Grammar Rants: How a Backstage Tour of Writing Complaints Can Help Students Make Informed, Savvy Choices About Their Writing

rant (rant) n. 1. Violent or extravagant speech or writing. 2. A speech or piece of writing that incites anger or violence.

The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language

grammar rant (gramm?r rant) n. 1. A writer's or speaker's view that language is deteriorating, and with it, the world, the people in it, and their morals.

Patricia A. Dunn and Ken Lindblom

Is bad grammar not just wrong but morally wrong? Do comma splices and dangling participles signal a spiritual decline among our youth? Does a double negative signal the end of civilization as we know it? How outraged should we be at errors of punctuation, syntax, diction, and just plain clumsy phrasing?

Patricia A. Dunn and Ken Lindblom take on the world of grammar ranters, showing you how to take your students on a backstage tour of the ranters' claims and denunciations, and their outraged complaints about other people's language. Offering multiple examples and insights about a wide range of grammar rants, they focus on:

• grammar and morality
• grammar and intelligence
• spelling, texting, splices, fragments, and other "grammar traps."

Each chapter includes actual rants along with extensive editorial commentary, instructional activities, and classroom lessons that will energize student discussion and educate students about language and correctness, about what it really means to be a good writer.

Using Grammar Rants in writing classes will:

• teach students the conventions of different genres
• raise students' awareness of real world grammatical issues
• strengthen students' textual analysis and critical thinking skills
• break that link between error and evil.

Grammar Rants provides the background teachers need to speak with authority about punctuation, correctness, and other hot-button issues. Its practical activities, handouts, and lessons will promote savvy writing by empowering teachers and students to see for themselves how best to raise the quality of their written and spoken language without resorting to ranting.

Patricia Dunn is an assistant professor of English at Illinois State University, where she teaches graduate and undergraduate composition, rhetoric, and English studies. In addition to Learning Re-Abled: The Learning Disability Controversy and Composition Studies (Boynton/Cook, 1995), her work has also appeared in CCC, College English, Issues in Writing, and several essay collections.

Ken Lindblom is Associate Professor of English and Associate Dean for Academic Programs in the School of Professional Development at Stony Brook University (SUNY), and a former high school English teacher. Ken has served as the editor of English Journal and is on the Executive Board of the Conference on English Education (NCTE).