Last Updated 2/14/2023
 
The Printable KISS Workbooks KISS Grammar Home Page
Dr. Ed Vavra's KISS Approach to Sentence Structure
Les Demoiselles
d'Avignon 
1907
Pablo Ruiz 
y Picasso's
(1881-1973)
General Essays on Grammar
      This is simply a collection of observations on topics of general concern -- and repeated discussion -- in the teaching of grammar. For practical questions concerning the teaching of KISS Grammar, see the "Background Essays for KISS Grammar."

Comments are welcome.  (See Contact EV.)

#1. But Don't Begin a Sentence with "But."

#2. On Learning Those Pesky Parts of Speech

# 3. Language as a Stream of Meaning

#4  Noun Absolutes—The Controversy

# 5 Why Can't I Use "I"?

# 6. Random Observations on the Teaching of Grammar

# 7. The Crime: Our Failure to Teach Teachers

# 8: Teaching Grammar with the KISS Approach: "I Don't Know"
     [This is also in the "Background Essays"]

# 9 Definitions of Grammatical Terms

What Is a Definition?
Defining and/or Recognizing Nouns and Verbs
Definitions of "Clause"
Definitions of the "T-unit"
# 10. What Grammar Should Be Taught in K-4?

# 11 "Then" and "Than"

# 12 Standards and Assessment

# 13 [This was moved to the "Background Essays"]

# 14 Was NCTE Biased against the Teaching of Grammar?

# 15 Why the Anti-Grammarians are Wrong: The Problems with Previous Research

# 16 Research on Natural Syntactic Development

# 17 Syntax, Style, and the Psycholinguistic Model

# 18 "KISS" -- The Case for "Stupid"?
 

"And being now at some pause, looking back into that I have passed through, this writing seemeth to me ("si nunquam fallit imago"), as far as a man can judge of his own work, not much better than that noise or sound which musicians make while they are in tuning their instruments: which is nothing pleasant to hear, but yet is a cause why the music is sweeter afterwards. So have I been content to tune the instruments of the Muses, that they may play that have better hands."
-- Sir Francis Bacon, Advancement of Learning