Grammar is alright with me

Too often I feel like grammar has been relegated to a separate camp, away from content analysis and critical lenses, or maybe this is just the feeling I am getting as a U of M student. I will admit it though, I love grammar. Never used to when my lovely mother clenched her teeth while editing my book reports, but now grammar gives me the same joy that stacking rocks does: pile the pieces just correctly and look at the confidence with which that structure, or sentence, stands! Its fun, but more importantly, it is important. Weaver touched on the tizzy that a reader experiences when reading the writing of a writer who carelessly deems their piece "finished" without editing it. It is true. It is true for adults and it is true for students. Hell, I even tense up a bit when someone posts on my wall without capitalizing the first letter of their friggin sentence fragment. Grammatical mistakes speak volumes whether we want to admit it or not. Impressing this upon students is important, because it will affect them down the line. The lovely thing about critiquing writing, as opposed to critiquing speaking, is that all people suck at it early in their life, and few people become good at it later in life. Kind of an equalizer, I guess. Of course, it usually comes easier to folks of the dominant culture, whose culture wrote the rules, but not to the same degree that speaking does. As hopefully most people would agree, criticizing the way a person has been raised to speak is just ignorant. Writing, however, puts people on a more level playing field, because by nature people are more conscious of what they write and how they write it than what they say and how they say it. I don't write the way I speak, otherwise my sentences would be littered with "likes," "errs," and "goddamns," and all potential readers would dismiss me as a fuzzbrain. Teaching grammar as part of the writing process, not aside from, is hugely important. Making it applicable to what students are doing will serve them better than the tedious sentence corrections that we remember so well. Writing is a craft. Writing is also necessary for communication ("calling Cptn. Obvious, come in Cptn. Obvious"). It is particularly important when communicating on a professional level. It might be one of the simplest ways to gain professionalism. Teaching it to students does them a great service and darn it, I want to see grammar, strict and strong grammar, rejoin the Language Arts camp and take to the battle fields! For language!!!!! Arggggghhhhh!