Here's the working draft of our rationale

Rationale for Teaching Grammar

1)  Response to NCTE.
     The Hillocks’ report on Research On Teaching Composition, the
foundation for NCTE’s current anti-grammar position, is now twenty
years old and out of touch with recent shifts in our understanding of
grammar, notably functional, rhetorical, and cognitive approaches. 
The usefulness for teaching grammar was measured in very narrow
terms, reduction in writing “errors” over short term. Grammar
teaching was deemed “harmful’ primarily because it pulled instruction
time away from reading and writing, which were a priori labeled
“higher order concerns.” Little attention was paid to the possibility
that grammar can mean many things, that reducing any activity to
“avoidance of error” is fundamentally reductive, or that school-based
traditional grammar of the time was not a particularly accurate
description of the language. Particular damage was done by presenting
these conclusions as definitive, when, in fact, they were simply
reporting the ineffectiveness of teaching a faulty or impractical
understanding of language when measuring short term growth on
controlled, holistically assessed writing samples.  For a sympathetic
consideration of the context for these mistakes here and in England,
see Hudson (2005) and Kolln and Hancock (2005). One result has been a
progressive loss of knowledge about grammar within the field. We have
also seen re-emergence of regressive practices to fill the void of no
instruction. Professionals have continued to avoid reconsideration of
grammar in part because they have insufficient knowledge to draw on.

2)  People who have considerable knowledge of grammar seem universally to
find that knowledge valuable, not just in specialist enterprises, but in
everyday language interactions, in reading, in forming/revising their own
writing, and in helping others.  That knowing about grammar is valuable
but teaching of grammar is not seems counter-intuitive.

3)  It may very well be that any “higher order concern” is not easily
addressed in short term spurts.  It’s a solid truism in writing
instruction that growth in writing is not adequately tested within a
semester. The same is roughly true for reading; many students who take a
post test after a half year or year will score lower on the follow-up
test, which would seem to be saying that they have been harmed  by the
instruction. Even indications of growth are often within the margin of
error for the test.  This has been rightly attributed to weaknesses in the
tests as measures of long-term progress and long-term growth. It’s hard to
measure short term, for example, the extent or usefulness of a student
being engaged by writing or reading. It may very well be that knowledge
about language shows its value over longer periods of time, especially
when the focus is not on teaching to a narrowly focused test, but on
cultivating maturation of the student. Students may experience periods of
awkwardness as they try out the new rhetorical tools that a rich
exploration of grammar brings to the fore.

4) Animosity toward grammar is connected to a narrow and distorted view of
what grammar is about.  For most people, it is a catalogue of constraints
that language needs to conform to in more formal registers.  The
progressive anti-grammar position has never questioned that narrow view
and has never tried or succeeded in lessening the burdens of correctness. 
Rather than argue against the validity of these surface “rules”, the
argument has been that direct teaching of grammar has little effect on
their reduction.  The prevailing view is that they can be addressed “in
context” and with a minimal metalanguage, a minimal need for conscious
understanding. The position fails on three counts.  It fails to replace or
diminish a fixation on “error”. It fails to provide the complex
understanding necessary for a dialogue about error “in context” to be
useful. And it fails to acknowledge the rich role of grammar in carrying
out the work of discourse, in building purposeful and effective writing.

5)  The question of whether knowledge of grammar is useful is best
understood as a question about knowledge about language.  Language can be
acquired naturally in language rich environments, but that does not mean
that reflection on language is not natural or valuable or that cultural
knowledge about language should not be valued and passed on. Students come
to school with a rich language already acquired, but they do not know the
conventions of standard English, do not know how to use their own natural
grammar as rhetorical resource in critical reading and writing, and  have
not yet acquired the language or conventions typical of the academic
disciplines. Particularly important is the role of conscious knowledge in
acquisition of structures and rhetorical options more common to writing
than reading.

6)  A much better measure of what it means to teach grammar “in context”
is looking at the work of grammar when grammar is working well, especially
in contexts the student has yet to master. Grammar is a natural and
inevitable component of all languages, one that would be there with or
without our awareness of it, one that makes meaning possible. Words are
not words apart from their grammatical functions.  When language is
working well, the role of grammar is below consciousness. But grammar is
best understood in precisely these situations, when it contributes
smoothly to the clarity and thoughtfulness of effective discourse. “Error
in context” is not a true context approach to grammar.

7)  Modern linguistics is not a unified or uncontentious field, but solid
insights are available from rhetorical, functional, and cognitive
perspectives.  We are beginning to collect a solid body of approaches that
aid in interpretive reading and effective writing.  Rather than a set of
limiting constraints, grammar can be thought of as a meaning-making
resource. It can be incorporated into the “higher order” activities of
reading and writing as an enormously useful adjunct toward their goals. 
It is also worth studying in its own right as central to language, to our
most communal resource as members of human communities.

7)  State standards universally call for mastery of writing conventions
and fluency with more formal discourse, but they do not present a
reasonable path to accomplish those goals. Official opposition to the
teaching of grammar has not changed the demands, but has simply asserted
that these achievements cannot be taught directly. We believe that every
student has the right to achieve mastery and the right to have the notion
of mastery articulated as clearly as possible.  We believe that curriculum
should be structured with the assumption that mastery is possible for all
students, not just a talented few.

8) People knowledgeable about language are much more likely to see dialect
forms as rule-driven, as nonstandard rather than incorrect, much less
likely to see them as indicative of the abilities of the speaker.
Ignorance about language creates a climate in which myths about language
and language prejudice can flourish and grow.

9)  We believe that any student graduating from a public school system
should have spent a considerable amount of time studying language,
including the grammar of his/her native language and its role in the
making of meaning.

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