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Meaning-Centered Grammar: An Introductory Text by Craig Hancock London: Equinox, 2005. 260 pp.
Against the grain of my discipline, which has continued to think of grammar as a banal subject tied to archaic and banal teaching practices, I went in search of an approach to grammar compatible with meaning making approaches to reading and writing.
Craig Hancock
After a year and a half as editor of a small weekly newspaper (a job I got on the strength of my "good grammar"), I was finally offered the job I really wanted, teaching English at North Country Community College. It was here, while trying to teach basic writing to underprepared students, that I discovered how little grammar I actually knew. Sure, I could write correct sentences, and I could certainly recognize incorrect grammar when I saw it (as I tell my students, their errors are like flashing red lights in the middle of their pieces that prevent me from reading further until I have noted them), but I didn't know why one sentence was correct and another wasn't. My grammar sense was intuitive, not academic, and while that greatly helped my own writing, it made teaching difficult. Since I had been the fractious student who always piped up with "When will we ever need to use this?" it was really important to me to embed my teaching in a "real world" where every bit of it was necessary for survival and success.Yet with grammar, I could not do this. So I have spent the last eight years trying to relearn grammar in a way that will help me teach it to others.
When Craig Hancock's Meaning-Centered Grammar arrived at my office in the middle of fall semester 2005, therefore, I looked at it longingly, but unfortunately I had to put it aside so I could grade midterm portfolios. Still, I couldn't resist bringing it home and curling up with it...