Not One Grammar, but Many Types of Grammar

Before reading this article (The Grammar of Context: Breakfast, Bumper Stickers, and Beyond), I hadn't thought about there being many different types of grammar because growing up my teachers had just drilled grammar into me. It wasn't fun and no one liked to learn about. Although I think now there are many effective ways to teach grammar in the classroom where students will be engaged. I found a great article that talks about great advice to correct grammar in a middle school classroom. It makes a lot of good points about exposing students to good examples of grammar and also how being a grammar police will ruin it. 


As a teacher we can silently correct the grammar but we don't want to overwhelm students with mistakes on their papers. Grammar is more than misspelled words and punctuation and that's why there isn't only one type of grammar. In each situation that your student is writing in their is a different type of grammar that is associated. The article talks about many different examples of activities or examples that you can look at to give students examples of these different types of grammar.

 For example they talk about the back of cereal box which was very interesting and something that I hadn't thought of before. From the back you can look at the audience intended and punctuation that was chosen and even the types of sentences used. Most of these things depend upon the audience that the author is trying to reach. I think it is hard for parents to see this as teaching grammar because for them grammar wasn't taught that way but teaching it this way is more beneficial and teaching grammar in isolation doesn't help students with using it in their writing. The connection of having these examples and having students practice these will have way more meaning than having separate grammar lessons.

The Importance of Using Professional Writing In Classrooms

I think that writing in classrooms can be a lot of fun but sometimes it can be hard to see when students will use that in the real world. I think it is important to spark creativity in writing as well but I think as a teacher its important to give students examples of where they will use writing in the real world.


It may be hard to think of professional writing situations but there are many that everyone has experienced. One example that the reading by Bush and Zuidema addresses is the idea of sub plans. We know the audience of sub plans is the teacher that is substituting but the students are also the audience because they will do experiencing or doing what was written in those sub plans. As teachers we need to make sure that those sub plans are clear so that the teacher will understand what they need to do with the students so that the time they are there is productive

There are of course many other examples of professional writing that after student's graduate from college will be using. In every profession that students are going into some type of writing will be required of them. As a teacher I think that it is important that we prepare students for these types of writing assignments that will be asked of them in the future. Teachers need to be aware of this type of professional writing especially since it will also be asked of them in their profession. We write directions, worksheets for students and we also write emails between colleague. It is everywhere we go. It can give students a purpose in their writing if they know its for an audience other than the teacher. Many students will want to know why we are doing an assignment and connecting these assignments to professional writing well show the relevance for them. I think students will be more engaged if they know its something that they need for their future. Also there is a great book for teachers that shows the different ways in which this professional writing could work in a classroom. It talks about using real world writing and doing that through mentoring and modeling.

Ways for students to respond to Literature

Literature is such an important thing to be incorporated into the classroom and something students should enjoy, but sometimes we have teachers that can ruin that. We have all had that teacher back in the day that only had one right answer when it came to interpretations. This makes students not want to try to answer questions because they are worried about getting the answer wrong. Literature has more than one interpretation. I think as a teacher that is something that we need to keep in mind. We need to allow students to come up with their own interpretations of the text and as long as they are able to back up what they are saying we should accept that. Another thing about teaching literature to students is that they should feel a personal connection to it. Their personal connection or background is very important because that is going to influence how they feel about the text. It will add to their interpretation of the text. I found a great cite that talks about how to get students involved in reading and making it something fun. I think if students can find some type of connections to a text they are able to be more involved and engaged in reading it. It can be hard sometime to find a text that speaks to all students but when teachers are trying to find something engaging they should make sure that it connects to students culturally and to their experience as Tchudi mentioned in the reading. I think that can sometimes be a challenge in classrooms especially in a school that is very diverse. Even when you find that book that speaks to students or spark that connection it can be hard to have students get into deep discussion about it. I know that there are students that won't participate in that discussion. I used to be one of those students because I always had that teacher that would look for a particular interpretation. I think that has ruined my take on discussions and that is something that teachers need to make sure they don't do. We need to take as many interpretations as possible and not make students feel as though they are always wrong.

Evaluation, Grading, and Assessment, Not the Same Thing

Many teachers and parents of students in secondary education think that these three words: Evaluation, Grading, and Assessment are the same exact thing. They are very mistaken. These are three different steps that are very important to student's while they are learning to write.


Each one of these steps help to improve student writing. Assessment is seeing where the student is at with their writing or what they are able to accomplish. Also seeing what students finish or complete can be a good way to assess where they are in the writing process. Evaluation is quite different from that because this is the part in the process where we add our  judgement to the process of writing. We want to have a rubric for students to show them what we as teachers are looking for so that we can evaluate them based on that criteria and so that their fellow students can do the same in peer review. We can also have our students assess themselves on these criteria so they can tell us where they think they are and how well their writing is fitting into that criteria. Grading is the point where we actually put a letter grade on the stuff that students turn into us. The best way to grade student writing would be pass or fail but according to many school districts we have to put a letter on student work. This can be hard because most the times students will just look at grade and not comments. We want to make sure that during the other previous stages students are getting that feedback from us teachers so that we don't have to leave all our comments till the final draft. I think that the best way for teachers to do this grading is to see the growth that students have made throughout all these processes. Having students form portfolios to show off their best work that they have worked hard on for a long time and seeing where that started at and seeing the final product. This is the best way to grade students based on that growth that happened from the first draft to the final draft. Just picking random assignments to grade and there being no opportunity for growth would be a waste of our time to grade but also it wouldn't be helpful at all to the students.

Papers, Papers, and Even More Papers: Grading and Commenting Effectively

The article Papers, Papers, Papers gave some interesting insights as how to leave good comments as a teacher. I think it is important to comment on student work to show that well first that you actually read them. But teachers don't have all the time in the world either. I think that Carol Jago makes a great point in this article about spending time on the papers but not over doing it. As a teacher you have enough to worry about and too many corrections on too many papers can make you a little crazy.
 
Especially as Jago says, many teachers are trying to make each and everyone of their students paper's perfect and in the real world it's just not realistic. There are certain grammar errors that should be corrected in a students paper but if you miss one of those mistakes its not the end of the world. Fixing some of those mistakes will still show students that they need to correct it but also not make them feel like their paper is worthless because there are mistakes in it. As teachers we want our students to become automatic at writing with minimal mistakes because it is a skill that they will need out in the real world. No matter where each student is, it is our jobs as teachers to make them better writers. I found this great website that will show some recommendations for how to comment on student work effectively. The way in which we comment is important to, we don't want to hurt any students feelings but we do need to make them better writers because that is what we are here for.