Since then much has changed in both the UK and the USA, and the pendulum seems to be on the return swing. It would be naive to think that the pendulum is driven by academic research - indeed, there has been very little research on grammar and writing since the flurry in the 60s and 70s; rather it reflects very general attitude changes in education and more generally throughout society. However the result is that there is now much more enthusiasm in some educational circles for the idea that conscious grammar (resulting from formal teaching) could have the useful benefit of improving writing. In the USA this is apparently to be seen in Freshman composition circles (Mccleary 1995) and to a limited extent in the Whole English approach to school English teaching (Weaver 1996), but in the UK (of which I know more) it is one of the main pillars of the newly introduced National Literacy Strategy (DfEE 1997) and the National Curriculum for English (DfEE and QCA 1999). These government directives apply to all state-run schools in England, primary and secondary, and prescribe in some detail both content and methods. The prescriptions are by no means bland commonplaces; on the contrary, they are an attempt to change current practice, and nowhere more so than by reintroducing the teaching of grammar.