Teaching Grammar in Writing Workshop

Teaching

Agenda

• What is grammar? Why teach it in context?

• Routines for Teaching Grammar using Mentor Sentences

• Types of Sentences

– Simple

– Compound – Complex

Objectives

• Explain why teaching grammar in context is more effective.

• Discuss a procedure and process for teaching grammar in context using mentor sentences.

• Name the different types of mentor sentences.

Grammar vs. Mechanics

• Grammar includes principles that

guide the structure of sentences and paragraphs.

He likes to eat pizza, but I like spaghetti.

Grammar vs. Mechanics

• Mechanics is how we punctuate to achieve meaning (punctuation,

capitalization, paragraphing, formatting).

“Let’s eat Grandma.”

Why Teach Grammar and

Mechanics?

• Grammar and mechanics shape meaning.

• Allow writer’s words to be understood by the reader.

“I say we spray!”, shouted Dad taking aim with a squirt. “Yes! Spray! Spray!” cried out Mom and Emily.

“So spray already!” sputtered Oliver.

So they spritzed him and sprayed him. And they gooped, glopped, and moussed him. They even hair-pinned him flat in five places for good measure.

“Aaah,” they said, sighing a confident, job-well-done sigh.

Oliver’s bedhead was now one slick gelhead. And then…

How do we teach it?

• Studies show that teaching grammar in isolation is not the most effective teaching strategy.

• Teach grammar in context. • Apply grammar/mechanics

Teach Grammar

and Mechanics

• As principles to be studied, explored, examined, and practiced rather than rules

• Tools to serve a writer in creating text reader will understand

Focus on Craft instead of

Correctness

• Students need grammar and mechanics tools so they have choices and can make decisions about crafting their writing

• Make editing and revising activities as regular as breathing.

They can’t even…

• What are they using correctly? • What are they attempting to do?

• Make a list of grammar and mechanics errors you notice over and over in

Hair

- Is the writer able to arrange words, sentences, and paragraphs to convey meaning?

- Does the writer understand the sentence as a unit, even if the punctuation isn’t correct?

-Does the writer understand verb tense?

--What grammatical understandings is this student approximating?

-- Does the writer understand simple conventions such as contractions, indenting, use of punctuation, subject-verb agreement?

Spending hours correcting

grammar and punctuation?

• Hours of work…tons of hope… little result

• “Marking every error does as much good as yelling down a hole.” Nancie Atwell

What do I teach?

• Base your teaching on the errors they make. Base your teaching on the

strategies they need.

20 Most Frequent Errors

1. No comma after introductory element 2. Vague pronoun reference

3. No comma in compound sentence 4. Wrong word

5. No comma in nonrestrictive element 6. Wrong/missing inflected endings 7. Wrong or missing prepositions 8. Comma splice

9. Possessive apostrophe error 10. Tense shift

11. Unnecessary shift in person 12. Sentence fragments

13. Wrong tense or verb form 14. Subject-verb agreement 15. Lack of comma in a series 16. Pronoun agreement error

17. Unnecessary comma with restrictive element

18. Run-on or fused sentence

19. Dangling or misplaced modifier 20. It’s versus its error

Argument: Daily Oral

Language vs. Mentor Texts

• DOL helps with editing…sometimes. • More than one concept

What is a mentor text?

• Any text or piece of text that can teach a writer about an aspect of

writer’s craft, from sentence structure to quotation marks to “show don’t

tell”.

• His room smelled of cooked grease,

Lysol, and age.

-Maya Angelou, Why the Caged Bird Sings

• Matilda’s wonderfully subtle mind was

already at work devising yet another suitable punishment for a poisonous parent.

We Know We Need to Teach

Grammar in Context…

• Context is about meaning.

• The key is meaning, not length. • Use mentor sentences to teach

Teaching Grammar

• Teach one thing at a time • Apply it to daily writing

• Use the shortest mentor text possible • Give students time to work with the

principle

• Scaffold for maximum success • Display visuals for constant

At first they may…

• Copy directly

• Overuse concept

• Attach meaning to the

wrong things

And you…

• Keep teaching, re-teaching,

repeating, mentioning, thinking

aloud, noticing, encouraging

• Writing is recursive

• Students may need WEEKS to

master one principle

If struggling readers need to see a word forty times to learn it (Beers 2002), then I’ll make a leap and say students need to see grammar and mechanics rules highlighted in different contexts at least as many times

to own them. - Jeff Anderson

Mini Lessons on Grammar

and Mechanics

• Short! 5 Minutes!

• Best taught at the beginning of Writing Workshop

• Display and read mentor text

– Make observations

– Play around with punctuation, etc. – Make more observations

Various Sentence Structures

are Used

Assumption

A sentence has a subject and verb. It must make sense and stand on its own.

