Gimme

1
Gimme Grammar

• Balanced Literacy Academy
• Robyn Haug and Shawn Riley

2
What do you want your students to know?
Editing Skills Grammar Skills
3
How do you teach it?
Grammatical Concept How I have taught it Results



4
The Great Debate
5
Popular Daily Grammar Instruction

• A teacher places an incorrect sentence on the
  board or on a worksheet
• the boy seed a dog rabbit bird?
• DOL, Sitton Spelling, McDougal all use this
  approach at times

6
Next

• Students attack the sentence. They are well
  trained to know that any sentence put in front
  them must have mistakes!
• Add a comma!
• Put a capital letter!
• Find a spelling error!
• No Need to Think! Just attack!

7
Theres Just One Problem

• How often do we see pieces of real writing with
  one sentence standing by itself?
• How often do we see worksheets teaching
  kids about grammar with one sentence
  standing by itself?
• Something doesnt add up!

8
Whats the purpose of editing?

• To make the writing easier for the reader to
  understand
• To improve the overall quality of the writing
• What is the best way to teach kids these
  skills?????

9
If you wanted to be great at basketball

• Would you watch
• A 4 year old playing
• or
• LeBron James in the NBA?

10
If you wanted to be famous artist

• would you study
• a first grade work of art?
• or
• Monet?

11
If you want to be a great writer

• Would you study
• Incorrect sentences
• or
• authentic wonderfully crafted sentences?

the boy seed a dog rabbit bird?
The girl was an expert at washing linens,
chopping leeks, paring potatoes, and mopping
floors. From Mirette on the High Wire by Emily
Arnold McCully
12
All too often children

• Stare at incorrect sentences
• Work with unauthentic writing samples
• Play a guessing game with editing
• Think editing is just a checklist you mindlessly
  check off

13
How do authors improve their writing?

• By READING Great Writing!!

How do students improve their writing?
By READING!! Great Writing
14
The Solution?

• Look at great sentences and discuss
• Writing Craft
• Grammar
• Stylistic Choices

15
3 Simple Steps

• Invite Students to
• Notice / Collect
• Imitate
• Celebrate

16
Invite Them to Notice

• Start off with a great sentence and ask
• What do you notice that is correct about this
  sentence?
• Let their responses guide your lesson. Go
  where they lead you. Try to hit at least one
  craft and mechanics noticing. You dont have
  to hit it all but you might need to nudge them
  at times!

17
A Great Sentence From a Great Writer

• His room smelled of cooked grease, Lysol, and
  age.
• -Maya Angelou

18
Questions to Probe Deeper

• Craft
• Whats working with the text?
• Whats effective?
• Where is the good writing? Authors Craft?
• What else is the writer doing?

• Mechanics
• Whats the punctuation or capitalization doing?
• What effect does the punctuation have on the
  reading aloud of this sentence?
• What changes happen if we remove it?
• What is the writer accomplishing with his/her
  choices?

19
Invite Them to Imitate

• Breakdown the sentence for its important
  features.
• Teacher should imitate the sentence making sure
  to note the breakdown of important features.
• Model to students how to insert own experiences
  into the sentence while still keeping the
  important features.

20
Heres a Sample

• Hectors room smelled of Hot Cheetos, gym socks,
  and lies.
• Mrs. Haugs office smells of file folders,
  Starbucks Coffee, and ideas.
• Have your students write one!

21
Imitate it outside the model!

• As I wandered through the Hilton Hotels, I
  wondered how they could be so big, so colorful,
  and always seem to reek of wealth.
• Still showing understanding of commas in
  a series, capital letters for a name
  brand, and an abstract thought adding
  depth to the writing.

22
Invite Them to Celebrate

• Students share the imitations Who has a sentence
  they would like to share?
• Have them put them into a class notebook, on
  transparencies, sentence strips, or notecards
• Discuss what worked well
• Students will do what is celebrated!

23
Well Written Sentences in What Kids are Reading
Today

• I was concentrating on piling the dishes into
  the bubbly water, and Id forgotten that Jacob
  moved like a ghost these days.
• Stephanie Meyer, Eclipse
• Compound sentences (commas and conjunctions)
• Similes

24
More Great Sentences

• Thats how things were out here in the wild, she
  was learning. Dangerous or beautiful. Or both.
• Scott Westerfeld, Uglies
• Complete sentences, fragments
• How fragments can be a stylistic choice in
  fiction, poetry

25
And More

• Little Echos arent designed to hold six, count
  them six, larger-than-average-sized children.
• And their wings.
• And a dog.
• James Patterson, Maximum Ride, Schools Out
  Forever
• Adjectives
• Contractions
• Fragments
• Comma rules

26
Invite them to Collect

• Allow students to find wonderfully crafted
  sentences from their own reading
• Cut transparencies into slips that students can
  write sentences onto
• Use these sentences in future lessons

27
Now You Collect!
28
Collect on a Grammar Hunt

• Find particular structures in authentic
  literature (for example, capital letters,
  prepositional phrases, certain punctuation)
• Have students record on post-its
• Sort in groups
• Discuss and analyze why particular grammatical
  structures are used.

