did you ever read david foster wallace’s article on the long battle between prescriptivists and descriptivists? it was in harper’s a ways back. i’ll send it to you if you want.

that said, when it comes to teaching writing, it’s not always easy to just hand an ESL student a great english sentence and say “imitate!” i’ve tried it before. they usually end up copying the wrong things, and the imitation turns out awful. interestingly enough, i do know that our chinese students are made to memorize passages of english in hopes that they will absorb the idea. perhaps the chinese education system is descriptivist as well?

For style, now, I try to be descriptivist, and use actual stylists. Seeing how Joan Didion does a compound sentence, or when and where a passive sentence is used by Gay Talese has been more helpful to me than than the pithy prescriptions.

Teaching the grammar (as distinct from style), I’ve found OWL Purdue’s resources helpful.