Grammar Lessons for Today's Screen-Watching Students!

          I don't teach formal grammar lessons regularly; I prefer to pull my grammar lessons out of recurrent errors in my students' writings, and to do so on an "as-needed" basis. But when I do teach grammar, I love the support of my favorite grammarians, E. B. White and William Strunk, who wrote the classic book The Elements of Style (click on the title for a free PDF download), full of helpful lists (and even humor), and replete with specific examples to bolster the lists. I sometimes create quizzes based on Strunk & White's lists of grammar issues, or simply refer to the book to help my students understand a certain grammar rule.

          But recently, I discovered that a more modern grammarian, Jane Straus, posted on her website one-minute videos about grammar that will certainly appeal to today's multimedia learning style more than a book of lists would. Straus's videos are posted on www.grammarbook.com (click here to see the list,  watch some videos, and learn some new rules of grammar and punctuation).

I think that you will find the grammar segments easy to digest and apply. And it doesn't take but a minute to review and polish some element of your word usage in each sitting. I plan to use these videos as often as I need to with my writing students. Maybe I'll even develop some of my own videos--ON STYLE! Hmm.

WHAT DO YOU THINK OF THAT IDEA?

Pupils Ponder Poetry Prompts, Producing Poignant Poetry

          Former U.S. Poet Laureate Billy Collins--one of my favorite poets--wrote a poem called "Walking Across the Atlantic," in which he imagines on two levels what it would be like to walk across the ocean. On one level, he is "checking for whales, waterspouts" and feeling "the water holding up my shifting weight," and on another level, he tries "to imagine what/ this must look like to the fish below,/ the bottoms of my feet appearing, disappearing." My student, A.Y., age 11, connected with this poem's dual perspectives and wrote his own poetic response, "Running to Heaven."

Running to Heaven
by A.Y.

On the night of July 4th,
I ride a firework into the sky,
As it booms,
I leap onto a cloud,
I feel the spinning air and water supporting me as I run to heaven.
Soon, I'll sleep on a silk bed in heaven,
but for now,
I can only think about what passing-by birds think
when they see two suns above them,
one running towards the other.

I see those two suns, too--and one star writer! 

Another student, D.S., 10 years old, wrote a poem in response to "Victory in Defeat," by Edwin Markham, an poem about the irony that "Defeat may serve as well as victory/ To shake the soul and let the glory out." Markham's words touched my student's heart, and made him deem the poem a "kind of oxymoron." The student found the last line especially poignant: "Sorrows come to stretch out spaces in the heart for joy." How Markham's poem moved and inspired this young writer seems apparent in his own poem, "Constructive Criticism."

Constructive Criticism

by D.S.

Criticism may serve as well as praise

To make the words and story greater.

When the stern schoolmaster is lecturing,   

The student is driven to prove himself better.

Only the writer who knows the pain of criticism

Can really know the feeling of greatness.

The hurt comes to make space for will and determination

For him to be one of the greats.

I, by the way, am NOT the "stern schoolmaster," though I actually did give this poet some constructive criticism before I typed his work here. My criticism, however, was very minor: one misspelling--of "criticism"; one use of "that" where "who" belonged (which the student corrected by himself after I marked it with highlighter and asked what needed fixing); and  one nonspecific pronoun easily remedied by a simple deletion. The only reason I'm even mentioning these amendments is to prove that: 1) even a poem this amazing wasn't "perfect" the first time around; and 2) this writer is certainly poised "to be one of the greats." 

Please leave your comments for my students in the comments section below. 

Noticing the Spark that Fans the Flames

          When my 10-year-old student looked up from the story he was writing, grinned, and declared, ” I just noticed that my character is becoming a very paranoid person," I realized that he is not just a writing student anymore. He "noticed" his character's transformation as though it were being revealed to him by his Muse. That, in my mind, is the sign of a real writer.

          A couple posts ago, on my "Writing Memorable Words" blog, I interviewed some successful children's novelists about how they know when a character has truly come to life on the page. They offered pearls worth reading and then pondering as you read your own words. I could have added this boy's delighted observation to that post. 

          Here's a poem, about--and inspired by--noticing…

Engulfed

by S. L. Lipson

An

author-

in-progress,

notices a spark

and then a glow

at his pencil's tip,

as embers spread,

   amazing his eyes,

while burning designs 

that describe and

define and engulf

the page, as well as

his imagination,

 illuminate

new beings

and worlds,

as if he

himself

said,

"Let

there

be

light!"

