Lesson 11

Notes

1. Grammar Review: A few ways to review: 

• I often do “team basketball” as a fun way to help them review. Up on a chair or stool which is on top of a desk, I place a small plastic crate (should either have holes or be clear so you can see which color ball gets into the basket first), and a bunch of different colored paper balls (just squished paper!). Each team gets about five balls of the same color (red team, blue team, etc). I put a scoreboard up on the board. One team member for each round gets to “shoot.” Whomever gets the ball in first wins the “right” to answer the question. If they get it right, they get a point. If not, the other teams get to shoot again, and that winning team gets to try. 

• I usually do about ten questions in ascending difficulty. 

• A second option is a bit crazier: I call this “Grab for Grammar.” I have students go out singly and find something (or someone) on campus. They bring back their prize and then I have them write review sentences about the object or person, ie, “Write a compound sentence about your find” or “Write a simple, predicate nominative sentence about your find” etc.. I then go round and spot check, answering questions as needed. 

2. Grammar—-moving on into complex sentences: Once we get to the point where students can recognize basic syntax and combinations, and when clauses and phrases are acting different roles (modifier, subject or complement or object), they can start to see author choices as artistic choices to support the purpose of the topic (paragraph) or the purpose of the whole (definition, process, argument, etc). Complex sentences, just like compound sentences, are heavily dependent on understanding both different kinds of conjunctions as well as different modes of punctuation. 

One way I teach this is through a little fable about sentences. The simple sentence is very self-confident but not super deep. Sometimes the little simple sentence will hang out with another sentence, or even a gang of them, but will still be pretty simplistic (compound). In the Compound Gang, everyone is his or herself, independent of each other. However, sometimes one sentence might actually become a bit of a bully, and downgrade another sentence, making it dependent (complex). I then show examples. 

I also show how phrases are different from subordinate clauses, and give students practice (either worksheets or a game of some sort). When we get to reading Frazier’s essay, I’ll sometimes ask them to find as many types of sentences as possible on a given page, giving a prize to the individual or group who gets the most right!