Now that we're one big happy family again, I'd like to thank Paul for reminding me about Mad Libs.  Back in summer camp, I was the only girl in  my bunk who needed to learn the facts of life and the parts of speech.  In elementary school we had learned about "description words" and "action words," and I still have a tendency to talk about "helping verbs," but what's in a name?  As Rei has pointed out, with a small set of simple words and concepts we can effectively explain most grammatical concepts.  Obviously, as members of ATEG, we are all committed to the teaching of grammar, but the real challenge is to find new methods to reach all our students, not just those with analytical minds.  Also, we need to push for more language instruction in our teacher education programs.  At my college, teacher ed majors currently need only  6 credits (Structure of English and Advanced Grammar), but I have just successfully lobbied to add History of English.  Even so, literature dominates, and I suspect they are adding this course just to appease the Praxis gods.  I'm curious to know what the situation is like at other schools.