Almost Finished with Foundation Skills

We are officially at the end of building my five foundation skills areas, and it's amazing to see how many students are now confident, and capable. I was slightly disappointed to have to prompt a few times when someone said direct object instead of predicate noun after a linking verb, but I usually only had to point it out once to the class. I also had to prompt a time or two in regard to verb phrases, especially if they were interrupted, or at the beginning of a question. And, I had to remind once to make sure each sentence was in natural word order. Even so, realistically, I should expect to have to prompt a little, especially if it's been awhile since we've touched on something, and I can't expect perfection. I just hope for continued growth and competence, and that students will continue to apply what they've learned.

We're about to start nouns. Some of what we learn will be more along the lines of knowledge for knowledge's sake (concrete and abstract, for example), and others are a little more of a challenge every year, such as possessives vs. plurals, and reminding students that proper nouns consisting of more than word are always treated as a single unit. I just keep reinforcing, and progress continues.

In reading, I came up with what I hope will be a very interesting and fun lesson to teach circular plot construction. As always, when trying something new, I may have to make adjustments as we go, or simply modify the entire plan. But, I am hopeful and optimistic. I ran it by a couple of respected colleagues, and they thought it was a pretty good idea. I'll let you know now it goes.

GW

Spelling Help

Today I worked on-on-one with a higher level student with a history of poor spelling. This can be extremely frustrating for everyone involved, especially if the student sincerely wants to learn, but there seems to some obstacle. Generally I find that it comes down to a lack of good, old-fashioned basics. That doesn't mean they weren't taught when the student was younger, but something happened. I usually find these students never learned short/long/schwa vowel sounds or the concept of open/closed syllables. It's amazing, when these concepts are explained and applied, how quickly most students improve. I usually see about an 80-90% improvement rate. No, these students may never win a spelling bee, but it's a real confidence booster for them to receive a B or higher on a spelling test. I typically spend forty to sixty minutes, split into two sessions, working with an individual. That's usually all it takes, and the results, for such a small investment of time, are very rewarding for both student and teacher.

GW

A Small Setback with Predicate Pronouns

As we progressed from identifying subject and object pronouns separately to working with them at the same time, I experienced something I do each year. Though I feel I constantly remind students of our foundation skills, and at this point in the quarter it seems we should have mastered them, today we faltered a bit, namely when it came to subject pronouns and linking verbs. Yes, the dreaded predicate pronoun, a common and widespread problem area. We worked our way through two pages of practice, and nearly everyone called on missed the predicate pronouns on the first page. Those pesky linking verbs! The problem is that subject pronouns after linking verbs simply don't sound "right," and yet they are. I made a point of reading each missed sentence two ways -- with a predicate pronoun, and then "switched" so that it used the same pronoun as the subject. I hope it solidified for students how they can test for correctness. I wasn't shocked by our little setback. I admit I'd hoped students would initially better remember what we've studied, but they didn't. They had to learn from their mistakes. Again. Just part of teaching.

GW

Adverbs, and Point of View

Today I finished grading the last few grammar assignments from last week, and I was pleased to see the effort students put into avoiding adverbs which interrupted verb phrases. My two biggest pieces of advice were to ignore words ending with an -ly suffix, and "not" is never a verb. Many had crossed out anything which interrupted, and as a result did a better job of finding the correct answer. We have pretty much finished our initial work for verb phrases and are on to our final areas of "foundation" skills, which include subject and object pronouns, and the five basic jobs of nouns/pronouns.

In reading, I enjoyed our lesson on point of view. I find it interesting that throughout my academic career we learned about first person and third person omniscient, period. Now, we have things like third person limited, etc. Our story today fit the bill perfectly to assist students in understanding the difference between third person omniscient and third person limited. I admit, even I was a bit surprised at how well it worked illustrate this concept.

GW

Margins

I never got in here Friday. Mondays and Fridays are the hardest days for me, and I'm always tired at the end of them. Friday we had continued improvement with adverbs, which is a good thing. However, on a different note, we had an unexpected request for students school wide to respond in writing to something which had occurred on Wednesday. I still seem unable to convey to some students that there are margins all the way around a piece of paper, including the floating right margin. So, though we are making progress in some areas, that one still needs some work. I can't help but think of the scene in A Christmas Story when the teacher is grading essays, or should I say "themes," about what students want for Christmas, and she marks many with an F and laments the lack of margin use. At least I am not alone in this, even if it's just an issue in a favorite movie.

