Hi,

Many of your are familiar with my whining about not being able to find a grammar text that addresses helping middle school students in their writing.  (Harry Noden is a notable exception, but some of his brushstrokes are too advanced for my sixth graders.)

I ran across a book today from Scholastic which was sent to me by one of their editors.  It looks wonderful!! The title is _Grammar Lessons & Strategies that Strengthen Students' Writing_, and it's by Laura Robb (ISBN 0-439-11758-5).

She quotes Harry Noden, Connie Weaver, and Lucy Calkins and has some solid ideas about how to connect grammar to real middle school writing.  Section One is on "Parts of Speech Create Strong, Specific Images," Section Two is on "Improving Sentence Structure," and Part Three is "Editing for Punctuation and Usage."  She works within the writing workshop format.

Has anyone used this book?  I am tremendously impressed with what she has done for middle school teachers (her focus is eighth grade, but she includes lots of examples of sixth and seventh grade work).

I'd appreciate any feedback.
Gretchen in San Jose
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