Socialization...

It is hard for me to be completely against grammar and the hammering away of students' souls by the eight parts of speech and so on because I was taught grammar all the way through school. Along with the classic seventh grade diagramming, my high school English education was very strict on form and parts of speech, sentence variety, and using proper rules to write well. We became masters of the funneled introduction and de-funneled conclusion, topic sentence, two pieces of evidence and two commentaries on that evidence, and a concluding sentence to make up a paragraph. Yes, sounds very strict and somewhat like that example Dr. Kemp gave of his son bringing home the directions and instructions for all thirty-two sentences, but my experience was kinda like that. To explain further, we also received extra points in papers if we began a sentence with an infinitive.
From all this indoctrination, I do credit some of my style and ability to manipulate language from this teaching. However, I do agree with what Dr. Kemp said in class this week, that writing and rules should be more about uncovering the actual potential in a student, rather than making the point about catching errors. Yes I struggled with comma usage until the eleventh grade (I was the student that put at least four commas in every sentence) but that was also just because I was attempting thirty word sentences full of flowers and fluff because that is what I thought they wanted, and what had worked to get me the grade I wanted. But, over the years my writing has changed and evolved, getting better with age and without the constant grammar lessons. Regardless, while I do believe a strong understanding of grammar makes a writer better, I also believe that harping on the rules too much, or pushing Hartwell's 5 Grammars can be too much, or too damaging to a fledgeling writer.