Montessori grammar operates on the same idea of asking questions to identify
key parts of speech.
Nancy L. Tuten, PhD
Professor of English
Director of the Writing-across-the-Curriculum Program
Columbia College
Columbia, South Carolina
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803-786-3706
-----Original Message-----
From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of John Crow
Sent: Monday, April 04, 2005 4:51 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Washington
Johanna,
Much of what you do is EXACTLY how I handle grammar instruction. I
use "It is true that _______" as a frame for fragments--a very minor
difference--and don't get into the tensed verb part of a sentence
definition. Otherwise, we are amazingly in synch!
Do others out there have interesting slants on how to tie grammar
instruction to existing language competency? Do you work top down,
bottom up, or both?
Thanks, Johanna, for taking the time to make such a lucid explanation
of your approach. Fabulous!!
John
On Apr 3, 2005 6:54 PM, Jo Rubba <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> John,
>
> Some tips on identifying clauses and independent clauses -- separating
> subject and predicate is a first step to telling whether something is a
> clause or not, and then finding the verb for later tests.
>
> Always start with simpler sentences with normal subject-verb-everything
> else order, then move on to variations.
>
> 1) Subject finding via tag questions:
>
> Students know how to form tag questions. Give them a base sentence like
> a., and ask them to add a tag, as in b. Model this once, then they
> should get it.
>
> a. Your mother is a surgeon.
> b. Your mother is a surgeon, isn't she? ("isn't she" is the TAG; b. is
> a tag question.)
>
> Take the pronoun in the tag (if the term "pronoun" is a problem, just
> make a list of all the subject pronouns on the board, and students can
> look for the one they use to make the tag).
>
> Take that pronoun and use it as an "eraser" in the base sentence (a.).
> Make sure you erase whatever is needed to keep the sentence sounding
> sensible:
>
> a. Your mother is a surgeon.
> c. She is a surgeon. "she" erases "your mother" -- it doesn't just
> erase "mother", as "your she is a surgeon" is not grammatical.
>
> Expand the subject slowly:
>
> a. The children in the preschool make paper dolls in the afternoon,
> don't they?
> b. They make paper dolls ... (not "they in the preschool").
>
> Once the subject is found, in most cases, the rest of the sentence is
> the predicate.
>
> When working with "transformed" (non-basic word order) sentences,
> restore basic order:
>
> c. In the afternoon, the children in the preschool make paper dolls. --
> restore to a. before looking for subject. Notice that this also helps
> isolate the prep. phrase.
>
> Finding verbs: tell students to look for the word that they can change
> between present and past. Start with one-verb sentences:
>
> a. Your mother is/was a surgeon.
> b. The President vetos/vetoed the bills.
>
> Working with auxiliary verbs, ask students where they would put "not";
> then the aux is in front of "not", the main verb after:
>
> c. The President has NOT vetoed the bills.
>
> Start with sentences that have no intervening adverb, unlike:
>
> d. The President has consistently vetoed the bills.
>
> Eventually, make students aware of those. They can test them as adverb
> vs. part of the verb phrase by moving them around:
>
> e. The President has vetoed the bills consistently. works but
> f. The President has consistently the bills vetoed. does not
>
> They can then determine whether something is a clause or not by looking
> for a subject and predicate that go together. (I define clause as having
> a subject and predicate; I don't call participial phrases such as
> "looking frantically around" clauses, just to make it easier to detect
> clauses).
>
> Sentence completeness: You have to start with shorter sentences to do
> this, and it is also best to restore basic order to a "transformed"
> sentence:
>
> a. Remove "and, or, but, neither, nor" if the sentence starts with that.
> Do not remove anything other than these words.
> b. Put the sentence in the blank after "that" in:
> I am convinced that ____. DO NOT CHANGE ANY WORDING IN THE TEST FRAME
> OR THE SENTENCE BEING TESTED apart from removing "and, but", etc.
>
> I) I am convined that your mother is a surgeon. works
> ii) I am convinced that your mother being a surgeon. doesn't work.
> iii) I am convinced that vetoing the bills. doesn't work
> iv) I am convinced that because the President vetoed the bills. doesn't
> work.
>
> Students will be able to judge these just by their subconscious
> knowledge of English; it's a quick thumbs-up or -down judgment. WILL
> ONLY WORK FOR NATIVE OR NEAR-NATIVE SPEAKERS!!!!
>
> As your students get practice with simpler sentences in basic order, you
> can work with ever longer and more-complicated sentences, including ones
> in real text.
>
> My definition for "sentence" (which will, so far as I know, agree with
> every K-12 pedagogical grammar out there) is: A sentence is a string
> that contains at least one subject-predicate pair, that has one
> tense-marked (present, past or future) verb, and that passes the "I am
> convinced that" test. (Actually, the tensed verb criterion is
> dispensable, since strings without one will not pass the "I am convinced
> that" test).
>
> Perhaps you do this already, but I believe that, in working with their
> own writing, students should:
>
> a - start with pieces of only one or two paragraphs.
> b - look for different things in multiple passes -- one pass for
> "incomplete sentences", one for subj-verb agreement, etc.
>
> They can edit longer pieces as they become fluent with the shorter ones.
>
> Your ideas for making the class fun are terrific. Teachers and language
> experts need to work together. Teachers are often better at creative
> lesson plans, and also are better at knowing what their students can
> handle. The language experts can explain the grammar and provide tricks
> like the above.
>
> Let me know what you think of these tricks.
>
> ***************************************************
> Johanna Rubba, Associate Professor, Linguistics
> English Department, Cal Poly State University
> San Luis Obispo, CA 93407
> Tel. 805-756-2184 ~ Dept. phone 805-756-2596
> Dept. fax: 805-756-6374 ~ E-mail: [log in to unmask]
> URL: http://www.cla.calpoly.edu/~jrubba
> ***************************************************
>
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