Art Gives Birth to Art: Poetry Born of Photo Prompts

My students, when writing fiction, have heard me coach them with a lot of film references:

• "Your words are the cables that connect the DVD playing in your mind with the DVD player in your reader's mind." (I used to say "video" and "VHS player," so you know how long I've been using this metaphor!)
• "When you write dialogue, think of yourself as a film or TV director, and make your characters do interesting actions while they talk, actions that show us who they are. Like the old saying goes, 'Actions speak louder than words' sometimes."
• "Be sure to add description and action to a dialogue to bring it to life like a movie in the reader's mind; otherwise, if you use only dialogue, it's like listening to a radio show, not a movie."
• "Movies don't start with 'once upon a time'; they pull you right into a scene, and then allow you to figure out what's going on. Write that way, starting with a scene."
• "When you switch speakers in a scene with a lot of dialogue, you indent to help the reader follow who's speaking; it's like a close-up shot in a movie, alternating from one person to another, during a conversation."
• "You can show a character with greater depth, sometimes, via the reactions of other supporting characters. Like in a movie, when an actor says a line, and the others raise their eyebrows and nudge each other, the viewers question their first impression of the main character, which makes that character more interesting."
• "If you rely on adverbs, rather than vivid verbs, to show how an action is done, you're not showing a scene."

My students also hear me comparing the editing process to sculpting or painting:

• "Your first draft is like a piece of wood or stone that you've carved with a basic shape. Then you start editing, or sanding your sculpture, adding texture and changing the form in certain spots. You might chip off certain pieces and then smooth them over again. That's what I call 'editing for substance.' Finally, you polish the sculpture with shellac, or whatever polish you use--and that's the proofreading stage, where you fix the spelling, punctuation, and grammar mistakes and make the whole piece shine."
• "Start your scenes like a painter starts filling a canvas. Add color with descriptions and actions. Add texture with words that convey a certain mood."
• "When you overuse figurative language, it's like filling a wall with beautiful paintings that all compete with each other so you don't know where to look or what to focus on. One well-placed painting, like a strong metaphor or simile, will draw your eye and make you think, but too many will overwhelm you."

                       

And when I teach poetry, I often give musical references:

• "A poem is a song without music; its rhythm can evoke mood as much as its words."
• "You can rap a couplet poem!"
• "Repetitive phrases act like a song chorus, to make the reader remember the point of the poem."

In short, what I'm writing about today is this:

The appreciation of art prompts the creation of art--and vice versa.

That is why I not only talk about other art forms to teach writing, but also use those art forms as prompts. Today's exemplary student work was prompted by a photo of a boy blowing bubbles while sitting in a wheelchair. The poem, by P.K., age 11, reflects extraordinary empathy from the able-bodied poet. 

Popped Bubble

Bubbles

have courage

whereas I

have fear.

They have courage to fly away,

but I have a fear of standing up.

They have the courage

to face danger in the world,

but I have a fear

of confronting life.

Bubbles

can fly

as high as they like,

but nobody

will get in their way.

Nature,

Life,

always get in my way.

They push me till I can no longer stand.

If I try, they will push me again.

They do this until

I am powerless,

courageless.

I am a popped bubble

in a wheelchair.

Enough said!

Aim To Change the Way Your Reader Sees the World

Do you want a goal for laboring over word choices, to justify the time it takes to come up with that perfect description? How about aiming to change the way your reader sees the world in some small way? Now that may sound like a lofty goal, maybe even overdramatic to you; however, I achieved that goal during a private lesson the other day, according to my 8th-grade student, B.

I opened my lesson by explaining to B that "literal language says just what it means, nothing more; whereas figurative language means more than what it says." She smiled and replied, "Huh...I never thought of it that way, but you're right."

Then I presented some examples of figurative imagery. First I asked her to read this sentence aloud:


The sand is like crumbled mountains, dissolved by lapping waves.


I asked, "If you read that sentence without the simile, you have a literal description of sand being lapped by waves, right?" She read it softly to herself and nodded. "And if you substitute the simile 'like coarse brown sugar' for the crumbled mountains simile, how would the sentence change?"

She wrinkled her brow. "Hmm. Well, it would describe what the sand looked like. But it's not as good as the first simile."

