The Grammar Verdict

You are a language consultant asked to advise a school on its grammar correction policy — here is your brief.

Your scenario

A secondary school has asked you to review its policy of marking double negatives as automatic errors in student writing. Read the brief: the school teaches students from diverse dialect backgrounds. Your job is to write a short advisory note recommending whether the policy should stay, change, or be replaced. Write your name, your role, and your initial instinct (keep / change / replace) before you read on.

What the audience believes

The school's headteacher believes all grammar rules exist to protect clarity. List two things she almost certainly already agrees with — and one assumption she is making that the article challenges.

She already agrees

Her hidden assumption

Your one message

You have thirty seconds with the headteacher. Write the ONE point you must land — and the ONE phrase you must avoid saying, or she will stop listening immediately.

The point I must land

The phrase I must avoid

Draft your advisory note

Write your note in your notebook — roughly 80 words. Use at least one rhetorical double negative (e.g. 'not without value', 'not entirely without merit') to model the point you are making. Address the headteacher by name: Dr Mbeki. Your note should recommend a specific action, not just describe the problem.

Read it as Dr Mbeki

Swap notes with a partner and read theirs as the headteacher. Mark the one sentence that would make you act — and the one sentence that might make you resistant. Then write a single word that captures the overall tone of the note, and explain to your partner why that tone either helps or undermines the recommendation.

Why that word?

Discuss Before you write your one word: does a more cautious tone actually protect the argument, or does it weaken it?

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