22 Comma Rules provide concise rules and clear examples to improve your mastery of mechanics.
22 Punctuation Rules provide concise rules and clear examples to improve your mastery of mechanics.
Language and grammar spiral review provides consistent and effective lessons for language arts students to meet language standards.
Free, Printable Compound Words worksheet to help students understand grammar mechanics. Visit us for all your printable language arts activities!
Teaching English with songs is a great way to boost student engagement. Check out these 17 ideas for activities using music and songs!
Daily Oral Language Assignments Each day of Mr. McLaughlin's English 10B Class will begin with a short "sponge" activity. On some days we w...
During the last professional development session that I did with the middle school teachers language arts teachers, we dove head first into a book titled, Mechanically Inclined, by Jeff Anderson. One word: AMAZING. For a language arts teacher who has struggled her entire career with not knowing how to incorporate grammar and mechanics into instruction, this book knocked it out of the park for me. I have always known that grammar and mechanics instruction is essential, and that it should be taught in a way that students can apply to their own writing versus the "drill and kill" worksheet and direct instruction method. What I have not encountered is if you're not using worksheets and direct instruction, what DOES solid grammar and mechanics instruction look like? This book, for me, finally put tangible ideas in my head that I knew I could transfer into my 8th grade classroom. I have chosen to start the year off with my 8th grade students by doing an Interactive Read Aloud titled, Out of My Mind, by Sharon Draper. For those of you who read my blog, you know that I am slightly obsessed with this story. I have gotten into the practice of reading a chapter per day out loud with my students. During this time, I model my thinking around the text, ask them to turn and talk with a partner about key issues in the story, discuss important terminology such as symbols and theme as a whole class, and am developing a common text that we can refer to as a whole class during Reading and Writing Workshop minilessons. Interactive Read Alouds hold many purposes. I can see some asking the question: How could you possibly take the time to read aloud to your 8th grade students? I would argue: How can you NOT take the time to read aloud to your students? By taking ten minutes of class per day to read a chapter out loud to my students, I am laying the groundwork for talking about text throughout the entire year and having a common text to refer to in minilessons in Reading Workshop, I am establishing a mentor text and author to be able to refer to in Writing Workshop, and I now have a drawing board for mentor sentences in Word Study. For today, I'm going to discuss how I've incorporated our first Interactive Read Aloud into Word Study, but I had to throw in the sheer importance of Interactive Read Aloud to the entire literacy framework while I was at it :). Each day when my students enter my classroom, there is a dry erase board posted in the hallway with the materials needed for the day's class and what they should begin doing as they enter the classroom. Most days the board reads, "Begin Interactive Edit in Word Study notebook." Students know that as they walk in, they should take their language arts materials for the day from their mailboxes, open their Word Study notebook, and begin copying down the day's mentor sentence into their Word Study notebook. Each day, I select a mentor sentence from our IRA, Out of My Mind, from the chapter that we will be reading in class for that day. Jeff Anderson also mentions using mentor sentences from the writing of students in your class, which I can't wait to try out as well. After they copy down the sentence exactly as it appears on the Smartboard, I ask them to consider the questions: "What do you notice about this sentence?" and "What sticks with you about this sentence?" Many students as they're copying down the sentence will also blurt out a prediction about what they think will happen in today's chapter based off of the sentence. Guess what? For once I don't mind the blurting. It's also so cute when I'm reading the chapter out loud to them, and I get to the mentor sentence from the day, and several of them begin pointing at me and nodding their heads to indicate, "That was our sentence for today!" It's awesome. I found it very humorous that the first few times I did this with students this year they would raise their hands with confused looks on their faces and try to suggest to add in a comma, capitalize something, change the spelling of a word, etc. They could not grasp the concept that there was NOTHING wrong with the sentence on the Smartboard. In fact, the sentence came directly from our IRA, a published book. Students had it so engrained in them since an early age with the dreaded "DOL" type of editing activities that we've used in the past to teach grammar and mechanics to always look for what was "wrong" with a sentence. Many of the sentences in DOL contain so many errors that it makes the process such an unrealistic experience to students, and they become numb. They see DOL as a drill, and many students become great at doing DOL. However, I would argue that many students who are great at DOL and always fixing the same predictable errors in a sentence do not transfer that skill into their own writing. We have taken the time in DOL to always look for what is wrong in sentences, but we've never taken the time to step back and pick out rich mentor sentences to notice what is right. We never explored the