"Grammar Greiner" suddenly has a following at Westfield High School in Northern Virginia. Although he's known as the toughest English teacher in the school, students who want to do well on the SAT's new essay-writing section know they have to improve their grammar. So they sign up and endure his lessons on commas, apostrophes, spelling, and sentence structure. This is part of a discernible, if small, national trend to reintroduce grammar into the classroom. Even the group that once condemned grammar as "a deterrent to the improvement of students' speaking and writing," the National Council of Teachers of English, has changed it's tune. Its about time. And if you missed the apostrophe errors in the previous sentences, call Greiner. He'll set you straight. (Or just for fun, test your knowledge of punctuation here.)
"Clauses and Commas Make a Comeback," by Daniel de Vise, Washington Post, October 23, 2006