GW

Library Day

When I was a new teacher, I thought library day looked like an easy day. Silly me. I enjoy our time, but several class visits in a row can make for a hectic day! But I have learned one good way to make the visits a little calmer: I give students writing skills worksheets to do when they are not looking for books. There never seems to be enough time to work on writing, so I grab every opportunity I can. One of my absolute favorite sources is the Cottonwood Press. Not only does it have several excellent books that target writing skills, there is usually a delightful sense of humor involved in the lessons, which I believe makes them a bit more palatable to young people.

On the grammar front, we continue with helping verbs and verb phrases. Today I upped the ante a bit with somewhat more challenging work. Fortunately, students seemed to quickly grasp what they needed to be paying attention to, so after a few initial errors, things progressed nicely. And, it was a great opportunity to talk a little more about adverbs, common interrupters in verb phrases, but a difficult part of speech for students to identify and fully understand.

GW

My second post, which probably should have been my first :-)

A little background might be helpful right about now. I am a secondary level language arts teacher and have been in the classroom for over two decades (not quite a quarter of a century, but I'm getting close). One aspect of language arts which seems to be up for debate is the importance of grammar. From the perspective of this teacher, I believe a firm foundation in the basics of grammar will assist students when it counts. By this, I mean in any sort of testing situation, from chapter quizzes to college placement tests. When they write or speak they will be able to avoid some of my pet peeves, specifically issues with subject/verb agreement and pronoun usage. It is my hope that in a job interview, a college entrance interview, when writing any sort of application, if ever they are in the eye of the media, students will know what is correct, and why it is correct. Certainly I don't expect perfect grammar in casual conversation, or in emails, tweets, and so forth, but when it counts, when those in the know may notice grammatical errors, it is my hope that a firm foundation will help those who have passed through my classroom to avoid mistakes. Additionally, college-bound students must take several years of foreign language. How can one understand the grammar of a foreign language if one is not knowledgeable about English grammar? All these reasons, and more, led to Grammar?Why!, which is book of grammar tips I am in the process of finishing.

How this came about is I realized that much of the time, students can arrive at the correct answer through a process of elimination, and just a very few aspects of grammar assist them in this. It occurred to me that other teachers could benefit from this approach to grammar, especially if they are new to the classroom, or they simply want to go beyond basic worksheets and teaching parts of speech in isolation. I have had positive feedback from many students over the years, and often receive a thank you for specific skills I have taught, as well as for the methods I used to teach them. There can be so much fear and intimidation about grammar, and there doesn't need to be. With a little time, effort, and a logical approach, many seemingly challenging aspects of grammar become understandable and much easier.

I had a brilliant plan a couple of years ago. I would blog through the course of a school year and at the same time write my book. I was successful in taking copious notes and putting together a first draft of a manuscript, but unfortunately, I did not blog at the same time. However, now, as I prepare to put the book in its final form, it is my intent to blog through the year, and the process. I hope I am up to the task. I'm excited about finishing my book, and I believe blogging will help keep me on track.

One caveat -- I cannot promise to perfect in my blog. At the end of lengthy days, I am tired. Tired, but pleased to be here, sharing my experience. Unfortunately, tired also makes for less than flawless writing, so kindly bear with me on this journey.

My happy teacher moment for the day: I was quite impressed with how my students did with verb phrases, one of the key foundation skills I emphasize. Very few errors, a lot of evident confidence, and success even with some tricky situations, like interrupted verb phrases, "not" and its contraction, etc. Student confidence is one of my biggest driving forces. I absolutely love it when my students know what they are doing and feel good about it. A teacher can't ask for much more than that.

GW

My First Post

My first post. Only one year and seven weeks past when I'd planned on starting, but here I am now. I had a nice moment today in class, and one slight light bulb moment this evening. In class, it was nice to be able to make a connection between what we've been studying in English for the past few days -- putting sentences into normal word order -- and our homework assignment about the difference between the active and passive voices in writing. If students will simply apply what they've learned in class, the homework assignment should be easy. Then, this evening, a little thought flashed through my head, something I remembered from workshops about teaching students how to read: whole to parts to whole. That's exactly what I've been doing this quarter with grammar, and I'm seeing it start to come together, at least with the students who've made a sincere attempt to internalize and apply what I've been stressing to them. In general, I'm pleased with how I've structured my grammar lessons this year. It was a good plan to pull the best worksheets which would directly get the desired results and put them in an order which seemed logical to me. It's also been a little exciting and validating because my colleagues are also on board with what I'm doing. After last year, with all new material, we all realized we were not getting the desired results, so it's nice to have assessed what did and didn't work, and to cooperate together for a more successful outcome this year. GW