Group items tagged

"We live in a world where communication is evolving faster than the speed of sound. Modern technology has changed the way written communication works on a fundamental level. And yet, many of the grammar rules taught today still cling to antiquated formatting. After consulting with writers from Walrus Publishing, authors J.R. Bowles and Mark Baker, and professional book reviewers from the Book Bloggers Do It Better group, I'm confident in presenting this list of the top eight grammar rules that are no longer requirements for good writing:"

"Consider this a public-service announcement in the wake of Monday's National Grammar Day. Here are seven rules you really (really!) don't have to worry about following."

A century of research shows that traditional grammar lessons-those hours spent diagramming sentences and memorizing parts of speech-don't help and may even hinder students' efforts to become better writers. Yes, they need to learn grammar, but the old-fashioned way does not work.

Using The New York Times to show students how the rules of grammar can be bent - and as models for their own writing.

TED-Ed Video with quiz: "It can be hard sometimes, when speaking, to remember all of the grammatical rules that guide us when we're writing. When is it right to say "the dog and me" and when should it be "the dog and I"? Does it even matter? Andreea S. Calude dives into the age-old argument between linguistic prescriptivists and descriptivists - who have two very different opinions on the matter."

"If one of your goals for 2017 is to become a better or more frequent writer, there are plenty of tools you can use to help you along the way. We scoured Product Hunt to curate some of our favorite apps for writers at every level. Whether you're looking to improve your grammar, overcome writer's block, or publish your writing anonymously, there's something on this list for you."

"Language merely reflects our way of trying to make sense of the world. - Frank Smith Frank Smith (1982) says 'writing touches every part of our lives'. One of the first reasons we write is because it is a tool for communication in culture. It gives us the ability the share information over time and space with multiple individuals (explaining, recounting & opinion). It can also be used as a permanent record or as a statement e.g. in history, geography  & science genres. The third cultural aspect for writing is artistry (narrative and poetry). Finally, there is also the personal aspect to writing. Writing allows us all to reflect, express our perceptions of self, to socially dream or to be critical (memoir). By writing, we find out what we know; what we think. Ultimately though, writing is a means for us to express ourselves in the world, make sense of the world or impose ourselves upon it. The question now is why do children write at school? For these purposes? - Not often. There is a massive discrepancy between the writing done in the real-world and that of the classroom. Donald Graves says 'all children want to write'. It is just a case of allowing them to write about the things they are interested in. As Frank Smith says, 'all children can write if they can speak it.' If they can talk about it, they can write it down. The transmission of narrow decontextualized writing skills; that English is just a formal system to be learnt. The insistence on task-orientated writing. The insistence on teacher-chosen writing tasks. The insistence on the use of external stimulus (literature units, film-clips, topic-writing) at the expense of children's knowledge, interests, loves, talents and idiosyncrasies. The formal rather than functional teaching of grammar. These examples embody the 'commonsense' assumptions which claim an authority which is supposedly natural and unshakable. Writing in classrooms at present isn't seen by children as important

"Through independent reading children gain a wealth of background knowledge about many different things, come to understand story and non-fiction structures, absorb the essentials of English grammar, and continuously expand their vocabularies. "

"Graham's review of the research doesn't resolve the age-old debate of whether students learn writing best naturally -  just by doing it - or through explicit writing instruction. But there are effective practices where the research is unequivocal. Distressingly, many teachers aren't using them. "We have confirmation of things we know that work, but are not applied in the classroom," said Graham. Here are three: Spend more time writing, Write on a computer, and traditional grammar instruction doesn't work.

" I'd been teaching writing all wrong! I'd dangled the carrots of prizes and threatened with the sticks of docked points for misplaced modifiers. But sometimes, I also got it right. Before, I'd let students choose prompts and readings as much as possible, providing autonomy. After reading Pink, I learned to unbend myself, make deadlines more flexible, and shape the writing process more to fit the student. Now, my students feel more control over their process. Before, I'd encouraged my students to write for real audiences as summative assessments. Now, I encourage students to write to real people for real purposes throughout the school year -- their own blogs, each other, me, their principal, their Congressional representatives, and the world. Before, I'd embedded grammar instruction in writing process and had students keep their work to casually notice their progress once a year. Now, I conference four times a year with students about portfolios of their work -- an ongoing conversation about writing goals of their choosing. I explicitly teach metacognition, or how to talk and write about their writing."

An interview of Stephen King in which he shares some of his teaching experiences. Jessica Lahey "asked King to expound on the parts of On Writing [she loves] most: the nuts and bolts of teaching, the geekiest details of grammar, and his ideas about how to encourage a love of language in all of our students."

"Low-stakes writing is a tool to help students build comfort with sharing and developing their thoughts through writing. A defining element of low-stakes writing is how it's graded -- the grade doesn't carry a lot of weight. This removes much of the pressure from having to do the assignment a certain way, putting value instead on student thought, expression, and learning, rather than punctuation, grammar, or getting a correct answer the first time. "The most important thing about it for me is that it's not censored, and it's not too highly structured," explains James Kobialka, a UPCS seventh-grade science teacher. "Students aren't being told exactly what to do. They're allowed to have freedom, and they're not so worried about it that they try to write what they think they want me to see, or that they're tempted to plagiarize. It's about them getting their own ideas down, and then being able to interact with those ideas, change them, and revise them if they're not correct." Low-stakes writing: Increases students' comfort with expressing their ideas and empowers student voice Creates more investment and ownership in student learning Prepares students for high-stakes writing and testing Is adaptable for any subject Allows for differentiation"

Enter the NPD Punctuation Haiku Contestand win great punctuation chotchkes

"The longest of the dashes - roughly the length of the letter "M" - the em dash is emphatic, agile and still largely undefined. Sometimes it indicates an afterthought. Other times, it's a fist pump. You might call it the bad boy, or cool girl, of punctuation. A freewheeling scofflaw. A rebel without a clause. Martha Nell Smith, a professor of English at the University of Maryland and the author of five books on the poet Emily Dickinson (the original em dash obsessive), said that Dickinson used the dash to "highlight the ambiguity of the written word." "The dash is an invitation to the reader to make meaning," Dr. Smith said. "It can also be a leap of faith.""

"The Times's standards editor, Philip B. Corbett, invites readers to correct grammatical errors in recent New York Times articles."