possibilities of, "What conventions does this author use to make this sentence work?" In my mind, this question will encourage students to engrain the conventions of proper mechanics and grammar into their brains. We would never ask students to learn how to spell words they do not know how to spell by staring at the words spelled incorrectly and having them write down the words incorrectly, that's just silly. If we stare at something long enough incorrectly, there's a chance that our brain may take that as the truth whether we like it or not. So what happens once students have copied down the mentor sentence from our IRA and written down underneath the sentence what they notice/what sticks with them about the sentence? At this point, I usually ask students to turn and talk with a neighbor about the things they have noticed about the sentence. This gives everyone a chance to voice their opinion and more likely to share their opinion when we join together as a whole class to discuss. So after the turn and talk, we move into a whole-class discussion about what was noticed. Today, I actually had two students disagree (in a respectful way) during the turn and talk about why commas were placed in today's mentor sentence, and they both were able to state their opinion as to why they thought the commas were there. After both had stated their opinion, other members of the class were able to join in, and we came to a consensus as a group. When I have my students engaging in conversation surrounding the purpose of commas in a sentence with passion in their voices, I can't help but let my inner dorky English teacher jump up and down with excitement (on the inside only of course). As we're having the whole-class discussion, I take notes on the Smartboard of items that the students notice about the sentence, and students are expected to write down anything about the sentence that a classmate noticed that they do not have written down. Below I have a few examples of screen shots from after we discussed the mentor sentence of what the Smartboard looked like. All of a sudden, I discovered that my students were learning about coordinating conjunctions (FANBOYS), comma principles, apostrophes, adjectives, capitalization rules, punctuation, types of sentences, etc. Questions such as, "What would happen if we removed this comma?" and "What if the author would have done ____ instead?" started to come out. As the teacher, I simply went with it and threw it back to the students to ask, "Let's try it! What do you think?" and "How would that change the sentence?" This wasn't coming from me giving a lecture followed by a canned worksheet on these concepts. This was coming from my students examining and noticing from mentor sentences in our Interactive Read Aloud on a daily basis. Students are learning from each other. I am still teaching and naming some things that they're noticing for them to help develop that common language surrounding grammar and mechanics, but it is their noticing of the mentor sentences that is driving what we're learning. To take this to the next step, once we establish certain rules governing the way writing works from the mentor sentences, I create anchor charts throughout the room to display our learning, along with the mentor sentences that we used as a reminder. As you can see by the anchor chart on dashes, students are welcome to add mentor sentences from their independent reading or writing by the anchor charts at any time. It is also essential during minilessons to reference anchor charts so that students learn to use them as a resource throughout the literacy block. Probably my favorite piece that I incorporated from Jeff Anderson's book, Mechanically Inclined, is the idea of an "Editor's Checklist" that I continually add to as more concepts come up during Interactive Edits. I stress that as writers, we are constantly experimenting with grammar and conventions in our writing. I like the word experimenting because it implies that students are trying to use the grammar and mechanics that we discuss, it also implies that students are taking chances as writers (which could mean that there will be mistakes), but I'd rather have my student take risks as writers than write boring sentences with perfect conventions. With the Editor's Checklist, I've also done what Jeff Anderson refers to as an "Express Edit" where after students have written in their Writer's Notebooks for the day, I will select one-two items on our Editor's Checklist and ask them to examine their entry for the day by editing only for those select one to two items. Our Editor's Checklist up to this point of the school year is pictured below. There is space to keep adding to it as the year goes on! Now that we have the routine down, this takes us 5-7 minutes at the beginning of class each day. I have consistently had students do this for the past three weeks, and I can honestly say that this is the only time in my Language Arts teaching where I have had students taking on these concepts as writers. Students are not only more aware of their grammar and mechanics, but they're also trying out new things that we talk about that writers do. For instance, I had several students use dashes to add additional information, and use compound and complex sentences over choppy, simple sentences. In the past, it seems like I defaulted to ignoring grammar and mechanics or teaching random "sit and get" lessons that I felt obligated to throw in and guilty for teaching because I knew the way I was teaching didn't align with my beliefs about teaching. What I didn't know was how I could change it to make it better. Until now...
Challenge your young learner’s command of grammar and punctuation rules with this printable quiz!
