Gone are the days of the only writing you do is out of the grammar book correcting and diagramming sentences. Grammar should be taught within the writing unit. Teachers need to use the child's writing. Practicing the endless sentences only teaches them to look at certain parts...or in my case it taught me to really dislike the English Grammar Rules. (Thanks to my Comp I professor) Grammar should be used within the child's writing--either in the notebook or in their drafts. ( I do lessons within my drafting and when we go back into our notebooks to practice. ) My lessons this week were from Jeff Anderson's Mechanically Inclined on beginning and ending punctuation and dialogue.
First I introduced dialogue with Knuffle Bunny by Mo Willems. I love to use this book because of the speech bubbles. Then my students and I look at a typed copy of the book and talk about things they notice. Then we discuss the "rules" of dialogue. I follow it up with making comic strips of their own. I have comic strip examples that we make into written dialogue and then they practice with their writing partner. After that they make comic strips and then a peer will write the dialogue in paragraph form. This has been hugely successful in the past.
Hope it works for you!
This is an exciting week for my writers!! CELEBRATION OF OUR PUBLISHED DRAFTS!!!
What are your writers working on?
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