John,

I usually have a fair amount of success in the steps you suggest.  When
students compose essays, I have them identify verbs and subjects in
each sentence.  Here is what one of my best sixth graders identified as
verbs in his own writing ...

"As Palin (continues) his climb, the mountain continues to (wear) away
his morale."

This is a student who identified all prepositional phrases in his
grammar test some months ago and has a strong understanding of grammar.

Marcia Alessi
Los Angeles


On May 10, 2005, at 2:53 AM, John Crow wrote:

> Prepositions are very slippery little things to define formally.
> However, your students have been using prepositional phrases in their
> speech with amazing accuracy for many years now.  So they know what
> prep. phrases are; they just don't know that they know it.
>
> Here's how I approach it:  I write the following sentence on the board:
>
> The book is ________ the table.
>
> I then ask students to fill in the blank.  Several options come forth,
> as you might imagine.  This allows me to say a few words about the
> role of prepositions in this sentence:  without one, the reader has no
> idea how "the table" relates to "the book."  So that's what
> prepositions do:  they show how one noun phrase relates to another.
>
> Next, we examine a passage as follows:  I read a sentence and then ask
> the students to show how many prep. phrases they see in it by holding
> up the correct number of fingers.  Then we go through and identify
> each prep. and its object (assuming there are any).  After a few
> sample sentences, most students get the hang of it.  You can then take
> it anywhere you would like.
>
> Attempts to teach prepositions without tying that knowledge back to
> what students already know about English is ineffective.  I attended a
> session last year at NCTE where the presenters proudly demonstrated
> that students could memorize a list of alphabetized prepositions by
> singing them to the tune of Pop Goes the Weasel.  Give me a break . .
> . .
>
> John
>
>
>
Marcia Alessi
Language Arts & Social Studies
Sixth Grade
St. Paul the Apostle School
Los Angeles, California

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