Transcript Slide 1 - Amy Benjamin

Engaging Grammar: Practical Advice for Real Classrooms
Presented by Amy Benjamin
www.amybenjamin.com
“ I’ve never known a person
who wasn’t interested in language.”
-Steven Pinker, The Language
Instinct
GRAMMAR IN THE HEART OF THE WRITING PROCESS:
8 Sentence-Crafting Techniques:
1. Prepositional phrase sentence
openers
2. Strong action verbs
3. Noun phrase appositives
4. Appositive adjective pairs
5. Choosing active or passive voice
6. Adverbial clauses
7. Semicolon in a compound sentence
8. Parallel structure
Pre-writing
experience:
(non-sentence
form)
Drafting
Revising
Editing
Point of
intervention for
substantial
language
improvement
Point of
intervention
for surface
error correction
Publication
I.
Cesar Chavez helped the farm workers.
He advocated for them. He did not
encourage violence. He led a boycott
instead of violence. The boycott was an
effective method of resistance. (30)
II.
Cesar Chavez helped the farm workers,
and he advocated for them. He did not
encourage violence. He led a boycott
instead of violence, and the boycott
was an effective method of resistance.
(32)
III.
Cesar Chavez, advocate for farm
workers, helped them not by
encouraging violence, but by leading
a boycott, an effective
method of resistance. (22)
Grammatical choices have
rhetorical effects.
There was Craig, the basketball-star brother, tall and friendly
and courteous and funny, working as an investment banker
but dreaming of going into coaching someday.
Techniques:
1. Appositive: Craig, the basketball-star brother,
2. Loose sentence: Subject-verb established upfront, followed
by well-developed modifier structures (including four postnoun adjectives)
3. Polysyndeton (“and” between modifiers to emphasize each
one)
4. Parallel structure: working…but dreaming…
5. Verbals: working, dreaming, going
Barack Obama, The Audacity of Hope
It was the very witching time of night. Ichabod was heavy-hearted and
crestfallen. He pursued his travels homewards…
It was the very witching time of night when Ichabod, heavy-hearted and
crestfallen, pursued his travels homewards…
Techniques:
1. Adverbial clause: …when Ichabod….
2. Post-noun adjective pair: Ichabod, heavy-hearted and
crestfallen, ….
“The Legend of Sleep Hollow” by Washington Irving
Grammar and the Gertie Ball™
“Grammar and the Gertie Ball™” gets you going on rhetorical grammar, the kind of thinking about
sentence structure that allows us to make informed choices about how we craft sentences.
“Grammar and the Gertie Ball™” is played only when the students have their rough drafts in hand.
The idea is to have the students toss the ball to determine which of the eight sentence-crafting
techniques to put into play on one of the sentences in their drafts.
The 8 Sentence-Crafting Techniques:
1. Prepositional phrase sentence
To set up Grammar and the Gertie Ball™, use a
openers
permanent marker to write the techniques, one in
2. Strong action verbs
each of the sections delineated on the ball.
3. Noun phrase appositives
4. Appositive adjective pairs
In the beginning stages, have one student toss the
5. Choosing active or passive voice
ball on behalf of the class to determine the technique
6. Adverbial clauses
to be practiced.
7. Semicolon in a compound sentence
8. Parallel structure
You will then deliver a brief lesson on the designated
technique. Students are expected to demonstrate knowledge
of the technique by transforming at least one of the sentences
in their draft. They need to hi-light this sentence on their
final draft.
Eventually, students will be able to work in groups to
accomplish their revisions.
Presented by Amy Benjamin. www.amybenjamin.com
Full guidelines for each of these skills
are available free of charge on
www.amybenjamin.com. Go to
“recent presentations” and “grammar.”
The Difference Between Revision and Editing
Revision is about transforming:
Content: Through the pre-writing and
drafting stages, the writer may develop
a new conception of where the whole
piece wants to go.
Organization: The writer may rearrange
sentences or paragraphs. The writer
will probably want to add transitions:
in and out of paragraphs and from
sentence to sentence within paragraphs
Language: The writer should be upgrading
vocabulary to be interesting, varied, and
appropriate for the audience. The writer
should also be combining sentences,
eliminating redundancy, and using other
rhetorical techniques that make the
language more powerful and efficient.
