Why Do We Need to Teach Grammar in High School?
We all know the truth: most high school students today cannot consistently write clear, correct, and coherent sentences. As English teachers, we read essays every day that are full of fragments, endless run-ons, and missing capital letters. Commas are either thrown in like confetti or never used at all, and students ignore end punctuation routinely. Why is this happening?
The reason is obvious: our kids have not been taught grammar and punctuation. For decades, schools have been implementing writer’s workshop without any direct instruction or guidance; teachers have been taught that we’ll teach grammar “in context” (addressing issues when students make the errors); and we’ve been sold all flavors of constructivist approaches that simply don’t work. We all know teachers who say they are “descriptivist not prescriptivist,” or they’ll say, “It doesn’t matter if they don’t know this stuff,” but the reality is that these teachers often just don’t know grammar rules and are trying to hide from that and excuse the fact that they don’t, won’t, or can’t teach grammar. You’ve probably also heard the ever-popular lie that “kids will pick it up naturally if they just write and read enough.” But we know that isn’t true. We know that hasn’t been working.
“Constructivist” methods have failed. They have failed spectacularly. Refusing to TEACH grammar and punctuation is wrong and it has always been wrong. And now, high school teachers are waking up to the sad reality: our students can’t write well because they’ve never been given the tools to do so. Too many teachers have refused to teach this content.
This problem is fixable, but it requires a shift away from the failed philosophies of the past 2-3 decades and back toward what actually works. We might not all love what we’re going to have to do (at first), but explicit, direct instruction in grammar and punctuation, starting with the basics and building toward mastery, is what the students need. It should not matter if teachers don’t “like” teaching grammar. We’ve failed the students by not teaching it, and we need to do better. This IS part of what we should be doing as ELA teachers, and parents and students are not wrong to EXPECT us to be doing it.
If you are a classroom teacher, a homeschooling parent, a teacher leader, or an administrator, I’ve written this post for you! Below, I’ll explain why we must teach grammar and punctuation, what to teach, and how to teach these topics effectively in grades 9–12.
Not sure where to start with grammar in your classroom? Grab my FULL suite of Fall Grammar Units here!
Why Should We Teach Grammar, Usage, and Mechanics in High School
- Clarity Matters
Students can’t express complex ideas clearly without knowing how to build complex sentences. They cannot make themselves understood without knowing what goes where and why. A run-on sentence is more than a punctuation mistake: it’s evidence that the writer hasn’t thought about or understood the way his or her ideas WORK; he or she has no grasp of where one thought ends and another begins; there’s no clarity; the building blocks of the sentence are strewn about haphazardly, without consideration. Grammar isn’t just lame old rules that we learn to pass a test and can then forget: it’s about actually thinking about and understanding the logic and structure of sentences, especially OUR sentences! Without a strong grasp of grammar, our students’ written work will not communicate what they wish to communicate in a clear, effective manner. - Professional and Academic Success
Colleges, employers, scholarship committees, and the public at large do not look kindly on sloppy writing. When someone’s writing is riddled with common errors like subject-verb disagreement, run-ons, and misplaced commas, his or her intelligence and effort is overshadowed by what looks like low ability or carelessness. We know that a lack of grammar and punctuation skills closes doors for our students, and we know that nobody wants to be judged harshly or negatively because his or her work looks childish, sloppy, or careless. So why are we neglecting to teach these skills? This lack of effort from English teachers when it comes to teaching grammar skills must stop! We want to remove barriers to success for our students, so let’s do that by teaching GUM (Grammar, Usage, and Mechanics/Punctuation)! - Fairness and Access
Some students are growing up in households where language use is modeled well and parents work on grammar and punctuation skills with their children. Some students happen to have had an awesome old-school teacher in grades 6-8 who actually knew, taught, and drilled them on grammar and punctuation topics. Most students are not so lucky though. If we do not teach students grammar skills, students WILL NOT LEARN THEM. So, if some students have the chance to learn about phrases, clauses, and punctuation while others do not, we’re simply ensuring that the gap between those who have and those who have not will widen. Direct instruction and frequent grammar practice IS A FAIRNESS ISSUE. We cannot keep failing our kids because WE don’t like grammar, don’t know grammar, or don’t want to spend time teaching grammar. Really. We must stop this nonsense. - Confidence and Agency
Students who understand grammar feel empowered. They can look at a sentence, take it apart, and put it back together in a new way. They can spice up their writing with a participial phrase or by adding a dependent clause. They know when to use a colon or a semicolon. They feel prepared for the ACT and SAT. Instead of guessing or hoping that what they’ve written is okay, they know how to make their writing stronger and feel confident as they revise their work. When their grammar checker tells them they may need to change a passive construction, they can think through THEMSELVES whether that’s necessary or whether they can ignore Grammarly this time. Additionally, they can go into their other classes, their jobs, their college years, and their future careers with CONFIDENCE, knowing they are prepared and that their teachers cared enough to prepare them!
