Curiously, I haven't seen much grammar instruction at either of my placements. Granted, my high school placement spent many of my hours in PSSA prep, but you'd think with all the practicing that the students did for the essay portion that they'd get a little help in making their essays not only grammatically correct, but articulate and art-y sounding. Nope. Same deal with my middle school placement. They're reviewing parts of speech, but writing sentences with said parts of speech? That's next unit. *headdesk*
I suppose teaching grammar in the context of reading and writing is a little counter-cultural to the English profession. That doesn't make much sense to me, though. We learn how to speak and use English correctly through imitation and practice, so why not teach in the same way. Today, during a planning period, one of my co/op's peers expressed frustration at teaching transitive/intransitive verbs from the textbook. She said, "I know they know it. They say it. They use it."
With all that frustration aired out, here's my ideas for teaching the 100-some(!) textbook pages of grammar terms that these kiddos what they need to know for their test.
1. No hunting-and-pecking. This refers to my early days learning to type. I struggled with it and well into sixth grade was staring at the keyboard and laboriously mashing out keys with my pointer finger. It wasn't until I was given a keyboard cover that I got the practice I needed.
I can see the students doing the same thing with bellringer sentences with two or three errors for them to find and correct. They can hunt-and-peck out the errors, but don't always know why they are errors. Or worse, they hunt-and-peck something that is correct. Especially commas.
So, no deliberately mangling sentences beyond recognition. If I'm going to show the students how to correct, I'm going to do it one concept at a time and make sure they understand why it is correct.
2. Have fun with your examples! No need to stick to bland sentences about immigration laws and service dogs. Why not have examples about things students actually find interesting? Food, for one. That TV show all the kids are watching these days. Self-deprecating humor also seems to be quite effective.
3. Get students moving and working together as a class. Too often students are stuck working alone at their desks with their textbooks and fill-in-the-blank worksheets. I've heard students begging the teacher to be able to get up out of their seat, walk to the board, and write down the correct answer for the class. Just a little movement helps. One thing that I've seen used well are mini-whiteboards. Students use them at their desks to write sentences, answer questions, make corrections, give examples, etc. Then they share them with the class. They really like do like sharing what they know with each other.
Happy teaching out there!
I suppose teaching grammar in the context of reading and writing is a little counter-cultural to the English profession. That doesn't make much sense to me, though. We learn how to speak and use English correctly through imitation and practice, so why not teach in the same way. Today, during a planning period, one of my co/op's peers expressed frustration at teaching transitive/intransitive verbs from the textbook. She said, "I know they know it. They say it. They use it."
With all that frustration aired out, here's my ideas for teaching the 100-some(!) textbook pages of grammar terms that these kiddos what they need to know for their test.
1. No hunting-and-pecking. This refers to my early days learning to type. I struggled with it and well into sixth grade was staring at the keyboard and laboriously mashing out keys with my pointer finger. It wasn't until I was given a keyboard cover that I got the practice I needed.
I can see the students doing the same thing with bellringer sentences with two or three errors for them to find and correct. They can hunt-and-peck out the errors, but don't always know why they are errors. Or worse, they hunt-and-peck something that is correct. Especially commas.
So, no deliberately mangling sentences beyond recognition. If I'm going to show the students how to correct, I'm going to do it one concept at a time and make sure they understand why it is correct.
2. Have fun with your examples! No need to stick to bland sentences about immigration laws and service dogs. Why not have examples about things students actually find interesting? Food, for one. That TV show all the kids are watching these days. Self-deprecating humor also seems to be quite effective.
3. Get students moving and working together as a class. Too often students are stuck working alone at their desks with their textbooks and fill-in-the-blank worksheets. I've heard students begging the teacher to be able to get up out of their seat, walk to the board, and write down the correct answer for the class. Just a little movement helps. One thing that I've seen used well are mini-whiteboards. Students use them at their desks to write sentences, answer questions, make corrections, give examples, etc. Then they share them with the class. They really like do like sharing what they know with each other.
Happy teaching out there!
