Max Morenberg: Grammar can be taught both directly and incidentally. Thw two together are likely to be better than either separately. I do not believe in snake oil. Not surprisingly, there is unlikely to be some magical key concerning the teaching of English, including the facet of grammar. For commercial reasons however, it would not be surprising to see yet another "modern" approach. Regardless of what approach is involved, little learning occurs without commensurate effort. It is unfortunate if the noun "effort" invokes a measure of hostility, as it has done on some other Internet lists. By chance, I too was scoring papers. Two of my college students wrote that President Kennedy had been "assinated" in Dallas. The students had access to an almanac and a dictionary. Perhaps the correct spelling of the death word above is too much to expect from a college junior. Perhaps of interest too, two juniors in another class freely used the phrase "to poor water" (in regard to Piaget's Concrete Operational Stage). I used to teach fifth graders, who would seldom have made the error shown above. I do not believe that there has been a decline in genetic potential. I do believe that low expectations and low effort produce low results. This of course applies across the board. Realistically, Richard Swerdlin ([log in to unmask])