What Grammar Topics Should We Teach in High School?
Let’s be practical: students arrive in 9th grade with wildly different grammar backgrounds. Some can diagram sentences in their sleep; others don’t know what a verb is. Some vary their sentence structures and punctuate their phrases and clauses with ease; others write in a way that feels immature and is difficult to follow. This means grammar instruction in high school must be both review and new teaching, layered in a way that builds skills step by step for all of our students.
If you want an overview of what you should try to cover & the general order in which you may want to do that, check out the list below:
Looking for the units themselves? Grab my FULL suite of Fall Grammar Units here!
1. The Foundations: Parts of Speech and Sentences
- Parts of Speech: Nouns, pronouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, prepositions, conjunctions, interjections. Students must know these cold. Without them, every higher-level concept collapses.
- Complete Sentences: Subject + predicate. No exceptions (At least not now! They can play with fragments for impact later!) Teach your students the difference between a sentence, a fragment, and a run-on.
2. Building Blocks: Phrases and Clauses
- Phrases: Prepositional, appositive, participial, gerund, infinitive, absolute. Students should recognize and use these to add variety to their writing; they also need to know about phrases to be able to punctuate correctly!
- Clauses: Independent vs. dependent. Teach subordinating conjunctions, relative pronouns, and how clauses connect to form compound and complex sentences. This will help a lot when it comes to commas and end punctuation.
3. Sentence Variety and Style
- Teach them the differences among simple, compound, complex, and compound-complex sentences.
- Coordination vs. subordination: discuss when to combine ideas equally vs. when to show hierarchy. Practice!!
- Teach students to avoid choppy writing, improve flow, and show logical connections by combining ideas smoothly.
4. The Mechanics: Punctuation and Capitalization
- End Punctuation: Periods, question marks, exclamation points. (Yes, we must teach this in high school; many students still don’t use them., and it gets worse every year as they get used to typing without end marks into search bars & AI chats.)
- Commas: Lists, compound sentences, introductory phrases, nonessential clauses, direct address, equal adjectives, direct quotations, contrast and more. Zone in on what they need to succeed on the ACT & SAT specifically.
- Colons and Semicolons: Teach the kids how to use these super cool pieces of punctuation to connect ideas, introduce lists/details, and more!
- Quotation Marks and Apostrophes: Show them how to write dialogue, create possessives, and type contractions. Apostrophes, especially, are key on the ACT!
- Capitalization: First word of a sentence, proper nouns, titles, “I,” etc. Yes, we must review this stuff in high school!
5. Common Errors to Eliminate
- Fragments
- Run-ons and comma splices
- Subject-verb disagreement
- Pronoun case errors (him and I vs. he and I)
- Misplaced and dangling modifiers
6. Advanced Mastery
- Parallelism in lists and comparisons
- Conciseness/Wordiness
- Sentence rhythm and intentional sentence variety
- Grammar as a tool for rhetorical effect/Punctuation for style (dash, colon, semicolon)
How Should I Teach Grammar in Class?
This is where teachers often panic: “But I was never taught this myself!” or “I don’t know how to make grammar interesting!” I have known SO many high school English teachers who are afraid to start teaching grammar & creating punctuation lessons, who avoid doing these things because they say the kids should’ve already learned these rules in previous classes, or who claim they “don’t believe in direct grammar instruction” or think “skill and drill doesn’t work.” Here’s the thing though: these teachers are hurting their students. I know teaching grammar can feel intimidating, I know we’ve heard that we SHOULD NOT do worksheets or practice activities, but we all know ignoring these topics has NOT worked!! The solution to our fears about teaching grammar is NOT to throw grammar instruction in the trash (like too many schools and teachers have done for the past few decades). The solution is to teach grammar explicitly, clearly, and consistently. The solution is to jump in and try!