Editing is about correcting:
Agreement:
Subject-verb
Pronoun-antecedent
Pronoun case
Adjectival
Adverbial
Usage:
Proper verb forms
Consistency of verb tense
Clarity:
Placement of sentence elements
Spelling
Capitalization
Punctuation
Inadvertently omitted or ineffectively
repeated words
Overall presentation and “look”
of the piece
Meaning: Did you do what the question asked you to do?
(Also called: focus, addressing the task )
Language:
Is your word choice
(diction) appropriate,
efficient,
interesting, and varied?
Development:
Is your sentence structure
(syntax) appropriate, efficient,
interesting, and varied?
Revision
Do you have sufficient
supportive information, such
as: reasons, examples,
anecdotes, textual reference,
proof
Have you written from the
appropriate P.O.V?
Organization:
Is your language tone
(register) appropriate
for your
audience?
Do you give your reader enough
transitional words between and
within paragraphs?
Do your introduction and conclusion serve
your purpose?
Editing:
Surface Features, such as:
Grammatical mismatches
and errors
Spelling, capitalization,
punctuation
How to use the ACTION FLASH CARDS to expand sentence skills:
Have students express what is happening in the action flash card using
various sentence forms:
Step One: Explain what is happening in your action flash card.
Step Two: Now, experiment with many different ways to write your sentence:
Ex: Begin with There is/ There are____________
Don’t begin with the or a
Write a yes/no question
Write a Who? or What? or When? or Where? or Why? question
Write a sentence that has an -ING word
Write a sentence that has a word in it that you’ve never written before
Write a sentence that does not use IS or ARE or WAS or WERE
Write a sentence that uses BECAUSE in the middle. Reverse that
sentence to have BECAUSE as the first word
Write a sentence that uses SO in the middle
Write a sentence that needs two commas
Write a sentence that shows a detail
Write a sentence that could be the first sentence of a story
Write a sentence that could be the last sentence of a story
Kinds of Information
Noun Phrases:
Who?
What?
Adjective Structures
Which one?
What kind?
How many?
Verb structures:
What is its action?
What is its nature?
Adverb structures:
Where?
When?
Why?
In what manner?
How often?
Core Sentence: Who or what? What about it?
Phrases and clauses can do
Adjective information: Which one? What kind?
How many?
Adverbial information: Where? When?
Why? To what extent? How often?
In what manner?
the work of adjectives and
adverbs by answering the
questions that adjectives
and adverbs answer.
Core Sentence: Who or what? What about it?
Extension:
Write one well-developed sentence for
each of the four major communicative
purposes:
•
To inform
•
To persuade
•
To entertain
•
To socialize
Phrases and clauses can do
Adjective information: Which one? What kind?
How many?
Adverbial information: Where? When?
Why? To what extent? How often?
In what manner?
the work of adjectives and
adverbs by answering the
questions that adjectives
and adverbs answer.
Morphology Chart
NOUNS:
VERBS:
ADJECTIVES:
ADVERBS:
They will fit into the frame:
The_____.
They will fit into the
frame:
Can______
(or) Can be_______
They answer one of these
questions:
Which one?
What kind?
How many?
They answer one of these
questions:
Where? When? Why?
To what extent? How
often?
In what manner?
Regular verbs have
four forms:
Base form; -s form; -ed form;
-ing form
Although most verbs in their
-ed and –ing forms can be used
as adjectives, you don’t have to
repeat the forms in this column.
The adjectives that will be in this
chart will answer, “What kind?”
The adverbs that will be in this
chart will answer, “In what
manner?”
It’s easier to teach parts of speech than you think. Simply use the cues above. Use the morphology chart
to illustrate how a word can change its forms, adapting itself to more than one part of speech. Not all words
follow the same morphology. It’s interesting to see how words morph into different forms. The morphology
chart is great for grammar lessons, vocabulary expansion, and spelling. See www.amybenjamin.com for
blank and sample morphology charts.