Craig Hancock wrote:

>   As a field, we should err on the side of inclusiveness and
>functionality. Lots of what you call "error" may very well be the
>places where meaning is undeveloped or confusing or lost or where the
>student has not yet become comfortable with the tools available to a
>writer. Knowledge about lanaguage is a useful adjunct to this. In a
>sense, error is what we do when we write, but I think the better
>writers tend to look at what is working and build from there.
>
Comfort with the tools of a writer is a matter of emerging language 
maturity and this problem also dogs math teachers, in particular. To 
develop this maturity we need to be  not only language creators but also 
language consumers. When the study of grammar is divorced from that of 
literature making these connections is not always obvious. We look for 
examples of good grammar in good literature, and so our subjective 
judgements of literature become tangled in prescriptive views of 
grammar. Craig's comments reminded me of a line in the Woody Guthrie 
song, "Deportee" -

The sky-plane caught fire over Los Gatos Canyon.
A fireball of lightening that shook all our hills.
Who are these friends all scattered like dry leaves?
The radio said they were just deportees.

This is creative on so many levels, I think it illustrates the argument 
about inclusiveness and functionality and if we want an example of a 
higher register, we still have,

'Come to my arms, by beamish boy! O frabjous day! Challooh! Challay!' He 
chortled in his joy.

Which could, of course, be improved by using "real words".

This connectiveness why I particularly like Ed Vavra's work from wild 
texts in his KISS grammar on-line. And for connected mathematics, there 
is a series of materials called, Connected Mathematics, I think, that is 
predictably controversial among K-12 math teachers. As an aside, I think 
it's useful for teachers to be aware of how colleagues in other subject 
areas are reacting to analagous problems.

Omar

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