Here’s my approach:
- Direct Instruction
Stop apologizing for teaching grammar. Stand at the board. Introduce the concept. Define it. Give a couple of crystal-clear examples. You may be surprised to learn this, but kids actually want to know the rules. They’re tired of guessing, and they KNOW these skills are important for their ACT/SAT scores, college success, and career success. Make sure you sell everyone on these key facts, make the learning meaningful for them, and then get to teaching! - Modeling and Think-Alouds
Write messed up sentences in front of them. Do things like analyzing the sentences together. Circle the subject. Underline the verb. Talk through your thought process: “Here’s why this is a fragment. Here’s how I fix it.” Let them see your brain working and explain how you are using grammar knowledge to make structure and punctuation choices that fix the errors you see. If you can show them the editing process up on the board & write on or mark up a paper in real time in front of them, it will help a lot. Do the same with the practice sentences that you’re using within your direct instruction, lessons, and small group/independent practice activities. My units come with workbooks and PowerPoint slides so you can do this modeling easily! - Guided Practice
Don’t just throw worksheets at the students. I know they are 14-18 years old, but try this instead of giving them time and then collecting their papers to grade later: A) Introduce the subject with direct instruction, then do a few problems together as a class. B) Call on students or try using mini whiteboards so they all show you their answers at once. Keep it interactive. C) Try giving extra credit for correct answers or making the problem sets into a class game! Just do more with it than “Do worksheet, turn in worksheet, recieve corrections later.” - Independent Practice
Yes, you WILL be giving your students worksheets. I call these activity packs WORKBOOKS instead of “packets” or “worksheets” in order to avoid the dreaded “worksheet stigma.” Yes, you WILL be giving the kids sentence-fixing drills. Practice is not punishment. It’s not outdated. It’s not “wrong.” It’s how mastery is built. We drill math. We drill in sports practice. We drill when we practice our musical instruments. Why should English skills be any different?? (Important: Be sure to IMMEDIATELY go over answers and discuss when you do workbook pages; do not collect these pages to grade later. Nobody will look over your feedback or learn anything! Make this more like a lesson/class activity than boring classwork/homework! THAT is how you get rid of that “worksheet/packet stigma.”) - Apply to Student Writing
Once a concept is learned, that’s when we actually DO need to do the whole “teaching grammar in context” thing that I was talking about in the intro to this post. My beef is with thinking you can JUST do that & ignore direct instruction, practice, and review. Instead of doing random error correction during the editing phrase of Writer’s Workshop, we’ll do the direct instruction and practice in class, working our way through various units, and THEN we’ll teach the students how to apply what they’ve learned within their real writing. For example, after teaching fragments and run-ons, you could have students search for and fix ONLY those errors in a journal entry, essay draft, or recent writing excercise. After teaching commas, you could have them revise a paragraph for the school newspaper for correct comma use or focus on comma use when they revise their next larger writing project for your class. Note that application comes after instruction, not instead of it!! (Note: I’ve covered teaching revision in this post!) - Spiral Review
Don’t think you don’t need to teach commas because you know they did that in 9th grade or whatever. Every concept should cycle back again and again. We tend to forget this sometimes, but reteaching is part of the job; it’s especially important with GUM topics, as students tend to get rusty with these skills if we do not review them frequently. Plus, they may have been less than ready for a concept as an 8th grader or a 9th grader, but then see it click when you teach it in a slightly different way as their 11th grade teacher, so it’s ALWAYS worth revisiting concepts you know they’ve touched upon already!
What If My Coworkers Don’t Believe in Grammar Instruction for High Schoolers?
Let’s address some common objections you may hear…
“Teaching grammar kills creativity!”
No. That doesn’t make sense. Shakespeare played with language brilliantly, but he knew the rules first! Same with Picasso and painting! Knowing what a noun phrase is not going to crush all of the creativity out of your students. In fact, teaching grammar well actually equips students with the tools they need to express themselves MORE creatively. They’ll be able to think more fully and clearly about HOW to express what they want to express, and that will give them endless options, leading to MORE creative work! Think about it: why would learning what a comma does kill somebody’s creative spirit? If someone brings this up, ask him or her to explain WHY he or she thinks understanding grammar better would kill student creativity. This person will probably say that focusing on grammar and punctuation errors too early in the writing process (like while we brainstorm or draft) can get in the way of getting our ideas out on paper, and I agree with that, actually, but nobody said to teach the kids to do that! We’re teaching them these rules so they can edit and revise effectively, not to slow down their initial writing process. If we teach the writing process in a clear way, they will KNOW not to focus on editing when they are drafting (because we will REMIND THEM of that)!
