Thinking Through Grammar
By Brad Frieswyk
Traditionally, the problem has been where to begin teaching students the complexities of grammar. As Greenbaum and Quirk put it in Student’s Grammar of the English Language: “Grammar is a complex system, the parts of which cannot be properly explained in abstraction from the whole.” To emphasize their point, look at the definition of a verb that is taught in most traditional grammar programs:
A verb is a word that expresses an action or state of being. Now, based on that definition, identify the verb in this sentence:
Eating custard pie, Peter is a picture of happiness.
To a novice student, two words fit fairly neatly into this definition: Eating clearly expresses an action, and happiness could be interpreted as expressing a state of being. However, neither of these words is the verb. Explaining to a student that is is the verb will most likely be met with a blank stare, and leave him or her no closer to understanding verbs.
For quite some time, seasoned educators have understood that grammar should be taught through the functions of the parts of speech, not oversimplified, technically incorrect, definitions. According to the Writing Next report, the latest research shows that sentence combining “improves students’ writing quality while at the same time enhancing syntactic skills.”
A fantastic new instructional program for high school students, Thinking Through Grammar, focuses sentence combining into a highly effective tool for teaching grammar and writing. As Linda Buczyna, an English teacher in Chicago put it, “Students learn to view language as a system that they can manipulate and master.”
Here are some sample exercises from Thinking Through Grammar:
Rewrite the first sentence with the adjectives from the other sentences inserted before the nouns they modify.
Paul felt that the canyon was the setting for his novel.
The canyon was silent.
The canyon was empty.
The setting was perfect.
The novel was new.
Answer: Paul felt that the silent, empty canyon was the perfect setting for his new novel.
Notice the comma placed between silent and empty. These types of exercises give us the opportunity to teach students about punctuation as they are learning how the parts of speech fit together. Instead of a separate chapter on comma usage, students learn how to use commas in the context of constructing sentences.
Rewrite the first sentence with the prepositional phrases from the other sentences added at the end.
Jack broke his leg falling.
The fall was off the stage.
The stage is in the auditorium.
The auditorium is at our school.
Answer: Jack broke his leg falling off the stage in the auditorium at our school.
Rewrite these sentences joined with the coordinating conjunction and.
Joe washes the dishes.
Carla puts them away.
Answer: Joe washes the dishes, and Carla puts them away.
Rewrite these sentences as a single sentence with a compound subject.
A small bowl of vegetable soup is all I want for dinner tonight.
A few saltine crackers with cheese are all I want for dinner tonight.
Answer: A small bowl of vegetable soup and a few saltine crackers with cheese are all I want for dinner tonight.
Here are two sentences. Decide which one describes the cause and which describes the result. Then rewrite the sentences as one sentence using the subordinating conjunction because. Place the subordinate clause first.
We had no water for drinking or washing.
Our water pipes froze.
Answer: Because our water pipes froze, we had no water for drinking or washing.
Rewrite the following sentences as one by creating a relative clause from the second sentence and inserting it right after the noun it modifies.
Animals must not be captured or injured.
Animals are in danger of extinction.
Answer: Animals that are in danger of extinction must not be captured or injured.
Even advanced structures are easily understood by students because they recognize the role that these structures play in sentences. For example, in the next exercise students clearly see that a noun clause plays the role of a noun in a sentence.
Create a noun clause from the second sentence by replacing somewhere with where and moving it to the beginning of the sentence. Then rewrite the first sentence with the words NOUN CLAUSE replaced by the noun clause that you created.
NOUN CLAUSE is uncertain.
The hurricane will come ashore somewhere.
Answer: Where the hurricane will come ashore is uncertain.
By teaching students new sentence patterns, Thinking Through Grammar overcomes the monotony often found in their writing. Without instruction, many students become comfortable with only a small number of sentence patterns and repeat those patterns over and over. However, the types of exercises shown above introduce students to and make students confident with a wide variety of sentence patterns that they then apply to their writing. With this, Thinking Through Grammar succeeds where traditional grammar instruction has failed: It not only teaches grammar, but also improves students’ writing. For more information visit www.drwhimbey.com. BF |
