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|Increasing Student Engagement in Grammar Instruction by Alexa Hayes |

Example Bookmark: Example Discovery Activity

|Commas are used: |

|to combine 2 independent clauses joined by|

|a conjunction |

|Ex: I read the book, and I loved it. |

|after introductory (dependent) clauses |

|Ex: If you want to read a good book, you |

|should read 13 Reasons Why. |

|after introductory words (yes, no, well, |

|however,) |

|Ex: No, I don’t like horror novels. |

|in a series |

|Ex: I love mystery, sci-fi, and adventure |

|novels. |

|to surround appositives |

|Ex: Sarah Dessen, my favorite author, has |

|a book coming out soon. |

|to surround interrupters |

|Ex: Stephen King, of course, is one of the|

|greatest writers of our time. |

|to separate the speaker from what they say|

|in quotes |

|Ex: “No,” I said. |

|to separate the day and year in dates |

|Ex: November 14, 2011 |

|to separate a city and state |

|Ex: We go to school in Haslett, Michigan. |

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Overview & Inquiry Question

Grammar. We have to teach it, but our students don’t tend to like it and often struggle with it. We, as teachers, often struggle to find interesting ways of teaching it and engaging students in it. The goal becomes how to teach grammar concepts in interesting, engaging, and authentic ways. The following are several strategies and activities I have found useful in achieving this goal.

• Bookmarks: Kylene Beers recommends using bookmarks to help students learn vocabulary words. I co-opted this idea and created comma bookmarks. During our grammar unit on commas, students were responsible for understanding 9 comma rules. I provided them with a quick reference guide in the form of a bookmark. Students taped their laminated bookmarks to their binders or used them as actual bookmarks. When they were doing practice worksheets, writing essays, or even reading the current book of our unit, they could use their bookmarks to help them identify comma rules.

• Grammar Discovery Activities: Grammar discovery activities are completed in small groups of 2-3. I used this for commas and for homophones. Each group receives a half sheet of paper that has example sentences of a specific homophone pair or comma rule. They have to study the sentences given to them to come up with the rule. For concepts that will be very unfamiliar to students, include a hint on the half-sheet. As students work in their small groups, walk around and give additional hints when necessary. Then, once each group has a rule, students present their findings to the class. Students who are not presenting should be taking notes on a graphic organizer. This strategy is successful because students have a part in constructing the knowledge about the topic; thus, they are more likely to engage in it and to remember it. Additionally, students have the opportunity to work collaboratively and share ideas with each other, something that my students always enjoyed doing.

• Theme-based Grammar PowerPoints: While this is no groundbreaking strategy, I highly recommend it. When you create a grammar PowerPoint, pick a theme around which to center it. The theme topic should be age appropriate and something that would interest your students. For two consecutive grammar units, I embedded a love story into my PowerPoint on predicate nominatives, predicate adjectives, direct objects, and objects of a preposition. This love story was fitting as the first unit was concurrent with Romeo & Juliet and my students enjoyed love stories, whether it was for the romance or for making fun of them. Each of our sub-topics in the grammar unit had its own part of the story. We would then analyze sentences from the story for the topic we were discussing. Students always looked forward to hearing the next part of the story; the cliffhangers created anticipation so that they looked forward to the next grammar topic. Some possible themes could include prom, winter or spring break, pets, sports, movies, or music. You could even have them vote on which theme they would prefer!

