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Engaging Grammar: Practical Advice for Real Classrooms Presented by Amy Benjamin www.amybenjamin.com. Part One: Why teach grammar? What is grammar?. “ I’ve never known a person who wasn’t interested in language.” -Steven Pinker, The Language Instinct. I. teaching grammar.
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Engaging Grammar: Practical Advice for Real Classrooms Presented by Amy Benjamin www.amybenjamin.com Part One: Why teach grammar? What is grammar? “ I’ve never known a person who wasn’t interested in language.” -Steven Pinker, The Language Instinct
I teaching grammar. I never learned it. What if I’m wrong? Shouldn’t they already have had this in the lower grades? Do kids really have to learn all these terms? There’s no interesting way to teach grammar. It’s just drill and workbook. M
I. II. Cesar Chavez helped the farm workers. He advocated for them. He did not encourage violence. He led a boycott instead of violence. The boycott was an effective method of resistance. (30) Cesar Chavez helped the farm workers, and he advocated for them. He did not encourage violence. He led a boycott instead of violence, and the boycott was an effective method of resistance. (32) III. IV. Cesar Chavez, advocate for farm workers, helped them not by encouraging violence, but by leading a boycott, which is an effective method of resistance. (24) Cesar Chavez, advocate for farm workers, helped them not by encouraging violence, but by leading a boycott. The boycott was an effective method of resistance.. (25) Grammar is the most significant determiner of sophisticated style. M
Students struggle with going from speech to writing, and then from informal to formal style.
GRAMMAR 1. Grammar is a system of making sentences out of parts. The parts have to match (agree): Number (singular or plural) Gender (masculine, feminine, neutral) Case (subjective, objective, possessive) Tense (past, present, future) 2. Writers and speakers place the parts in a certain order and that order affects the impact of the message. 3. The two main parts of language are nouns and verbs. Everything else either modifies nouns or verbs or joins words, phrases, and clauses.
How? Learning Principles Based On: • Manipulatives • Visuals • Patterns • Intuition • Inductive reasoning • Authentic language M
Traditional way of looking at grammar: Grammar instruction to fix errors (error-based) Another way of looking at grammar: Grammar instruction to create stylized sentences (skill- based grammar)
Point of intervention for substantial language improvement Point of intervention for surface error correction GRAMMAR IN THE HEART OF THE WRITING PROCESS: Sharpen your nouns Minimize your modifiers Replace BE verbs and weak verbs with strong action verbs Achieve parallel structure Combine sentences: create complex sentences use appositives use absolutes Expand and shrink noun phrases. Turn clauses into modifying phrases. Decide where to place modifiers for desired effect. Pre-writing experience: (non-sentence form) Drafting Revising Publication Editing