After nearly ten years of teaching high school music, I suddenly found myself teaching high school English. Up until that point, I thought I was a good writer — a really good writer. I had won writing contests in grade school, earned high marks on my essays in high school, and wrote for my university newspaper (my first paid writing gig). Books were some of my closest companions. I read them voraciously between classes and meals, dance rehearsals and church activities. Charlie and Chocolate Factory, The Babysitter’s Club, Where The Sidewalk Ends — these books taught me the power of words, their capacity to trigger emotions and thoughts and conversations. But I lacked something that is so essential and yet so undermined by novice writers — a thorough background in grammar.
What I have to say next will upset some people, but it’s the truth: Just because someone has a bachelor's degree in English doesn’t mean that she knows how to write properly. Unless someone has a degree specifically in writing, he probably lacks a grammar experience as I did. Most university English programs focus on teaching literature: reading, history, and analysis. Although English students produce mass amounts of essays and writing assignments for their classes, their professors don’t teach them the art of writing explicitly. Creative writing students, on the other hand, are usually the ones who know grammar and rhetoric like a baker knows pastries, intimately, down to the last ingredient.
For those of us who don’t have degrees in creative writing, we must take the initiative to educate ourselves. Grammar is the cornerstone of language. We have to know that stone, all of its cracks, crevices, textures, elements. If there’s one thing we owe our readers, it’s this: clarity. As writers, we are responsible for conveying ideas clearly. Grammar is the way to clarity. Grab a grammar book today, and watch your writing transform.
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