“Students will learn grammar naturally through reading and writing.”
False. If that worked, we wouldn’t be in this mess. We’ve tried it. It did. not. work. Immersion works for toddlers learning speech, not for teenagers who’ve already formed bad writing habits & who do not tend to spend much time reading properly formulated and punctuated sentences in the first place. Plus, you’ve probably noticed that most published writing today is RIDDLED with grammar, usage, and mechanics errors, so simply reading more would not be a good route to learning the rules even if that DID work in the past (which it did not). Kids do not catch on to sentence structure, grammar rules, and punctuation rules via osmosis. They just don’t, and the declining test scores and terrible feedback from colleges and employers testifies to that fact!
“There isn’t enough time in the curriculum.”
There isn’t time not to. Every minute you spend trying to explain commas to a kid one-on-one during Writer’s Workshop or fixing fragments in their essays as you grade papers is wasted if you never teach these skills systematically. A strong foundation saves time long-term and prepares your students for their futures. These skills are important. We make time for what is important. We care about what is best for the students. If that means we have to cut something, then we have to cut something. We all know what skills we hit MORE than maybe makes sense when we need to be balancing our instruction among reading lit, reading information, writing narrative/argument/informative, speaking/listening, and then language/grammar/punctuation. Be fair and realisitc, and cut back on something that you tend to devote too MUCH time to, and give that time to language/grammar skills.
Practical Classroom Strategies for Teaching Grammar in Grades 9-12
- Use “Do Nows” or Warm-Ups: 10-15 minutes of grammar every day or every other day adds up. Sentence corrections, drills, mini-lessons, games… I have done grammar M-F, M/W/F, and T/Th. All of it worked well for me, though I think 3 times a week is a sweet spot. Do what works for you, but don’t do nothing!
- Sentence Combining: Make time for practice where you give students two or three short sentences and have them combine them into one mature, complex sentence. Have a few of these activities on hand to toss out for kids to complete at the end of class if you have 5 extra minutes from time to time, or you can use these as “early finisher” activities!
- Error Analysis: After students turn in final drafts, collect problem sentences so you can put them up on the board. (You just need to have a document or a slideshow where you copy & paste these as you are grading.) On the day you return papers or post grades/comments online, show students some of these sentence with mistakes. Ask them to diagnose and fix the error(s). You can use this time as a sort of essay debriefing to reinforce skills and address common errors. Students like this routine more than you might expect. We call it “ESSAY AMBULANCE” in my class, and I cover it in this blog post about saving time when teaching English!
- Mentor Sentences: I love this as a fun, creative activity for short schedule days, “extra days” between units (where I may have finished a unit on a Thursday & don’t want to start the next one until Monday), or end-of-year filler activities; I’ve even done this as a mini-unit before! Basically, you simply find some great lines from literature or from student work, print them up as models, and then ask students to imitate the interesting/unique/cool structure modeled in the example sentences or paragraphs. I like to use long cumulative sentence, periodic sentences, and cool uses of parallel structure or participial phrases. It helps to read the mentor sentences/paragraphs aloud as a class and then discuss what’s cool about them, analyzing the sentence structure and looking out for things we’ve learned about, like dashes, colons, or complex sentences. This helps everyone succeed, especially in mixed-ability classrooms.
- Quizzes: Try using small-but-frequent quizzes to keep students accountable and build their confidence. I like to have a quiz every 3-4 weeks over grammar topics, and they end up accounting for 5-10% of the students’ grade total. If I’m not putting our grammar work into the gradebook somehow, I find that students take the mini-lessons and practice less seriously. (All of my grammar units come with end-of-unit quizzes!)
What Should I Do If I’m Teaching English/ELA but I Don’t Know Anything About Grammar?
As I’ve already mentioned, many teachers hesitate because they were never taught grammar themselves. That’s not your fault, but it is your responsibility now. You don’t have to know everything at once. Learn alongside your students if you have to. The key is not to fake it or gloss over it. Be honest! You can say, “I wasn’t taught this in school, but we’re going to figure it out together, and it really does matter.” Discuss why grammar/punctuation/usage knowledge is important; bring it up OFTEN. SELL grammar knowledge to your students. If you’re not sure how to do that, you can try grabbing my grammar curriculum–it includes FULL rationales for every unit so you know WHY the content matters & can SELL that to admin, coworkers, parents, AND students 🙂
When I was in school, most of my teachers used the “they’ll learn it through osmosis” approach to grammar, or they expected us to know it already when we reached their classrooms, or they thought “grammar lessons kill creativity,” so all I knew about grammar & punctuation was from Mad Libs! When I began teaching at a small Catholic school in 2011, I knew the senior teacher (I taught juniors) emphasized grammar topics, so my students would need FREQUENT lessons to ensure their skills were up to snuff when they reached her class. I was intimidated, but I couldn’t ignore the problem. Instead, I learned alongside my students, leaned on classic grammar lesson books I had handy (Wariner’s English Grammar), and frequently asked questions of the senior teacher if I wasn’t sure about something!