"Why not? It's a sweeter image, right?"

She chuckled. "Yes. But it's not as descriptive as 'crumbled mountains.' It only says what the sand looks like, but not what it's...what it's LIKE."

I prompted her further: "Okay, elaborate on that. What else, besides how the sand looks, does the image of crumbled mountains suggest to you?"

Her eyes lit up. "Time passing! It takes a long time for mountains to crumble." I was still nodding happily as she added, "Erosion!"

"Yes, yes! So it makes you think of sand a-a-as..." I led her with my rising tone.

"As pieces of mountains, not just...sand."

"Yes!" I then gave her a short metaphorical poem I wrote as an expansion of the same image. "Here. Now read this poem, please. 'The Sands of Time.'"

She read it aloud:


SANDS OF TIME

Former mountain fortresses,
eroded by the sea:
the children now rebuild your grains
into tiny castles,
still threatened by the tides of change.


"Ooh, I like that," she murmured.

"From fortresses to tiny castles, eh?" I asked, smiling.

"Yeah. I never would have thought of that. That's really cool."

I was beaming, I'm sure. "Thank you. I'm glad you like it. Okay, so how does figurative language affect a reader's perception of a scene?"

She explained, "It makes me see a new perspective, something I might not see it on my own." She paused. "Like, I'll never look at the sand at the beach the same way after reading your poem."

"You've just summed up the very reason I write, B! So that I can change the way people see the world, even in a small way!"

Now she was beaming, too.

Handing her a selection of gorgeous landscape photos torn out of an old calendar, I asked her to write her own unique perspective on one of the scenes, focusing not on how it looks, but on what it looks LIKE. "Write your own metaphorical poem." She selected a photo of rolling green hills and wrote a first draft about Mother Nature covered by her thick green blanket, slowly shifting under the grassy fabric over time--a peaceful napping earth. I will remember her metaphor when I go hiking over the green hills near my home tomorrow morning!

For All Writing Students and All Genres

Editing Checklist for Writing Students:
For Self-Editing or Editing the Works of Other Writers
by Susan L. Lipson

Remember to double-space your written work for easier, clearer editing later. Complete all 15 steps, writing your comments on a separate piece of paper so that you can reuse this checklist for everything you write or edit.

For Draft One:
FIRST LEVEL OF EDITING—FOR SUBSTANCE/CONTENT

1) Listen to someone read the entire piece aloud to you, or read it to the author if you are editing for someone else. The reader should read slowly and with expression. If you have no one to read aloud for you, read your own work aloud, to allow yourself to hear your words outside of your own head.

2) Note your observations about the following issues:

* Is the main idea clear or unclear?
* Does the story or essay show a clear beginning, middle, and end, flowing along in a logical order?
* Does the work move from point to point at a reasonable pace, maintaining a balance in the depth of each point or scene (versus rushing certain points or scenes without developing any depth)?
* Does the work stay focused on its topic (rather than veer off into unnecessary tangents, or side stories?
* Do the word choices reflect the proper tone for the piece, and, in fiction, the proper voice for each character?
* Do you enjoy hearing it aloud (without wincing over awkward-sounding parts?

If you answered “no” to any of those questions, revise before continuing with the second level of editing, which follows.


SECOND LEVEL OF EDITING—FOR STYLE

3) Check for repeated adjectives and verbs, and delete those that add nothing to your piece. If the repeated words seem absolutely necessary for the reader’s understanding, substitute words of the same meaning for the recurring words. Also, if any of your word choices strike you as not exactly what you wished to convey, now is the time to find more powerful words. Use a thesaurus, if necessary.


4) Lightly circle all descriptive words and phrases.

* Write T for Telling over any description that only tells, but doesn’t show a word picture, such as “opinion words” which mean different things to different people (like “ugly,” “scary,” “beautiful,” “awesome,” “old”...) or words which can be imagined in more than one way (like “sad,” “annoyed,” “shocked,” “excited,” “angry,” “kind,” “nice,” “big,” “little,” “smart”...).

* Replace every telling word with a more specific, colorful SHOWING word or phrase. Use a thesaurus to help you, if you need it.

5) Reread the changed sentences. Will your words paint a picture that stimulates more than just the visual sense in your reader? If not, look for a way to add a sound or a smell, a feeling or a taste in a natural way, to help the reader EXPERIENCE the scene, rather than simply observe it.

