Insights on Grammar and Writing from a Teacher in the Trenches

Fritz Rauch

Homestead High School English Teacher for 24 years

“My students and I need to share a common language as we discuss writing - a terminology to ascertain what is effective and what is not. What determines if a sentence sounds right, or accomplishes what we want it to do? How do we discuss the elements of a sentence and how they interact? If a sentence is incomplete, a clause dangling, a fragment freestanding – how do we talk about why it doesn’t work? The answer is grammar. It gives us a place to start in understanding language and how it works. If you speak Russian and I speak French, it will be very hard to communicate ideas. For some of my students, comprehension of the English language and how it works is just as difficult as that. Grammar gives us both the terminology and commonality in language that we need to talk about writing, literature, and the other concepts of my English classroom."

"I teach English and I coach football. I can’t send my players into the game without a fundamental understanding of the rules and how the game is played. The same is true for my students as they learn to write. It is up to me as a teacher to give them the foundational structures they need to effectively play the game that we call writing."

"There are philosophies of teaching and there are students in my classroom. The intersection of those two realities determines how I teach."

"As a teacher I have goals for my students, and grammar is one of the tools I use to give them the proficiencies they need before they are released to the next threshold of their lives."

"My teaching has to match the student populace I am serving. For my freshmen, that generally means skill and drill. I introduce basic grammatical concepts that we use later as they write or read in the classroom. For my seniors, the process is reversed. As they express their thoughts in writing, I only intervene with grammar instruction when there is a clear lapse in skills that interferes with their abilities to communicate effectively."