<HTML><BODY style="word-wrap: break-word; -khtml-nbsp-mode: space; -khtml-line-break: after-white-space; "><P style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px">Hope everyone is coping with all the exam stress! Here's one to tell all our Y12s before they head into the exam room tomorrow ...</P><P style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px"><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></P><P style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px"><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></P><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">October 24, 2006</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">Contact: Mark Schultz</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">800-369-6283, ext. 3630</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><A href="mailto:public_info@ncte.org">public_info@ncte.org</A></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 10px/normal Helvetica; min-height: 12px; "><BR></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><B>NCTE’s Position Unchanged: Isolated Grammar Drills Do Not Produce Good Writers</B></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 10px/normal Helvetica; min-height: 12px; "><BR></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">The National Council of Teachers of English has not changed its position on the teaching of grammar. Decades of research have shown that isolated grammar drills do little to improve student writing and are a poor use of instructional time.</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 10px/normal Helvetica; min-height: 12px; "><BR></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">In classrooms where much of the time is spent on grammar exercises, student writing suffers. This happens because, in those classes, students are spending more time underlining random parts of speech or diagramming sentences than actually composing. A recent report has just confirmed these findings (see Writing Next: Effective Strategies to Improve Writing of Adolescents in Middle and High Schools by Steve Graham and Delores Perin, New York, Carnegie Corporation, 2006). NCTE stands by them.</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 10px/normal Helvetica; min-height: 12px; "><BR></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">"Teaching how language works is the basis for good grammar instruction," says Kyoko Sato, NCTE President. Randy Bomer, NCTE Past President, adds, "Most English teachers do not see themselves as grammar police, on the lookout for mistakes and intolerant of diverse ways of speaking. Rather, they want students to see grammar as an important resource for writing and for understanding the language around them in everyday life."</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 10px/normal Helvetica; min-height: 12px; "><BR></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">Students need to be able to compose complex, varied sentences, and they need to be able to proofread their writing for mistakes that might distract their audiences or distort their intended meaning. Skilled teachers of writing know how to teach grammar to their students as they write, when they have a particular need to know the information.</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 10px/normal Helvetica; min-height: 12px; "><BR></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">NCTE believes that, in a time when the education profession sees constant calls for teaching to be research-based, it is important to keep in mind the body of evidence about the teaching of grammar.</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 10px/normal Helvetica; min-height: 12px; "><BR></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">Research reviews about the teaching of grammar:</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 10px/normal Helvetica; min-height: 12px; "><BR></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">* Braddock, Richard; Richard Lloyd-Jones; and Lowell Schoerr. Research in Written composition. Urbana, Illinois: National Council of Teachers of English, 1963.</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 10px/normal Helvetica; min-height: 12px; "><BR></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">* Graham, Steve, and Delores Perin. Writing Next: Effective Strategies to Improve Writing of Adolescents in Middle and High Schools. New York: Carnegie Corporation, 2006.</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 10px/normal Helvetica; min-height: 12px; "><BR></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">* Hillocks, George, Jr. Research on Written Composition: New Directions for Teaching. Urbana, Illinois: National Conference on Research in English and ERIC Clearinghouse on Reading and Communication Skills, 1986.</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 10px/normal Helvetica; min-height: 12px; "><BR></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">* Hillocks, George Jr., and Michael W. Smith, "Grammars and Literacy Learning," in Handbook of Research on Teaching the English Language Arts. 2nd. ed. Mahwah, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Publishers, 2003.</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 10px/normal Helvetica; min-height: 12px; "><BR></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 10px/normal Helvetica; min-height: 12px; "><BR></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">To talk to a spokesperson about NCTE's unchanged position on grammar, please call Mark Schultz at 800-369-6283, ext. 3630. </DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 10px/normal Helvetica; min-height: 12px; "><BR></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">###</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 10px/normal Helvetica; min-height: 12px; "><BR></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">The National Council of Teachers of English, with 50,000 individual and institutional members worldwide, is dedicated to improving the teaching and learning of English and the language arts at all levels of education. For more information, please visit <A href="http://www.ncte.org/"><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#001FE7">http://www.ncte.org</FONT></A>.</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 10px/normal Helvetica; min-height: 12px; "><BR></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 10px/normal Helvetica; min-height: 12px; "><BR></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">Related Information:</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "># Beyond Grammar Drills: How Language Works in Learning to Write </DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV></BODY></HTML>