Wednesday, November 28, 2007

NO-NO Words

The following words are over-used, or over-simplistic and should therefore be eliminated from your formal writing vocabulary! Please check your paper for any of these words prior to turning in. If you find a no-no word, either replace it with a stronger word or re-order to remove the word entirely.


A LOT
AN EXAMPLE IS WHEN...
BEAUTIFUL
BIG, BORING, BAD
I COULD
CUTE
EVERYONE
EXTREMELY
FINE
FUN
GOOD
GET, GOT, GOTTEN
HAD
I, MY, MINE
INTERESTING
IN THE BOOK
IS WHEN, IS WHY, IS WHERE, IS HOW, IS BECAUSE
JUST
KINDOF
LIKE, LIKES
MANY
NICE
OBVIOUS, OBVIOUSLY
PRETTY
QUOTE, THIS QUOTE SHOWS, QUOTATION
REALLY
SINCE (at the beginning of a sentence)
SO
TERRIBLE
THE
THE REASON IS BECAUSE...
THING, NOTHING, SOMETHING, ANYTHING, EVERYTHING
THIS IS WHY...
THIS SHOWS...
VERY
WAS
WE, US, OURS
WONDERFUL

Wednesday, November 14, 2007

Verb Swap

from e. whitney

I am a huge fan of looking at grammatical examples that aren’t working and cognitive dissonance.

Pull a text you’re reading in class, type it up on a single page, swap out a few verbs that aren’t correct to make them incorrect, and present it to the class as if it were just fine.

Then start to work through the paragraph/text to think about figurative language, effective similes, or whatever other non-grammatical issue you might be teaching at the time. Eventually (or early) kids will start to feel a little uncomfortable if you read through the incorrect usage. This is more a hook than anything else, but the connection between oral language and written language is something that I believe strongly that kids must understand (which is why split infinitives are accepted now, “ain’t” will probably some day be an acceptable word, etc)

Make a chart that over time that shows patterns (one chart a day that takes 3-4 minutes a day to complete + tiny amounts of daily discussion, and then over the course of several days start to compare the patterns that are being noticed). Patterning is significantly easier to show on a white board if the ending is written in a different color when modeling it for the kids. There are many questions that could be asked.

Examples (this is for verb tense, but the same principle applies for subject/verb agreement)

Infinitive Past Present Future
To reduce You, we, they reduced You, we, they reduce You, we, they will reduce
To believe
To turn
To churn
To realize

Infinitive Past Present Future
To reduce It, he, she reduced It, he, she reduces It, he, she will reduce
To be
To deceive
To dismount
To keep