What is grammar? Why is it so central to the teaching of English? How can we teach it with confidence in secondary schools? Essential Grammar will provide clarity, meaning and teacher expertise to this much debated area of the English curriculum. By exploring grammar as applied to literary analysis and using a range of examples from commonly-taught and popular texts, this highly accessible book provides an extensive overview of how to use grammar to enhance the teaching of academic and creative writing. Drawing on a range of resources, best-selling authors Webb and Giovanelli: discuss the context of grammar teaching in schools provide a clear overview of concepts and terminology for the teacher offer a wide range of examples of how grammar can be applied to the analysis of texts and the development of students’ writing debunk the unhelpful view of grammar as a list of prescriptive rules and limits outline grammatical concepts in a way which is clear and simple to understand provide a huge range of practical ways to ensure that teaching of grammatical concepts can be rigorous and successful for all. This resource, with its grounded and straightforward approach to grammar, will be immediately useable in the classroom with strategies that be used by teachers in their classroom today. For any training and practicing secondary English teachers, Essential Grammar will be a compulsory classroom companion.