All,
     Thank you for the discussion, the civility throughout the
discourse, and the descriptions and suggestions for teaching nouns.

     John, when teaching 2nd graders, I like the idea of using visuals
(the fruit) to explain the inflectional morpheme "s." But might it be
possible that your suggestion of using pronoun substitutes to locate
nouns could be misunderstood? For example, Craig wrote:
"Or how about 'I did escape, but my escape was short-lived.' Is escape a
noun in both instances? It passes the noun test, as do so many other
words that are both nouns and verbs or nouns and adjectives."
Substituting "it" for "escape" in the first instance ("I did [it]")
could throw a curve ball into the mix, especially since "it"  can be
substituted for the word "escape" in both instances.

Diane





On Sat, Jul 12, 2008 at 2:29 AM, John Crow <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Hi Tabetha,
>
> I agree with John Alexander in that the way to teach nouns is to use a
> functional or operational approach.  To me, when teaching grammar, the best
> approach is to build from what students already know, and to do so in a
> manner that lets them discover the concept.  Even 2nd graders would be able
> to handle something like the following:
>
> Bring two each of the following to class:  apple, grape, banana.  Show the
> students one apple and ask them what it is.  Then show them both apples and
> ask them again.  Repeat with each fruit.  Then ask them to tell you what
> letter (or sound) they added when you changed from one to two.  Now intro
> the word "noun," telling them that "apple," "grape," and "banana" are all
> nouns.  Ask them what letter you can add to a noun if you need to.  They
> will say "s."  Then ask them what they have discovered about nouns.  They
> will tell you that you can add "s" to it.  Ask them what it means when you
> add "s" and they will tell you.  Then look at "foot."  They will know, of
> course, that you cannot have "foots."  I'll skip the details and skip to the
> main point:  What you are trying to do is get them to "discover" that nouns
> can normally be made plural, usually by adding "s".  Once they grasp that
> concept, they become noun-identifying geniuses.  ("Is 'idea' a noun?
> Sure--one idea, two ideas.")  I think with 2nd graders I would stop there,
> but you have to be prepared to deal with words like "chalk"--frames are OK
> (the ___________), but proper nouns often do not fit.  I prefer pronoun
> substitution as a good test for nouns.  (You can't say "the Texas" but Texas
> is an "it.")
>
> Tying what you are trying to teach to what they already know (albeit
> subconsciously) is much more effective than teaching a definition that they
> memorize, but that does not connect.
>
> (If you use this with your pre-service class, for practice, ask them to come
> up with an operational definition of a verb.)
>
> I agree with Craig:  we have to fundamentally change the way teachers THINK
> about grammar if we want our teaching to stick and to transfer to
> real-language situations.
>
> John
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