The CATESOL Journal

For the last two decades, most high school English teachers have offered little grammar instruction, instead focusing primarily on literature. Meanwhile, standardsbased instruction has been mandated at the state and federal levels and concern has grown about the gap between high school preparation in academic literacy and university requirements. The California State University 12th Grade Task Force has created the Expository Reading and Writing Curriculum(ERWC) to address that gap. To supplement the ERWC, materials based on ERWC texts enable teachers to integrate grammar instruction into the course. Students observe grammatical forms in the texts they are reading, apply what they have learned in a series of activities, and conclude by editing their own writing. Thus, grammar and the conventions of written academic English are taught as part of a continuous loop within the context of what students are reading and writing in the ERWC classroom.