The Great Grammar
Debate
Kim Buice
SWP – Summer Institute 2010
How do you address
grammar?
Sentence Stalking
• A way of teaching grammar using
authentic texts that also showcases
craft.
• Based on Everyday Editing by Jeff
Anderson (and Tasha Thomas)
• “If reading a book or short story
teaches professional writers about
writing, I wondered if a sentence or
two could teach novice writers about
craft and mechanics.”
• “A sentence ended up being a
manageable chunk of learning that
was easily digested.”
Jeff Anderson
• “Giving attention to effective
sentences breaks down editing skills,
giving teachers a basic approach that
can be used to teach any editing
concept or pattern – grammar, usage,
mechanics, and craft. The secret is
to let students delve into the
sentence.”
Jeff Anderson
What do you notice?
My sweat smells like peanut
butter.
-
Wendy Mass, Jeremy Fink and the Meaning of Life
A hand flashed in the air.
-
Jerry Spinelli, Stargirl
A skinny gray cat stretched and
jumped off the kitchen table.
- Sharon M. Draper, double dutch
More noticing
E.D. sat in the kitchen pushing a
mini-wheat around in the milk
at the bottom of her bowl.
-
Stephanie S. Tolan, Surviving the Applewhites
The skittery, cat-footed dance
along the baseline.
-
Robert Burleigh, Hoops
The terrible foul odor of the dungeon
did not bother Mig.
- Kate DiCamillo, The Tale of Despereaux
Adding more
He flails and tries to swim away, but the
current is too powerful.
- Cecelia Tishy, All in One Piece
Alan Ferko’s face turned as red as Bo Peep’s
pigtail ribbons.
- Jerry Spinelli, Stargirl
The dark scares us, for we don’t know what
is waiting in the dark.
Alvin Schwartz, Scary Stories 3: More Tales to Chill Your Bones
The giants of the Industrial Revolution
didn’t live forever, but their mighty
companies and foundations are still going
strong.
Adding something else
Then one day when a guard looked away,
Uncle John and the others had a chance to
escape.
While the agreement ended the long war,
open wounds were left in America’s
national consciousness.
When Mama explains the significance of
each item placed on the table, Katie comes
to understand the depth of sacrifice that
her uncle made.
America’s White Table by Margot Theis Raven
• Then I realized I was a skinny
turkey. No one wants to eat me.
• Last Thanksgiving we did not do a lot.
Sometimes we play turkey games
outside in the yard.
1.
[1]My people think I can work like a mule. [2]But I’m a
Chihuahua. [3]And they make me work from dawn until dusk.
[4]And they sit on the deck eating in my face.
What is the best way to combines sentences 2, 3 and 4 above?
a.
I’m a Chihuahua, and they make me work from dusk until
dawn and sit on the porch eating in my face.
b.
But I’m a Chihuahua and they make me work from dusk until
dawn and sit on the porch eating in my face.
c.
But I’m a Chihuahua, and they make me work from dusk until
dawn, and sit on the porch eating in my face.
d.
I’m a Chihuahua, and they make me work from dusk until
dawn, and sit on the porch eating in my face.
Sentence Stalking Steps
• Identify the concept you want to teach.
• Find examples in real literature.
• Allow the students time to
notice/understand the concept and how it
works.
• Name it.
• Apply it.
Let’s Try It
• Use any text you have on hand.
• What is a grammatical concept your
students struggle with??
• Find some examples.
Image Grammar
• A concept that actually teaches
craft through grammar.
• Harry Noden – Image Grammar
• “Image grammar grew from questions like
How does Jack London make you feel like
you are not just reading, but living in the
days of the Yukon gold rush? How does
Erma Bombeck create images that trigger
eruptions of laughter? It developed from
the study of the writer as an artist and of
grammatical structures as the artist’s
tools for creating images.”
Harry Noden
The Five Basic Brush
Strokes
•
•
•
•
•
the participle
the absolute
the appositive
adjectives shifted out of order
action verbs
Painting with participles
• can be simplified by defining it as an -ing
word tacked on to the beginning or end of
a sentence
• Example:
– The diamond-scaled snakes attacked their
prey.
– Hissing, slithering, and coiling, the diamondscaled snakes attacked their prey.
Painting with Participles
Participles painted by Hemingway in The Old
Man and the Sea:
Shifting the weight of the line to his left
shoulder and kneeling carefully, he
washed his hand in the ocean and held it
there, submerged, for more than a minute,
watching the blood trail away and the
steady movement of the water against
his hand as the boat moved.
You try it
• Look through your writing to see if
you can add a participle (an –ing
word) to add to your craft.
Painting with Absolutes
• simplified: a two-word combination
of a noun and an –ing or –ed verb
added onto a sentence
• Example:
– The cat climbed the tree.
– Claws digging, feet kicking, the cat
climbed the tree.
Painting with Absolutes
Absolutes painted by Anne Rice in The Mummy:
The mummy was moving. The mummy’s right arm was
outstretched, the torn wrappings hanging from
it, as the being stepped out of its gilded box! The
thing was coming towards her – towards Henry,
who stood with his back to it – moving with a
weak, shuffling gait, that arm outstretched
before it, the dust rising from the rotting linen
that covered it, a great smell of dust and
decay filling the room.
You try it!
• Can you find a place in your writing to
add an absoulte?
Painting with Appositives
• can be simplified as a noun that adds
a second image to a preceeding noun
• Example:
– The raccoon enjoys eating turtle eggs.
– The raccoon, a scavenger, enjoys eating
turtle eggs.
Painting with Appositives
Appositives painted by Cornelius Ryan in June 6,
1944: The Longest Day
Plowing through the choppy gray waters, a phalanx
of ships bore down on Hilter’s Europe: fast new
attack transports, slow rust-scarred
freighters, small ocean liners, channel
steamers, hospital ships, weather-beaten
tankers, and swarms of fussing tugs. Barrage
balloons flew above the ships. Squadrons of
fighter planes weaved below the clouds.
You try it!
• Can you add an appositive to add
craft to your writing?
Painting with Adjectives
Out of Order
• adjectives out of order amplify the details
of an image
• Example:
– The large, red-eyed, angry bull moose charged
the intruder.
– The large bull moose, red-eyed and angry,
charged the intruder.
Painting with Adjectives
Out of Order
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle in The Hound of the
Baskervilles
And then, suddenly, in the very dead of the night,
there came a sound to my ears, clear, resonant,
and unmistakeable.
Robert Newton Peck in A Day No Pigs Would Die
I could smell Mama, crisp and starched, plumping
my pillow, and the cool muslin pillowcase touched
both my ears as the back of my head sunk into all
those feathers.
You try it!
• Find somewhere to shift your
adjectives to add emphasis.
Painting with Action
Verbs
• eliminates passive voice and verbs of being
• Example:
– The grocery store was robbed by two men.
– Two armed men robbed the grocery store.
– The gravel road was on the left side of the
barn.
– The gravel road curled around the left side of
the barn.
You try it!
• Look into your writing – do you use
passive verbs? verbs of being? Can
you change them into action verbs?
What have we learned
about teaching grammar?
Resources
• Anderson, Jeff, Everyday Editing:
Inviting Students to Develop Skill
and Craft in Writer’s Workshop.
Stenhouse Publishers, 2007.
• Noden, Harry, Image Grammar: Using
Grammatical Structures to Teach
Writing. Heinemann, 1999.