Writing Teacher: Texas Textbooks Use Grammar To Downplay Slavery.

In a New York Times (10/22, Subscription Publication) op-ed, Dartmouth writing lecturer Ellen Bresler Rockmore condemns Texas high school textbooks for minimizing slavery, saying the ways in which the authors utilize grammar “shape the message that slavery was not all that bad.” According to Rockmore, the textbooks “employ all the principles of good, strong, clear writing when talking about the ‘upside’ of slavery.” However, Rockmore says “when writing about the brutality of slavery, the writers use all the tricks of obfuscation.”