This article discusses the topic of teaching traditional grammar or incorporating grammar into writing. It talks about what teaching methods are most effective and successfully get students to incorporate proper grammar in his or her writing. "If teachers teach something well, students will learn it and, what's more, will apply it well." This learning theory may be true in some cases but in others students may need guidance in developing certain concepts whether they are taught well or not. The authors found that just teaching grammar by sentence analysis, the grammar is not transferred to student writing.
One author found that teaching sentence-imitating and sentence-generating activities resulted in pieces of writing. If she had just been teaching traditional grammar she would not have had the same results. Through her feedback she found how grammar and detail can emerge through good preparation for writing. One of the author's students who also became a teacher had her students write before and after poems. With the first poem she instructed the students to use a lot of adverbs and adjectives. With the second poem she used a prewriting experience to get the student's thoughts flowing. The teacher could see a huge difference between the two poems. The prewriting experience seemed to enhance the students writing.
Connie Weaver decided to try a little experiment with her students. She found that grammatical structures in current literature her students were reading could be used for teaching stylistic writing options that students could incorporate into their own writings. Weaver took a paragraph from the novel The Giver and changed it to look more like something her students would write. When she asked the students to discuss what they thought of this altered rendition they thought it was too choppy and questioned whether it was really from the novel because it did not match the writing styles of The Giver. Weaver explained to them what she had done to the excerpt and allowed them to make their own changes for a revision. "The goal is to see students incorporating these grammatical constructions into all of their writing and, consciously or unconsciously, to become more sophisticated writers." Instead of just learning grammar, the students were engaged in improving their writer which had a more positive outcome.
The main point of the article was to show how well engaging and guiding students in their writing is a more effective way to teach than just teaching traditional grammar lessons. Teachers need to take the time to analyze what make the students' writing effective. The research in the article clearly shows that students do not transfer plain grammar lessons into vivid, imaginative writing. The authors decided that it is not a question of to grammar or not to grammar but instead it is a question of why, when, and where specific aspects of grammar need to be taught in order to strengthen students' writing.
In my opinion, I think that incorporating the teaching methods mentioned in the article is a great way of teaching grammar to students. I think that traditional grammar lessons are important as a foundation for good writing but the teaching methods introduced in the article would be much more beneficial to students. As a future teacher I would like to integrate these methods into my teaching and hopefully it will have the same results as the described in the article.
Grammar is always present and distributed through the written word; however, the grammar utilized in some mediums may not conform to the Standard English of the classroom. As a future educator, I had never considered incorporating sentences from modern literature into grammar discussions. Yet, students who have read these works would be automatically more connected with the lesson plan, for it would relate to their lives. Whether the grammar is of good or bad quality does not matter, for students would be as interested in correcting the grammar of a piece of literature as in analyzing it. The article states that students have to know the purpose, the why, of grammar instruction. The grammar connection made with their writings and the literature they are reading allows the students to understand that grammar is not an abstract term only to be used in the classroom but a part of daily life. Students who understand the connection between school and reality are more likely to display a desire to learn.
ReplyDeleteThis teacher's methods remind of the lessons I learned from my teachers in grade school. The way she guided and encouraged students in their writing is similar to the way my own teachers did it. It was interesting to see that it may be a common teaching method. I personally think it is very effective.
ReplyDeleteThe idea of using modern literature to teach grammar is a very good method in my opinion.It works well by having students actively engage their minds in the lesson rather than executing memorization and practice drills. It is important that students understand the importance and applicability of grammar outside of the classroom.
ReplyDeleteI think grammar should be incorporated into writing. It helps students see the point of learning grammar and would help them to apply what they learn easier. Also if grammar is integrated into writing the teacher can make more creative lessons to get the students interested and involved. It turns grammar from busy work to a fun educational experience. Incorporating grammar into the subject areas makes grammar more meaningful to students and that is why students usually do better when this is done.
ReplyDeleteI agree that if you present grammar issues in writing it will help the students actively engaged in the lesson rather than having to memorize and review with practice drills. By actually seeing the issues that arise, students can comment and discuss the problem areas of whatever is being taught in the class.
ReplyDeleteIn my opinion it is always a good idea to engage the students in something they like to do, rather than go along with tradition. Yes, tradition is still there because it works but sometimes it is fun just to steer away from it. This is especially for the students that are a bit difficult to get to pay attention.
ReplyDeleteI think that grammar and writing go hand in hand. It also helps to learn the ideas, rules and usage of proper grammar instead of just repeating and drilling. In my opinion incorporating grammar into all subjects helps to fully understand the meaning and proper use.
ReplyDeleteI think that grammar and writing should be used together when teaching, because I feel that if teachers put the grammatical rules they have learned in their own types of problems it will be easier to understand and recognize in the future. This class has really helped me recognizing more common mistakes because the instructor utilizes every day examples as our quizzes. Being a pre-service teacher, I hope to use both methods of teaching for my students. However, I still believe that using basic grammar lessons do help as well. In the end, I feel that using both methods will be most helpful depending on the students.
ReplyDeleteI think it was very beneficial to the students to see how they write by changing a writers paragraph to mimic their writing. Seeing a professional writer's work and then seeing it changed to how they write makes them aware of how to write better and what the students can change their writing to be. Incorporating grammar rules into everyday writing and lessons is a much better way for kids to learn the proper way to write. I thought this article was interesting how it used multiple methods to teach grammar.
ReplyDeleteI believe when students are first learning how to write they do need guide lines. This will teach students to become better writers in the future. If students do not have these guidelines they can become lost in the learning process. Once students learn then the creative process can become apart of the lesson.
ReplyDeleteI think that students are more opt to learning grammar if they can relate to it. There are very few students (in my opinion) that enjoy studying grammar in a way that they can not relate. I think that by bringing modern day reading into a teachers lesson plan could be very benneficial. It may grab the attention of a student who otehrwise would not be interested. I agree that bringing modern material into the classroom could help.
ReplyDeleteThis a very nice article because it ways in which a teacher can make a grammar lesson interesting to the students. For sure, I believe that there are many ways in which teacher may engage their students into learning grammar or any other subject. One way would be making they write short stories and having peers review and edit them.
ReplyDeleteAnother way is have them write elaborate comments on blogs about things that might interest them. An English teacher told me that it is very hard to get students to read at home, so she assigns many short articles to read in class. These articles consist of topics that might be of interest to teenagers such as the latest sport review or the latest most important news. She says that most important thing is to get them to read and of course write.
Bringing modern materials into the classroom is a good thing to do since it does allow the students to engaged in what they are learning and become interested and want to learn. And allow them to learn grammar than to just give them busy work and learn it that way.
ReplyDeleteWhen a student can relate to a topic, this makes learning and understanding the material a lot easier. I think when English teachers are teaching grammar, then need to focus what grabs the students attention and use those kind of examples when teaching grammar.
ReplyDeleteI do not know if I agree with the author. In high school I took grammar classes and classes that taught grammar through writing as well. I always seemed to learn more in the classes that taught grammar as grammar. I think both types of classes are useful and I think both classes should remain separate. I think in grammar classes the student learns the subject and in writing classes are allowed to use their knowledge.
ReplyDeleteAs Kasandra was saying above me I too took grammar classes in high school that taught me grammar through different writing assignments. But I feel that they should stay separate, because during that time I would easily get overwhelmed with a class especially if it's hard for me to focus in a class such as english.
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