Teaching Grammar

I remember sitting in Mrs. Olsen's 6th grade language arts class, learning the parts of speech and other aspects of grammar. Put simply, it was boring.

To this day, I don't break sentences down or focus on having perfect grammar in a paper--what I care about is the substance. I want my thoughts to be noticed, not the mis-use of a comma.

Sure--I want my paper to read well and to make sense and I enjoy using semi-colons correctly when able, but grammar is not at the forefront of my mind when writing or even reading other peers papers.

I do think basic grammar skills are important--if a paper has too many issues with simple things like punctuation or proper capitalization then it can distract from the paper itself. That's where I agree with what Constance Weaver stated the following in her article, "Teaching Grammar in the Context of Writing": "teaching grammar in the context of writing might be much more effective than teaching grammar as a separate subject."

I also really agree with the 5-part "scope-not-sequence" chart she mentioned. Yes, it's important to possess basic grammar skills but teach those skills through actual writing--not through a stale lesson that doesn't incorporate those skills. Let the students see the grammar in action as they utilize them to improve their writing.

"In many cases the teacher drags out worksheets and instructs students to underline nouns and verbs or perform other tasks isolated from their own actual writing. These out-of-context exercises are not "writing" and, in fact, may even make writing worse," states Patricia Dunn in her blog post.

A student will be much more apt to understand a principle of grammar by actually applying it to their own writing--it's closer to home.

Grammar doesn't have to be boring--teachers can get creative and try to make it a fun learning experience. I found this link to 12 unique ways to teach grammar.