• Add-on Stories: This was my students’ favorite grammar activity to do. Give the students a creative story starter. The more ludicrous you make it, the more they enjoy creating the story! The first story starter I gave them was “I have a dragon named Sparky.” The first person in each row puts the group members’ names on the paper and writes the story starter. Keep your groups to 5 students or less. Then, when you yell go, the first student in the row writes the next line of the story. He/she labels the sentence with whatever grammar topic you are working on. For instance, if students are studying direct objects and objects of a preposition, students must underline the direct object or object of a preposition in their sentence and then label it as one or the other. As a class, before you yell go, label the story starter so they have a model off of which to work. After the first person in each row of desks has written his/her sentence, he/she passes the paper back and the next person writes and labels the next sentence. This process continues until you say that time is up. This activity could be adapted for homophones, comma rules, parts of speech, punctuation, capitalization, and other topics as well. It mixes competition with creativity, both of which engage students. You can then use the students’ stories as extra practice; type up their stories and create practice worksheets. Be sure to leave time at the end of the hour to read the stories aloud. You can even hand out a prize to the row with the most correctly labeled words.

• Quote Quizzes: Jeff Anderson in Mechanically Inclined had his students identify grammar concepts in what he calls “mentor texts.” My students identified the grammar topics we were studying in the texts we were reading in class. Additionally, practice worksheets and the quizzes they took had sentences from other mentor texts such as books, movies, poems, songs, and quotes. These are authentic examples; by this I mean that students are identifying the grammar concepts that are present in real world phrases and sentences. In turn, this makes the grammar topics seem more authentic. Using these master or mentor texts allowed me to bring in some of their interests, like movies and music. It also provided them with a challenge that they were eager to take on: could they identify where the sentences came from? You can also take it a step further and have students create the quizzes by submitting quotes of their own choosing. This activity is so successful because it provides an authentic context for exploring grammar, while also acknowledging students’ interests.

Resources

* Mechanically Inclined by Jeff Anderson

*When Kids Can’t Read by Kylene Beers

Additional ideas

*Grammar Valentines or Post Cards: Students write each other valentines or post cards and have to identify the unit’s grammar topics in the sentences that they write. They can then exchange cards and repeat the process in their replies. Students love to pass notes. Use it to your advantage!

*Grammar Royalty- There never seems to be enough time to do all the practice you want to do with your students. Give them the option to do some independent grammar practice. Create supplemental activities that they can choose to complete on their own time. Assign point values to each activity. On the day of the grammar quiz, count up who has the most supplemental points. Crown the student grammar queen or king of his/her hour!

Group 8- Directions: Use the example sentences below to come up with the comma rule(s) which apply.

← My cat was born December 23, 2010.

← My cat was born on December 23, 2010, in Lansing.

← My cat was born in December 2010 in Lansing.

Hint: Label how many commas are in each sentence. When do you need one comma, two commas, or no comma?

Comma Rules: (3)

One comma:

Two Commas:

No Comma:

Example Theme-based PowerPoint Slide:

Part 1 of the Love Story: (predicate adjectives & nominatives)

□ Once upon a time there were two students, Sally & Johnny.

□ Sally was a girl. She was 16 years old. She was terribly shy. She stuttered every time someone talked to her. She was a very good student though. She focused on her studies. She didn’t have any friends and had never been out on a date.

□ Then one day, Johnny, a cute boy in her class, asked her out. Sally was a mystery to Johnny. Johnny wanted to get to know her. Nervously, Sally said yes to the date.

Example Quote Quiz Question Submitted by a Student:

Example Add-on Story:

By Row 1, 2nd Hr:

I have a dragon named Sparky. (DO)

He is a very bad dragon. (PA)

Sparky fights with a narwhal that has two horns and is crazy. (OOAP, PA)

The narwhal is a weird and deformed creature. (PN)

They soon begin to fall in love, and their kiss is long. (PA)

But then a hunter with a harpoon gun blew the narwhals brains out of the back of his head. (OOAP, OOAP)

Sparky ran to the hunter and killed him. (OOAP, DO)

Sparky then saw another hideous narwhal and fell in deep love. (OOAP)

Sparky and his love made a family and lived in New York. (OOAP)

The End

1) “You seem quite nice for a girl with good looks.”

*Subject: _______________

*Verb:__________________

*predicate nominative or predicate adjective or neither

*Challenge: Source of Quote-:_________________________________

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