Date:  Fri, 18 Nov 1994 09:42:24 -0800

From:  Dan Alford <dalford[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]S1.CSUHAYWARD.EDU>

Subject: New Book: Grammar in Many Voices, Marilyn Silva



Here's a tip from a totally disinterested party (ha! say all of you who just

read my last message!).



NTC (National Textbook Company) has just published a new undergraduate grammar

book, Grammar in Many Voices, which is intended most specifically for English

Departments and other non-specialist grammar courses (though linguists will

certainly enjoy it as well, if grammar is their thing).



It's a surface grammar approach, a self-contained 10 week course in critical

thinking, which teaches people to DO grammar rather than just teaching them

about grammar. Copious example sentences are drawn from a veritable rainbow

of ethnic authors all writing in Standard English (an absolute minimum of

Oh-see-if-you-can-say made-up sentences). It's tough, no doubt, but excellent

(I've taught the course myself from prepublication drafts), and many students

who say that they never 'got' what grammar was about finally 'get' it.



Authors sentences are drawn from include Anne Rice (timing is everything!),

James Baldwin, Jacob Bronowski, Bill Cosby, Louise Erdrich, Robert Fulghum,

Linda Hogan, Martin Luther King Jr, Toni Morrison, Iris Murdoch, Richard Nixon,

Edgar Allan Poe, Richard Rodriguez, Oliver Sacks, Dr. Seuss, Bram Stoker,

Amy Tan, J.R.R. Tolkien, Alice Walker -- well, you get the picture.



I'll be glad to pass on any questions or comments you might have.



                            -- Moonhawk (%->)

  <"The fool on the hill sees the sun going down and>

  <the eyes in his head see the world spinning round">

                 <-- McCartney/Lennon>