29
The Capital Letters Hunt

• Look in the book you are currently reading
• Find and write on a post-it every word or phrase
  that is capitalized (except first word in a
  sentence)

• Have students work in groups to sort their
  post-its into the rules of capitalization
• Create chart as class with rules
• Add any that were not discovered

30
The students find the rules themselves in their
real literacies!

• They can be engaged in the learning and still
  have opportunities for drill and practice when
  they imitate!

31
It Works for Most Grammatical Concepts

• Think of a grammatical concept you need to teach
• List it with your group
• Discuss written resources you could use to teach
  that concept to your students (magazines,
  newspapers, their own writing, books or stories
  you are reading.)

32
Look Inside Your Notebook

• The writing notebooks you have started with
  students are one of the best places to focus
  grammar lessons.

• After they notice or collect something in a piece
  of literature, have them imitate it in pieces of
  their own writing.
• After teaching a grammar lesson, have students
  pull pieces of their writing for further
  practice, editing practice.
• Have students edit pieces of their notebook
  writing for particular skills you are working on
  and turn in to check for understanding.

33
Lets Generate Some Writing!

• Try one of the notebook strategies we have worked
  with
• Topic T-Chart (like / dislike, regret / proud of)
• Write off a word
• Special people, places, things

34
10 minutes for writing
35
An Example of how to use the notebookTeaching
Active Verbs

• Show students a mentor text where active verbs
  are used (Hoops, An Island Grows).
• Notice what works about the text and sentences
  with active verbs.
• Make a class list of good verbs to use
• Go back to the writers notebook and circle all
  is, are, was, were, should, will, would, etc.
  words in a piece of their writing
• Replace those with active verbs and discuss how
  it improves the piece.

36
Stone breaksWater quakesMagma glowsVolcano
blows Lola M. Schaefer, An Island Grows
37
Imitate With Active Verbs

• A player passes.
• Ball flies.
• Girls holler.
• Cameras click.
• An agent approaches.

38
Teaching Other Parts of Speech

• What is the use of memorizing what a noun or verb
  is if they dont know what to really do with them
  in their writing?
• Show a mentor text of effective adjective use,
  specific nouns, subject/verb agreement
• Discuss what works about the text (notice),
  invite them to imitate, and take it back into
  their own writing.
• Youll never have to copy another worksheet again
  (well)!

39
Teaching Punctuation

• Is it more important to know what declarative,
  imperative, interrogative, and exclamatory
  sentences are, or how to vary your sentence types
  in your writing?
• Can you teach the types of sentences and
  punctuation within the context of writers
  workshop, or does it have to be practiced on
  several sentences on a worksheet?

40
Frayer Model for Sentence Types
Declarative Use a . Interrogative Use a ?
Exclamatory Use an ! Imperative Use a .
41
Frayer Model for Sentence Types

• Go over the sentence types on a Frayer Model with
  your class
• Remind students of the punctuation each one uses
• Have students read over a piece of their writing
  and mark the different sentence types in the
  correct box on the Frayer.
• Practice changing some of them to add variety and
  work on fluency

42
Genre Style Guides

• When you are teaching a particular genre to
  students, do you discuss the grammatical
  differences in that genre?
• How is a poem different from an essay?
• What does an expository piece have that a
  narrative doesnt?

43
Genre Style Guides

• As you immerse your class in a genre study, a
  genre style guide is a perfect complement
• Have students compare and contrast two different
  genres for their stylistic characteristics!

• Have students look for the genres rules
  regarding
• Capitalization
• Paragraph length
• Organization of information
• Writing of numbers
• Sentence length
• Sentence styles
• Punctuation choices
• Voice
• Use of contractions or abbreviations
• Whether text is formal or informal

44
Everyday Genres Can Teach Grammar, too!

• Imperatives in recipes and instruction manuals
• Rinse chicken pat dry with paper towels. Twist
  wing tips under back.
• Parallelism in advertising
• Weve never had more. Youll never pay less!
• Phrases, Questions, Exclamations in
  Advertisements
• Do you Yahoo?
• 50 off!
• Like a Rock

45
The lesson for teachers is that we should teach
grammar from authentic texts as much as possible.
You can use the literature the students are
reading, as well as newspapers and other texts,
to demonstrate or teach almost any grammar
lesson.-Brock Haussaman
46
A Final Thought

• As we teach our students the craft of writing, we
  tell them to show rather than tell.
• I think when teaching editing well, we show
  rather than correct.
• -Jeff Anderson

47
Resources

• Based off of Jeff Andersons
• Everyday Editing Inviting Students to Develop
  Skill and Craft in Writers Workshop

• As well as Brock Haussamens
• Grammar Alive! A Guide for Teachers

48
Notebook Resources

• Notebook Know-How Strategies for the Writers
  Notebook
• By Aimee Buckner

49
Additional Resources

• 10 Lesson Sets in Jeff Andersons book on commas
  in a series, using colons, capitalization,
  possession vs. contraction, simple sentences,
  verb choice, appositives, paragraphing, compound
  sentences, dialogue
• Jeff Andersons Website www.writerguy.net
• Sentence Blog http//www.greatsentences.blogspot
  .com/