His mother yelled, “Be careful crossing the street.” The boy raced across the street.

+

Sentsentence

Subject

(who or what did something)

Verb

(what did they do?)

stands on its own

Cows moo.

Cows moo?

Cows moo!

Sentence Fluency begins in

the ear.

A fragment is missing a subject or verb and/or doesn’t make sense.

A car came zooming big and bold

when I was little

Kids need to be able to identify and fix fragments. In order to do this, they must understand the simple sentence. Everything builds

The ability to pare down a sentence to its essential core is the first tool students need in

order to uncover the craft of all sentences.

Jeff Anderson, Mechanically Inclined

SENTENCE

SENTENCE

SENTENCE

SENTENCE

SMACKDOWN!

SMACKDOWN!

SMACKDOWN!

SMACKDOWN!

• Analyze the two sentences assigned to your group.

• Focus on WHO or WHAT did something (subject) and WHAT they did (verb).

Sentence Choices:

1. “Our knees and elbows rose and fell together.” (Fogelin, Crossing Jordan, p. 18)

2. “For some reason, my temper was hardwired to my tear ducts.” (Meyer, Twilight, p. 25)

3. “My name is Inigo Montoya.” (Goldman, The Princess Bride, several pages) 4. “A mischievous grin rearranged his features.” (Meyer, New Moon, p. 240) 5. “You killed my father.” (Goldman, The Princess Bride, several pages)

6. “At first, Zinkoff shades his eyes.” (Spinelli, Loser, p. 3)

7. “Two vampires edged slowly into the small opening of our camp.” (Meyer, Eclipse, p. 541)

8. “In rainy weather, the streets turned to red slop.” (Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird, p. 5)

9. “Prepare to die.” (Goldman, The Princess Bride, several pages) [This one is a little tricky!]

10.“In the same second, he shoved the needle straight into her heart.” (Meyer, Breaking Dawn, p. 354)

11.“With the shoe factor on our side, we’d win this thing for sure.” (Fogelin, Crossing Jordan, p. 121)

12.“The lights cluster brilliantly up the street at Claudia’s house.” (Spinelli, Loser, p. 174)

When I was five. I had a Chuckie doll. I would scare everybody with Chuckie.

Chuckie was about two feet, had orange hair, little red and white shoes, overalls, and plastic knife. To make Chuckie look more like the real thing. From the kitchen drawer. Like a mini-butcher knife. I super glued it into Chuckie’s hand.

Sound familiar?

• I went to Disney it was awesome and we took my friend Sam and then we went to the Frontier for lunch and we had barbeque and then we went

swimming at the pool it was so much fun!

Compound Subject

My mother looked at the map. My sister looked at the map.

My mother and my sister looked at the map.

Compound Predicate

The leaves fall on the ground. The leaves cover the ground.

The leaves fall and cover the ground.

This is easy!

ROUTINE FOR MENTOR

SENTENCES

Invitation

Invitation to Notice

Prompt: What do you notice?

Probing beyond “What do you notice?”

Craft:

• What’s working with the text? • What’s effective?

• Where’s the good writing? What’s the effect? Where’s the craft?

Invitation to Notice

Punctuation

• What’s the punctuation doing?

• What effect does the punctuation have on my reading aloud?

• What changes if we remove it? Use something else?

• What is the writer accomplishing with his or her choice?

Invitation to Imitate

• Deconstruct the sentence for its prominent features.

• Show an imitation of your own (model) or a student’s (model) and connect back to the prominent features.

• Show students how to insert their ideas and experiences and still imitate the

Invitation to Collect

• Collect sentences from student’s own writing and other text that follow the patterns introduced.

Invitation to Edit

• After seeing the correct sentence,

students identify what has changed as each sentence is uncovered separately. We are open to changes from sentence to sentence so that the activity

Invitation to Edit

• When the web is finished, the spider waits for insects to fly into its web.

Invitation to Edit

• When the web is finished, the spider waits for insects to fly into it’s web.

• When the web is finish, the spider waits for insects to fly into its web.

• When the web is finished, the spider wait for insects to fly into its web.

• When the web is finished the spider wait for insects to fly into its web.

Let’s Try It

• Dad dished up three plates, side by side, with big pieces of pie and giant scoops of ice cream.

TYPES OF SENTENCES:

COMPOUND SENTENCES

What do you notice?

Every day was a happy day, and every night was peaceful.

-E.B. White, Charlotte’s Web

Nick Allen had plenty of ideas, and he knew what to do with them.

-Andrew Clements, Frindle

I want to buy a new car, so I have to save some money.

