Kaye Price-Hawkins Priceless Literacy 2401 S. Willis, Suite 108 Abilene, TX 79605 ...
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Transcript of Kaye Price-Hawkins Priceless Literacy 2401 S. Willis, Suite 108 Abilene, TX 79605 ...
Kaye Price-HawkinsPriceless Literacy2401 S. Willis, Suite 108Abilene, TX [email protected]
Going Green for Grammar
Member of the Texas
Professional Development Team
What is Grammar? Grammar Girl –
Mignon Fogarty Grammar is
“a set of rules for putting together a sentence.”
the rules to the game of writing.
Teaching Grammar in Context – Constance Weaver Grammar is:
Description of syntactic structure
Prescriptions for how to use structures and words
Rhetorically effective use of syntactic structures
Functional command of sentence structure that enables us to comprehend and produce language.
Writing moment
Write a composition explaining the function of grammar instruction in the 21st century classrooms.
How do we teach Grammar? Create opportunities
Anchor (Mentor) texts Workshop
Mini-lessons (see The Write Source for excellent material re: grammar instruction) Writing (Process) Conference (questions) Revision (various processes) Re-writing (multi-drafts)
RatiocinationJoyce Armstrong
Carroll’s concrete approach to
teaching grammar:
a color-coding technique that
focuses students on problematic
areas in their writing.
Code Clue Decode
Verb
ActivePassiveTensesSubject/verb agreementParticiplesDirect/indirect objectsFragmentsEtc.
Student Sample:Katie was just a girl who wanted to fit in
with everyone else. She wanted to be athletic, funny, pretty and popular with lots of friends. But she knew she could never become that type of girl. She was the type of girl who had the ratty red hair with freckles everywhere and glasses that hid her beautiful baby blue eyes. But on the inside was a pure and loving soul, but nobody knew that Katie. All they saw was Katie, the girl who everyone loved picking on just to make her feel worse about herself. Until one day, Katie finally had enough.
Rummaging and Recycling Approaches for Using Mentor Texts
Read once for pleasure Reread at least once for author’s craft (STAAR R&E) Reread with pencil or highlighter to mark the text
Build confidence in your readers/writers Imitation promotes practice and skill Achieve success at a higher level Comfortably move from mentor text structure to a more
sophisticated structure of their own Increase variety on student work
Begin with poetry and move to other text structures Choose structures for content area success
Examining a Mentor Text
Ralph Fletcher suggests a triangular schema to allow students to connect with the text or notice aspects of the texts in a democratic approach…
Subject or Theme
Tone or
Language
Craft Element
Structure
Word or Phrase
People usually focus on what they are ready to see. Use that as a building block of your teaching.
Poetry Excerpt: “Famous”
…The cat sleeping on the fence is famous to the birds
watching him from the birdhouse.
The tear is famous, briefly, to the cheek.
The idea you carry close to your bosomis famous to your bosom.
The boot is famous to the earth,more famous than the dress shoe,which is famous only to floors.
The bent photograph is famous to the one who carries it and not at all famous to the one who is pictured.
…
--Naomi Shihab Nye. WORDS UNDER THE WORDS. 1995. (p. 80).
Rummaging and Recycling, 2 Peer Models
Analyze writing from peers Easier to be objective Making suggestions for others prepares the students
for that same kind of analysis for their own writing
Personal Writing Spot various grammatical structures
If they can find it, they are half-way there! If they are using various structures in their writing,
affirm them and name the process. Identify usage (correct or not)
REDUCE If “wordiness" affects your writing
quality… Sentence-combine to tighten your
writing
Avoid repetition—unless it serves a purpose
The new STAAR composition is only 26 lines long. Give students the opportunity to write on a topic, count lines and tighten their writing to 26 or fewer lines.
Grammar Vision Image Grammar (Harry Noden)
Focusing on grammar’s power to make movies in our readers’ minds
Grammar: “a power derived from images”
Ideas
Brushstrokes = Artistic Sentences
Painting with Participles Absolutes Appositives Adjectives Shifted Out of Order Action Verbs
Passage (excerpt from HOLES)
Grammar Instruction Explore Images from Films of Best-
selling Novels: Show a 2 to 3 minute soundless movie clip
Ask students to write brushstroke phrases that describe the character’s actions or attitude during the second viewing and use those phrases to write a paragraph.
