Attempting to teach twelve years of English in six weeks is not easy. But if one is organized, determined, and patient, it can be done. I made this discovery several summers ago when I was hired to teach two remedial com position courses in the Urban Education Program at Westfield State College in Western Massachusetts. Of a total of thirty-four students, whom I divided into two classes, practically no one was able to write a coherent sentence, not to mention an entire paragraph. Whereas the initial performance of these students was rather uniform, their learning capabilities could hardly be stereotyped. All of the students were motivated and everyone learned something about standard writing during the six weeks. While some only progressed to a fifth or sixth grade level in writing and comprehension, of the students who repeated the remedial class in the fall, twelve earned credit for Composition I and would take Composition II in the fall. The other third would be placed in Freshman Composition I in the fall. Although there has been a considerable amount of criticism in recent years about the teaching of traditional English grammar to inner city students, I have never waver ed in my conviction that in a predominately middle-class society, if one is to be integrated into the system, one should be taught the rules and practices of that system. I believe that instructors who encourage Black English and local regionalisms in defense of so-called creative ethnicity are really playing a cruel joke on their students, who, with a college degree, but without effective communicative skills, will never be absorbed into the mainstream of society.