GRAM-O-RAMA
Breaking the Rules
by
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About the Book
If John Lennon, Gertrude Stein, Stephen Hawking, and Mother Goose had conspired to write a grammar book, GRAM-O-RAMA would be it.
Designed for word-lovers and students in the classroom, this textbook contains dozens of unconventional exercises geared toward learning grammar. Its interactive method offers students and teachers a smart and accessible approach by encouraging writers to experiment with grammatical functions, style, rhythm, and sound.
"Beware, GRAM-O-RAMA is a dangerous book. It takes the cautions and rules of
grammar and drops them into a fun house. I experienced many of these exercises in
Daphne's class and still find myself relying on their lessons today. You could make
a movie of this book. Or at least a theme park ride!"
-Dave Krinsky, executive producer of TV series,
King of the Hill and screenwriter for Blades of Glory
"Daphne Athas sets words ablaze and puts sentences in flight. Every student and
every teacher, every writer and every editor, could benefit from her visionary eye
and musical ear."
-Alane Salierno Mason, senior editor, W. W. Norton & Company,
founding editor of www.wordswithoutborders.org
"This book is not only charming and amusing, but profound in the way it forces the
reader to see our language afresh, as something alive and throbbing with
possibilities. Indispensable reading."
-Randall Kenan
, associate professor of English, University of North
Carolina at Chapel Hill, author of A Visitation of Spirits
"Not your grandma's grammar, these irresistible exercises prod and provoke,
delight and inspire. They rattle students (and teachers) out of boredom, apathy,
and fear and awaken them to the power and possibilities of language."
-Elizabeth Moose, instructor of English,
North Carolina School of Science and Math
About the Author
Daphne Athas has written four novels, including Entering Ephesus, chosen for Time Magazine?s 1971 Ten Best Fiction List. Her nonfiction consists of a travelbook, Greece by Prejudice, a play, and a book of poetry, She teaches writing at the University of North Carolina.
Marianne B. Gingher is the author of four books including the novel Bobby Rex?s Greatest Hit and the memoir A Girl?s Life. She is a longtime teacher at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill where she served as director of the Creative Writing Program.