I want to take a cruise to Hawaii, but I don’t have enough time.

What do you notice?

Every day was a happy day, and every night was peaceful. Every night was peaceful, and every day was a happy day. Every day was a happy day and every night was peaceful Every day was a happy day every night was peaceful.

Probing Questions

-What do you notice? -What else?

-What’s the punctuation doing?

-How does it sound as we read it? -What would change if we removed this or that?

Building the Compound

Sentence Pattern

,

.

I want to go, but I have to clean my room.

A compound sentence contains two subjects and

two predicates. A conjunction is used to combine the two sentences. F - for A - and N - nor B - but O - or Y - yet S - so

Compound Sentences

Notice, Notice, Notice

I hit a double, and then everything changed.

He forgot his lunch money, so he had to eat a peanut butter sandwich.

I thought I lost my homework, but it was under my bed.

Build Grammar Section of

Writer’s Notebook

• Explain principle

• Students cut and paste principle and mentor sentence in writer’s notebook.

Subsequent days…

• Students imitate sentence and/or pattern

• Leave room below -- encourage students to find more sentences from their reading to add

Let’s Give it a Try

• Invitation to imitate

I sat near the back with Stephen, and he kept pestering me.

Stephen is my best friend, but I’m not sure he would admit it.

There was only about a block to go before our bus stop, but I couldn’t stand Stephen’s

whining.

Let’s Give it a Try

• Invitation to imitate

I sat near the back with Stephen, and he kept pestering me.

I sat on the floor with Harry, and he kept licking me.

Next Steps

• Add compound sentence(s) to daily writing • Collect sentences

• Practice combining

I tried calling her as soon as I got home from school.

Celebrating Grammar

• For homework have children, “Shop the

World” looking for sentences that follow the pattern (or have them write one)

• Share the sentences aloud

• Celebrate, reread, compare, contrast, enjoy, and review the craft of grammar • Display sentences all over the room

If struggling readers need to see a word forty times to learn it (Beers 2002), then I’ll make a leap and say students need to see grammar and mechanics rules highlighted in different contexts at least as many times

to own them. - Jeff Anderson

Principles We’ve Learned

• Construction of a Simple Sentence

Subject + Verb + stands on its own

• Construction of a Compound Sentence Sentence, + Conjunction +

sentence.

Moving on…

Dependent

Vs.

Independent

If independence means to stand on your own, what does dependence

What did you notice in

those lyrics?

• Now, it's your turn to

write some lyrics.

Write 10 of your own "If I had a million

dollars," lyrics.

• Make sure to follow it

with a comma!

AAAWWUBBIS!!!

...the most used subordinating

conjunctions

Invitation to Notice

They are shouting your name, asking if dinner is ready yet.

-Jim Grisley, Winter Birds

Abraham was growing fast, shooting up like a sunflower.

-Russell Freedman, Lincoln: A Photobiography

Furlough found his brother in the library, standing on the top of the great open book.

-Kate DiCamillo, The Tale of Despereaux

Independent clause

(Simple sentence)

An Independent Clause

•Is a sentence

•Stands on its own

But sometimes we want more

Pictures or images

Information

Specifics

Description

So how do we add information to our sentences without making run-on or incorrect sentences?

We can write complex

sentences.

Not all of our sentences have to be short; We need long and short sentences.

What you add to the sentence

• Can’t be a whole new sentence

Independent

This has a noun and a verb Does it stand on its own?

Does it express a complete thought?

independent clause (sentence)

Let’s Give it a Try

There are three basic complex

sentence patterns

• Add information at the beginning of a sentence

• Add information in the middle of a sentence

,

closing

.

Beginning

,

,

interrupting

,

Complex Sentences

The three basic patterns…

Where should we add the

dependent?

At the Beginning?, Middle?, End?

• Which one sounds the best?

Flapping its wings

,

the duck flew.

The duck

,

flapping its wings

,

flew.

The duck flew

,

flapping its wings.

You are the artist you get to decide which is best.

Dependents can be many things, but they will always:

> Begin

> Interrupt > Close

Express Lane Edits

• Support students in integrating the

grammar skills they have learned into their writing.

• Ask students to edit for one grammar skill that you have taught.

• Students record the “item to check out” or skill they edit for. Students record the “receipt” or changes they have made.

When I was five, I remember riding

around in my dads taxi. He was proud of his taxi. He kept it’s interior spotless. Hed spend one day a week cleaning every

spot on the car. My sister and I loved to run around the car, playing tag and

listening to the music from the radio. It seemed when we drove in it we werent allowed to breathe or touch anything.

We need to teach

students that sentences

are as much fun to

build – and play around

with as Lego castles.

You build them, stand back to check

them out, break them up and build