Ask the students to read the novel version of the same scene they witnessed in the movie and read their own descriptions to look for similarities.
Grammar Instruction, 2 Tour a Writer’s Gallery (samples)
Enlarge and post writing samples (professional pieces—novels, newspapers, etc.) around the classroom.
Have groups visit the pieces and discuss the techniques they observed the authors using.
Ask them to list several of the phrases and words they noticed.
Have them write a descriptive paragraph to accompany a picture (magazine ads or others), including the brushstrokes they have learned.
Grammar Instruction, 3 Copyedit a Boring, Vanilla Paragraph
Revise a straightforward, plainly written piece of text, cutting unnecessary text and adding the images by using brushstrokes.
This moves the students from the recognition stage to the creative stage.
Have students take a beautifully written piece and devolve it into a boring vanilla paragraph. Then talk about what they cut or reworded and why.
Vanilla Paragraph (Use brushstrokes)
A man walked into the building. He looked around. The room was dark. It was hard to see. Another man came in. He walked to the window and looked out. His steps made a noise. The first man turned around. He thought someone else was in the room. He saw nothing. His heart beat fast.
Grammar Instruction, 4 Improve your Image
Ask students to enter their own writing and look for the same strategies/brushstrokes that they have practiced. If they don’t see any, they need to add some.
Ask volunteers to share with the class their “before” and “after” make-overs—Discuss: action or cosmetic?
Grammar Vision Mechanically Inclined
(Jeff Anderson) Grammar is a tool to help the reader
and writer “see.”
Ask your students: “What do you notice?” “What do you like about the sentence?” “What happens if we change…”
Sources for Mentor Texts Articles
“The Day the Earth Moved” March 28, 2011 TIME
Stories Nasreen’s Secret School
by Jeanette Winter
Novels Holes (excerpt)
by Louis Sachar
Multi-genre
Resources: Anderson, Jeff. 2007. Everyday Editing. Stenhouse. ---, 2005. Mechanically Inclined: Building Grammar, Usage, and Style into Writer's Workshop. Stenhouse. Burke, Jim. 2008. The English Teacher’s Companion. Heinemann. Campbell, Cathy. 2008. The Giggly Guide to Grammar. Discover Writing Press. Carroll, Joyce Armstrong and Edward Wilson. 2010. Brushing Up on Grammar. Libraries Unlimited. Carroll, Joyce Armstrong. 2011. Ratiocination. Absey & Co. Fogarty, Mignon. 2008. Grammar Girl's Quick and Dirty Tips for Better Writing. Holt Paperbacks. ---, 2011. Grammar Girl’s 101 Misused Words You’ll Never Confuse Again. St. Martin’s. Gallagher, Kelly. 2011. Write Like This. Stenhouse. Knapp, Peter and Megan Watkins. 2005. Genre, Text, Grammar. University of New South Wales Press Ltd. Noden, Harry. 2011. Image Grammar: Using Grammatical Structures to Teach, 2nd Ed.. Boynton/Cook, Pub. ---. 2011. Image Grammar: Second Edition: Teaching Grammar as Part of the Writing Process. Heinemann. Petersen, David. 2007. Reading English News on the Internet. Lulu.Com. (new edition: 2011). Sebranek, Patrick, Dave Kemper, Verne Meyer and Gretchen Bernabei. 2012. Texas Write
Source. Grades 2-12. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Tchudi, Susan and Stephen Tchudi. 1999. The English Language Arts Handbook. Boynton/Cook Publishers. Terban, Marvin. 1993. Checking Your Grammar. Scholastic Inc. Thurman, Susan. 2003. The Only Grammar Book You’ll Ever Need. Avon. MA: Adams Media. Weaver, Constance. 1996. Teaching Grammar in Context. Boynton/Cook Publishers, Inc. Windsor, Lucinda. 2000. Grammar in Story. (2 books). Absey & Co. Woods, Geraldine. 2010. English Grammar for Dummies. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley Publishing, Inc.