6) Have you included a simile or metaphor in any of your descriptions? Try to include at least one in your work, but no more than two in a paragraph.

7) Lightly underline ALL verbs and verb phrases. Immediately DELETE any of the following PASSIVE VERBS (except when no alternative exists): AM, IS, ARE, WAS, WERE, BE, BEING, BEEN, GO, GOES, WENT, DO, DOES, DID, SAY, SAYS, SAID.

8) Now replace the passive verbs with active verbs that SHOW an action, not just tell about it. (SHOW, DON’T TELL!) If the passive verbs follow “there”—as in “there was,” “there is,” “there were,” and “there are”—delete “there” from that sentence as well. Also, replace “said,” whenever possible, with a dialogue tag that shows how a character says his words (“whispered,” “shouted,” “snapped,” “cooed,” “barked,” etc.).

9) Now look at the rest of the underlined verbs and verb phrases. Label D for “Dull” over any vague words and replace them with more specific ones (like “sprinted” instead of “ran,” or “snapped” instead of “said in a mean voice”).

10) Have you used any DIALOGUE or QUOTATIONS to show what someone says, to illustrate your ideas or main points? Add either of these kinds of “spoken words,” if possible. (Remember, in nonfiction, to cite your source in parentheses after quoting other authors!)


For Draft Two:

11) Recopy or retype the piece with the changes.

12) With your fresh-looking copy in hand, PROOFREAD for misspellings, punctuation problems, paragraph formatting errors, and grammatical difficulties. Correct the errors you have identified.

13) And for the errors you have not identified: Ask a writer or reader who has more writing experience than you to read your second draft and proofread for you. A fresh pair of eyes can make a significant difference at this stage.

14) Make final changes based on your reader’s suggestions—if you agree.

15) Carefully recopy or type the changes onto the document. Double space!

16) Reread the final draft. Write on a separate piece of paper the grade or evaluation that YOU would give your work, based on the quality of your previous works, and on a rubric founded upon the relative strength of each piece. In other words, on a scale of 1 to 6:

• 1 means a weakly written, barely readable piece that merely tells without SHOWING, using vague, nonspecific, forgettable word choices, and no D.A.D. or M.O.M. elements. A 1 exhibits a lack of attention to, or knowledge of, basic writing mechanics, with frequent errors in basic mechanics, also known as proofreading issues: problems with spelling, punctuation, format, grammar, and unnecessary extra words.

• 2 means a piece that uses one or two aspects of the D.A.D. and/or M.O.M. elements, but possesses little word power in its mostly nonspecific word choices. A 2 also shows numerous errors in basic mechanics, though not as many as a 1.

• 3 means that the piece shows a balance between its strengths and weaknesses, indicating the potential for a powerful revision. A 3 offers some memorable lines and uses at least three of the D.A.D. and/or M.O.M. elements.

• 4 means a work in which the strengths overpower the weaknesses, and the weaknesses are limited to minor stylistic and/or proofreading issues to resolve, rather than substantive problems. D.A.D. and M.O.M. clearly influence a 4, even if the writer has not mastered the subtle use of those elements yet.

• 5 means that the writer has created a powerful, memorable work that clearly shows the writer’s control of both the D.A.D. and M.O.M. skills by using specific, apt word choices and a strong, yet subtle style. The 5 needs no editing, only proofreading—for either very few misspellings, incorrect punctuation, or minor grammatical errors.

• 6 means vivid, memorable writing that employs the D.A.D. and M.O.M. models, painting a clear, logical, multi-sensory word picture or argument (in the case of an essay), without any mechanical errors. A 6 motivates the reader to reread the piece, for enjoyment.

17) Turn in your final draft for a teacher or peer’s evaluation. Later, compare the reader’s assessment to your own. If they differ a lot, be sure to discuss why with your reader.

18) File your work (by date) so that you can chronicle your progress as a writer. Review your works, from first to final draft stage. LEARN FROM MISTAKES; THEY’RE TOUGH, YET HELPFUL TEACHERS. Also keep in mind that teachers and editors are NOT always right; some critiques are matters of opinion, not fact. Make sure you agree with and accept their criticism before you make further changes in your work.

If you have completed these 18 steps, I guarantee that you have added new life to your writing! --S.L. Lipson