Breaking the Rules: Liberating Writers Through Innovative Grammar Instruction [Paperback]

Edgar H. Schuster (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0325004781 | ISBN-13: 978-0325004785 | Publication Date: February 13, 2003

Grammar doesn't have to be a stick-in-the-mud subject-stodgy, traditional, and rule bound. Open the pages of Ed Schuster's book and you'll find an energetic, untraditional, creative means of helping students become independent thinkers and more effective writers.

Schuster acknowledges that there ARE bedrock rules of English syntax that should be honored, and offers lesson plans to show how these rules can be taught effectively, in ways that empower students and enable them to write with confidence, authority, and precision. He also examines the history of the other rules, the "myth rules" that are the legacy of traditional school grammar-taught for hundreds of years but infrequently followed outside of the classroom, as shown in numerous examples of the best contemporary writing. He devotes his book to better ways of teaching grammar, usage, writing, and punctuation by

• teaching the unbreakable rules in such a way that they stay taught
• debunking the "myth rules" that are commonly taught in class, but infrequently followed in practice
• trusting students' own intuitive sense of grammaticality
• appealing to the evidence of the work of his own and others' students and to the best contemporary writing.

"Only look and connect" is the guiding principle of Schuster's book. Look at the results of your teaching; look at the facts of language; look at practices of our best writers, both student and professional; look to see which rules really rule. Then connect what you discover to your teaching practice.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Edgar H. Schuster has taught English in secondary schools and in colleges for more than forty years. He has spoken frequently at national conferences, held various positions with NCTE, and is a member of the Writing Assessment Advisory Committee for the state of Pennsylvania. Author of several textbooks and articles, he has been a Master Teacher at the Graduate School of Education at Harvard University and is a recipient of a Lindback Foundation Award for Distinguished Teaching. Click here (member login required) for Ed's article "Beyond Grammar: The Richness of English Language, or the Zero-Tolerance Approach to Rigid Rules" in the March, 2011, edition of English Journal. Click here to read Ed's article, "The Core Standards for Writing: Another Failure of Imagination?", in February 3, 2010 edition of Education Week.

Product Details

• Paperback: 256 pages
• Publisher: Heinemann (February 13, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0325004781
• ISBN-13: 978-0325004785
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 7.2 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (18 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #252,119 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

26 of 28 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Invigorating English teaching and learning, April 10, 2003

By 

Alan Leonard (Anaheim, CA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Breaking the Rules: Liberating Writers Through Innovative Grammar Instruction (Paperback)

This book is exciting, invigorating, and refreshing. If those responsible for training the next generation of English teachers would use this book in their methods classes, schools would see an increase in teachers ready to provide 'reality' based language and composition learning experiences. If every school administrator were required to read the book, he/she would place in every classroom teachers ready for "Liberating Writers." Present English teachers who read the book will find either affirmation of their current practices of different ways to look at old practices, or both.
Ed Schuster is no johnny-come-lately to either English education or innovative thought considering the teaching of English grammar and composition. Over the past forty years he has been a sought-after presenter at both state and national English conventions; his articles began appearing in "The English Journal" in 1962. He contended then and contends now that traditional school grammar stifles English learning, inhibits the development of solid communications skills, and repudiates its stated goals. His introduction begins: "Most people think students break rules aplenty. Why encourage them?" His reply reflects his own classroom practice: "to help them become independent thinkers and more effective communicators."
In chapter one, "Language Acquisition and Traditional English Grammar, Schuster clearly and forcefully enunciates his hypothesis: "Traditional school grammar, traditionally taught, is a staggering, Pentagonesque waste of time and money." He does not just fling out empty claims. He reviews the literature on language teaching and learning from 1604 to the time of John Warriner up to the present Warriner clones. His bibliography shows the pedigree of his thesis: Sapir, Jesperson, Donald Murray, Fries, Shaughnessy, Hairston, Sledd, Blau, and Elbow, a veritable who's who of language theory over the past seventy years.
The rest of the chapters are equally thorough. Chapter two examines "Definitions That Do Not Define." Chapter three reviews "Rules That Do Not Rule (and a Few That Do)." Chapter four, "Writing: Liberating the Student Writers," proposes methods for utilizing periodicals, novels, and newspapers as models to help students, by studying 'real' writers, maximize their own writing and language/grammar skills. No, Schuster does NOT ignore grammar; rather, he thinks traditional school grammar non-useful. Chapter five, "Punctuation Today," suggests new ways of using traditional punctuation to make more effective writers.
In these five chapters, Schuster moves from what was and is (Traditional School Grammar) to what is and could be (the Reflective Teacher) in the teaching and learning and utilizing of "effective communication."

17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The most helpful book on grammar instruction I've ever read, March 7, 2003

By 

David Keplinger (Colorado) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Breaking the Rules: Liberating Writers Through Innovative Grammar Instruction (Paperback)

No one could be happier than I to have come across Dr. Edgar Schuster's marvelous book. I'm a professor of creative writing and composition at a small university out West, as well as having been an ESL instructor for many years. In my eleven years experience as a teacher at the university level, no book has ever so eloquently and straightforwardly addressed the challenges of effective grammar usage. I've already begun recommending it to my colleagues in the English department. Schuster's book will certainly garner the high praise it deserves, for it is written by an expert (Schuster is a former Master Teacher at Harvard) who, with laymen's terms, places three questions at the fore: 1)What are the myths of grammar usage? 2)What rules are unbreakable? 3)How do we teach students to use their innate grammatical sense? One chapter, which I am currently teaching to my freshman comp students, has already made clear for them (and for me) the five basic instances in which a comma is appropriate. I cannot say how much this book has helped my teaching and my own understanding of the "myth rules" and the "unbreakable rules." I'm indebted to Schuster for making me, in the short time it took to read his book, a better teacher.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Review of breaking the rules, April 22, 2006

By 

Dorothy (Dollar Bay, MI) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Breaking the Rules: Liberating Writers Through Innovative Grammar Instruction (Paperback)

If you are looking for an untraditional and creative means of helping students become better writers then this book is for you. breaking the rules by Edgar Schuster is a idealistic book about grammar that goes beyond traditional instruction. This book is meant for anyone who is interested in a better instruction of grammar, which includes college students and reflective teachers.
In the book Schuster suggest that teachers look at the works of students, writers, and other professionals and then after reviewing the works, the teachers need to decide which language rules are practical and which ones on be broken, for example the case of Finlay McQuade during the late 1970's. McQuade took a good look at his Editorial Skills class and found out that teaching grammar in a traditionally way is a failure (p. xviii.) There is too many rules in traditional grammar that has no space in the realities of spoken or written language today.
The book is full of real life anecdotes that makes it easy to read. For example, Schuster used himself in an example about a student who was told that the definition of a pronoun was a word that replaces a noun. So the student used words such as writer for author and book for novel. There are detailed instructions on how grammar rules are used, and if possible, how the rule can be broken to enhance the writing. The book includes many topics from the definition of a noun to tips on revising and editing. There are also many activities in the book that make it easier for the reader to understand the concept.
This is a wonderful book to keep on hand for a reference for anyone who is going into the field of teaching or anyone else who is interested in improving his or her writing.