necessarily rule effective published writing.

With a designated column for your notes, special lay-flat binding for your convenience, and helpful, comprehensive coverage of important grammatical concepts, The Grammar Plan Book is designed with one thing in mind: to be the best resource youve ever used for teaching grammar to strengthen writing.

For more than three decades, Constance Weaver was one of the field's leading voices on literacy topics ranging from the reading process to grammar instruction with writing. Reading Process & Practice first appeared in 1988 and became widely known as the most authoritative, comprehensive, and definitive book of its kind. It helped teachers define reading in ways that support high-quality instruction. Connie once again led the way with the 1996 publication of the bestselling Teaching Grammar in Context and its companion Lessons to Share on Teaching Grammar in Context. Then she expanded and deepened her insights and specific teaching ideas in The Grammar Plan Book and Grammar to Enrich and Enhance Writing. In 1996, the Michigan Council of Teachers of English honored Weaver with the Charles C. Fries award for outstanding leadership in the profession. Connie was the Heckert Professor of Reading and Writing at Miami University, Oxford, Ohio, and Professor Emerita of English at Western Michigan University. She passed away in July of 2018.