My advice to teachers who need to teach grammar but know little about it themselves?
- Grab a straightforward grammar book that you can trust. Older is often better in my expreience.
- When you look for resources online, look for resources made for teachers, not linguists.
- DO NOT TRUST AI; I HAVE TESTED 4-5 DIFFERENT ONES WITH GRAMMAR QUESTIONS, AND IT IS WRONG SO FREQUENTLY IT MAKES ME WORRIED FOR STUDENTS AND TEACHERS WHO TRY TO USE IT FOR THIS PURPOSE!!
- Practice the skills yourself before you try to teach them to your class. If you aren’t sure about an answer, try to figure it out based on your grammar book or solid online resources; avoid asking AI because it will answer incorrectly and you may not know enough to question it or to know when it’s wrong.
- Find a teacher mentor who knows this stuff, and don’t be afraid to tell the students you will ask him or her and get back to them tomorrow about the verdict if there is a question that comes up during class & you cannot answer it.
Remember: you will gain confidence over time, and students will benefit from seeing you be a learner alongside them. Don’t worry if you don’t know everything right away. Just keep working at it and show humility and grace!
If you want materials that contain full lessons, workbook pages, practice sentences, review activities, and quizzes, PLUS answer keys that EXPLAIN WHY answers are what they are, my complete grammar units are CHEAP, & they are built to work whether you know your stuff or know next to nothing! Grab my FULL suite of Fall Grammar Units here! (Spring Units Will Be Up by 12/1/2025!)
The Big Picture: Why Direct Instruction and Skill and Drill Need to Make a Comeback
At the end of the day, grammar and punctuation are not about nitpicking or being a “Grammar Nazi.” Teaching these skills is about giving students the ability to express themselves clearly, persuasively, and powerfully. We need to address these topics if we want to help our students become mature thinkers who can organize their ideas, present arguments, and communicate with authority and grace.
We all want our students to leave our classroom with the ability to write with maturity, clarity, and sophistication. To achieve that, we must stop pretending grammar doesn’t matter. In fact, it matters more than ever in today’s hyper-competitive environment. If kids can’t build a correct sentence, they can’t build a paragraph, an essay, or an argument, and they won’t be prepared for the college, career, and personal writing and speaking tasks of the future.
The last fifty years of “context-only” and “constructivist” approaches have failed. (Yes, this started WAY back when.) The only way forward is back: back to explicit teaching, back to practice, back to mastery. Our students deserve the tools to succeed, and it’s our job to give them those tools. Don’t hesitate. Don’t be afraid. This can be a lot more rewarding and fun than you think, and students appreciate these lessons WAY more than you expect they will!
Let’s Do This!
It’s time for teachers to reclaim grammar instruction. Not as an afterthought, not as a “maybe we’ll squeeze it in if we finish the novel early.” It needs to be a core, essential part of high school English, and we need to be working on it every other day (if not every day).
Start small. Teach parts of speech until your students can rattle them off. Build from there. Review constantly. Find relatable grammar memes or short videos to show. Cheer their successes and show positivity and enthusiasm for the content. DO NOT LET THEM THINK YOU HATE THIS STUFF, FIND IT BORING, OR DON’T THINK IT MATTERS. If you can do all this, you’ll start seeing results right away–I promise!
We can fix the massive writing problems our students are exhibiting, but only if we’re brave enough to admit the old methods were wrong and commit to direct, systematic grammar instruction.
Kids CAN learn this stuff. They want to learn this stuff. It is NOT boring, useless, or impossible. When we finally teach it, everything else they need to do (reading, writing, thinking) gets stronger, and that’s SO worth it!!
Grammar and punctuation are not optional. They are a key foundation of literacy. Let’s teach these skills, unapologetically, and open doors to success in a way that matches up with what we know our students deserve!
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