I agree and, like Bev, have already suggested that Gretchen has the
makings of a great book for a wide variety of teachers. Her students
are fortunate to have her as their teacher, and we benefit from
having her on this listserv. Please keep the terrific tips coming!
Linda Comerford
Comerford Consulting
---- Original Message ----
From: [log in to unmask]
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Silly, rewarding grammar period
Date: Sun, 9 Sep 2007 12:40:38 +0000
>
>Gretchen,
>
>Thanks for sharing your successful grammar lessons. This is very
>helpful to
>me.
>
>
>--
>
>Christine Reintjes Martin
>[log in to unmask]
>
>
>
>
>----Original Message Follows----
>From: Gretchen Lee <[log in to unmask]>
>Reply-To: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar
><[log in to unmask]>
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: Silly, rewarding grammar period
>Date: Fri, 7 Sep 2007 15:53:24 EDT
>
>Hi,
>
>I'm sure this is of no interest to the college folks, but I had to
>write.
>I
>am teaching a class for middle school grammar-phobes this trimester.
> We
>are
>having so much fun! We have been looking at nouns - these are kids
>who
>could not pick out a noun reliably, and some are in eighth grade.
>
>We played noun bingo today. I gave them a blank bingo card and they
>got to
>fill in any nouns they wanted to use. Listening to the incredible
>analyses
>that went on was so rewarding. They have finally figured out that one
> noun
>can
>be classified several different ways, and they spent ten minutes
>trying to
>figure out the most "juicy" nouns - nouns that fit in the most
>classifications.
>
>Was "Metallica" anything other than a proper noun and a collective
>noun?
>Could it be concrete because you could touch the band? Was it
>countable?
>What
>about "rage"? A child could have rages - did pluralizing it make it
>concrete? Was that like tantrums? If you used "John's," did it
>count for
>both proper
>and possessive? And, "Hey, Mrs. Le, he used it for plural, even
>though it
>had an apostrophe!!" The best part was when things were ambiguous,
>and
>suddenly their cases for a given classification had just as much
>justification as
>mine ("Mrs. Le, is "sky" concrete? There's really no such thing, ya
>know.
>We
>just learned about the stratosphere last year, and there's really no
>such
>thing as sky. I want to use it as abstract; it's really more of an
>idea!"
>Etc.)
>
>All this for four Teddy Grahams.
>
>These kids are having so much fun, and suddenly they "get" it. My
>biggest
>grammar-phobe from last year begged me to let the class look at
>pronouns
>next,
>because he remembered that there were lots of "classes" and he
>thinks he'll
>get them now.
>
>So much of this is mind set. Because it's an elective that they
>chose to
>take, their attitudes are so different. We'll see if it holds up,
>but so
>far
>no sign of the frustration I saw last year.
>
>On to Parts-of-Speech Go Fish! Does anyone have any possessive
>pronouns?
>
>~Gretchen
>
>
>
>************************************** Get a sneak peek of the
>all-new AOL
>at
>http://discover.aol.com/memed/aolcom30tour
>
>To join or leave this LISTSERV list, please visit the list's web
>interface
>at:
> http://listserv.muohio.edu/archives/ateg.html
>and select "Join or leave the list"
>
>Visit ATEG's web site at http://ateg.org/
>
>_________________________________________________________________
>More photos; more messages; more whatever. Windows Live Hotmail - NOW
>with
>5GB storage.
>http://imagine-windowslive.com/hotmail/?locale=en-us&ocid=TXT_TAGHM_m
>igration_HM_mini_5G_0907
>
>To join or leave this LISTSERV list, please visit the list's web
>interface at:
> http://listserv.muohio.edu/archives/ateg.html
>and select "Join or leave the list"
>
>Visit ATEG's web site at http://ateg.org/
To join or leave this LISTSERV list, please visit the list's web interface at:
http://listserv.muohio.edu/archives/ateg.html
and select "Join or leave the list"
Visit ATEG's web site at http://ateg.org/
|