How many times have your students made errors in their spelling, mechanics, or usage, even though they have been taught the rules for years? Many teachers are tempted to “get back to basics” and teach everyone the concepts again, but that’s not a good use of your time, and it forces too many students to sit through instruction they simply don’t need. What’s more effective is to teach these conventions in the context of meaningful writing, giving each student the exact instruction they need. But that kind of precise differentiation takes a lot of time. A Grammar Gap Filler is a small, powerful package of materials that teach a single spelling, grammar, or usage rule. Gap Fillers are designed to let students review just the skills they need, on their own, and then get back to writing. When you notice a student making a particular error, simply assign that student the right Gap Filler and you’re done. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Each Gap Filler includes: ✔ A short VIDEO (3-5 min) that reviews a single concept in clear, simple language, offering mnemonic devices so students can remember the rule later, plus four review questions at the end of the video. Each video is available with and without closed-captioning. ✔ A 10-question SELF-CHECK, plus an answer key, that allows students to quiz themselves on the concept they just learned, then check their answers independently. A link is also provided to a Google Form version of the Self-Check, so students can take it online and get instant feedback about their responses. And now, as of June 2020, teachers will also have the ability to copy the form to their own Drives so that you can see and keep track of student results. ✔ A one-page CHEAT SHEET, giving a quick overview of the concept, which students can keep in their notebooks for future reference. ✔ A TEACHER’S MANUAL providing an overview of the teaching philosophy behind Gap Fillers, teaching tips to help you make the most of this resource, and instructions for setting up Gap Fillers in both paper-based and paperless environments. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- SAVE BIG AND GET THIS GAP FILLER IN A BUNDLE: Grammar Gap Fillers: Bundle 1-12 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- KEY BENEFITS Clear, Simple Videos Plenty of written resources already exist to teach these concepts, but text alone can’t always explain things as clearly as a video, which walks the viewer step by step through a concept. Unfortunately, many videos you find online contain ads, have poor quality audio or visuals, or may not explain things in the simplest, clearest way. Grammar Gap Filler videos have been created with an emphasis on simplicity, clarity, and consistency, so students can get what they need in just a few minutes, then get back to writing. Perfect for Flipped, Blended, or Self-Paced Classrooms Videos can be integrated with any kind of unit and uploaded into online platforms like EDpuzzle or learning management systems like Edmodo. The Self-Check is designed to allow students to complete a whole lesson independently, without the need for teacher assistance. Universally Designed; Accessible to All Students who are learning English will appreciate having a library of clear resources that explain these sometimes confusing English concepts. The closed captioning option for all videos makes them accessible to students with hearing impairments, students who don't happen to have earbuds, or those who simply prefer to read as they watch. Great for Paper-Based or Paperless Classrooms The Self-Check and its answer key can be printed and stored in a physical filing system, but they are also available in a Google Form, so if your classroom is going paperless, your students can do the Self-Check completely online. The Teacher's Manual shows you how to set up all of your materials in either environment. Created by a National Board Certified Teacher I taught English language arts for over 7 years and have earned National Board Certification in Early Adolescence/English Language Arts. I am intimately familiar with the most common mistakes students make in their writing AND with the research on best practices for grammar instruction.
22 Comma Rules provide concise rules and clear examples to improve your mastery of mechanics.
Explore the Montessori approach to language development. Learn how grammar symbols empower children to master reading and writing, laying a solid foundation for effective communication.
Looking for free grammar games to make teaching fun? This list of games for teaching parts of speech, punctuation, and writing will provide fun all year!
Can you provide meaningful instruction without a grammar worksheet? You can, and here are ten alternatives to the grammar worksheet.
There are a lot of suggestions floating around out there about what to do on the first day of school. But what should you do on the second day in Language Arts? I already did a post on using a short story to establish how you approach the task of reading. In this post I’m ... Read more
The composition class I have been teaching for years is supposed to be all about research, critical thinking, and honing argumentative w...
Source: English Grammar
Not sure about commas? We've got you covered. Learn the essentials about using commas in English so your writing always looks polished.
Help your students master and apply proper grammar mechanics to their writing assignments with Abeka's Grammar and Composition I-Revised. Review punctuation, capitalization, parts of speech, verb usage, and sentence structure to blaze the trail for writing a variety of compositions, research papers, and book reports. This work-text walks your students through the steps of writing such as being parallel in their outline, having the correct point of view, using parenthetical citations, and preparing a works cited page. This write-in text is easy to follow, with instruction and exercises integrated through each chapter. 327 pages with index, softcover.
Editor in Chief® Level 3 improves students' grammar, punctuation, spelling, capitalization, and attention to detail using a standards-based thinking approach rather than drill and practice. This effective method teaches students to carefully analyze and edit stories that contain errors in writing mechanics and story details.
There are dozens of classroom decoration ideas that teachers can implement. However, some are unique to key settings or environments.
…and I’ve wanted to do this myself so many times! Thank you J.C. Duffy! Caption: “What can I say? I was an English major.” Credit: New Yorker cartoon by J.C. Duffy, ALL RIG…
Ever wonder why you can't figure out when and where to stick a comma? It's probably because commas, by far, have more rules and applications than any other punctuation mark. But why do so many people use the semicolon incorrectly? Comparatively, it should be one of the easiest punctuation marks
