Teaching useage and grammar in a way that STICKS is challenging. We’ve found (in decades of teaching) that children will “know” how to do it on a quiz or worksheet, but they will miss the same rule repeatedly in their actual writing.
I’m trying something new this year in my classroom that I love. It’s called Sentence of the Week and it is one of the slickest ways I’ve ever found to teach grammar and writing.
It goes like this:
- Choose a beautiful sentence from a piece of literature you are reading with your kids.
- Study it together each day for one week.
There isn’t a “right way” to study the sentence, but I want to show you how I do this with last week’s sentence. (It’s from a book series I LOVE called Boston Jane):
MONDAY
WRITE and NOTICE
- Ask your child to copy down this sentence. You might have a notebook, or a section of a notebook, dedicated to “Sentences of the Week.”
- Ask them what they “notice” about the sentence and talk about it. Approach it from a place of curiousity. Nothing is too small to notice! Examples of what they might notice about this example sentence (or what you might prompt them to notice):
- The first word of the sentence has a capital letter.
- There is a period at the end.
- There are two commas in the sentence.
- “In 1849” seems to interupt the sentence.
- It is describing how the narrator (or writer) feels about the sea.
- It tells how old the narrator is.
TUESDAY
PULL IT APART
Ask: what is each part of the sentence doing? You can take this as deep as your children are ready for and differentiate for your family.
- “When I was eleven years old” is telling what things were like when she was eleven. It is adding information to the sentence. Technical: “When” is a “subordinating conjunction.” It introduces this phrase. I teach these with the acroynym AAAWWUUBBIS.Here is a simple video explaining more about AAAWWUUBBIS. Here are more example AAAWWUUBBIS sentences.
- “In 1849” is telling us the year. The author is setting the scene by letting us know when this is happening. Technical: “in” is a preposition. Here is a video explaining more about prepositions.
- “Sea” is the subject of this sentence. This is hard to spot because of the phrases around it. All the phrases are adding extra information, but “sea” is the main actor.
- “Seemed” is the verb or the action of this sentence.
- “To me” is another preposition, giving us more information.
- “A great place of wonder” is a phrase describing the sea.
WEDNESDAY
PARTIAL REWRITE
Challenge your children to replace a portion of the sentence with their own words. Here is how I did it with this sentence:
- The sentence describes the sea as a “great place of wonder.” How would you describe the sea? If you’re far away from the sea (like we are) here’s a video to take you to the beach!
- Make a list of many and varied ways to describe the sea. Examples: dangerous, mysterious, restful, as if it is alive.
- Rewrite the original sentece replacing it with one of the new descriptors. Example:
- When I was eleven, in 1849, the sea seemed to me like a dangerous animal.
THURSDAY
MAKE IT YOUR OWN
Take yesterday’s work a step further, and challenge your children to rewrite the entire sentence with their own ideas. Use the sentence of the week as a frame or guide. It can be fun to make it true and it is also fun to make it about a fictional character.
- For this sentence you can create a “frame” like this and have your children fill in the blanks:
- When I was , in , the sea seemed to me to be ________.
- Another option is to give them requirements for the sentence, but open it up to a freer structure. For example, this sentence could require:
- A subordinating conjuction.
- A prepositional phrase.
- A number (such as an age and/or date).
- Something about the sea.
- Example:
- Ever since I saw The Impossible, the 2012 film with Ewan McGregor, I have been scared of the ocean. (Side note, true story. Great movie.)
FRIDAY
CREATIVE WRITING JUMPSTART
As a grand finale, use yesterday’s sentence as the first sentence in a rollercoaster write. Write for three to four minutes. Let them decide if they want to keep going and turn it into something more!
There isn’t a way around it: teaching grammar and useage is challenging. But this method–copying down a beautiful sentence, noticing what it is doing, and then using it as a springboard for writing–is efficient and effective. (One of our favorite grammar teachers, Jeff Anderson, would say the same!) What’s more, kids have a good time doing it. (Always what we are after right? Fun and playful writing experiences!)
We encourage you to give it a try! Start with this cool sentence from Boston Jane and then find your own as you read with your children. It’s a powerful way to combine grammar and writing!
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