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?

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!

Why Are Most of My Students Asian or Indian?

Today an Asian parent asked me why most of my students are Asian- or Indian-Americans? Why not American-Americans?

Good question. I was recently pondering that myself. Possible answers:

1) Children whose parents do not speak English as their first language want to be sure that their children are getting as much high-level English instruction as possible, because they recognize that the mastery of English, and the ability to think critically in English, will empower their children in this country, as well as in many other nations throughout the world.

1a) American parents take English for granted, and many equate the ability to write a grammatically correct sentence with strong writing skills. They also see that their kids get decent grades, and that is enough for many Americans who have grown up in an educational system which stresses scores and sports over learning.

2) Highly intelligent Asian and Indian children feel unchallenged by the often superficial level of instruction in literature and language arts that they receive in regular elementary and middle schools. Though some of these kids belong in "gifted" programs, they may not have passed the tests back in 2nd or 3rd grade due to having insufficient English skills as new immigrants, like their parents. They might quickly catch up with their American counterparts in English, but by the time they do, they are in English classes designed for non-gifted students, and they lose interest in writing out of sheer boredom.

2a) Some Americans whose children are already in "gifted" programs feel that their kids must be learning more than average kids learn about writing, so why pay for extra classes and add more work to their already over-stressed, over-scheduled kids?

3) Kids of non-English speaking parents often have more difficulty with writing in English than kids of native English speakers; thus, the immigrant parents hire me as a remedial teacher.

3a) American parents who could never write well themselves may not value writing as an art, but rather, view writing as a skill; thus, they hire tutors, not writing instructors, who help their kids improve skills related to the mechanics of writing, rather than the substance and style.

4) Math- and science-focused immigrant families, with parents whose jobs do not involve much English writing, hire me to provide balance for their children by igniting their children's interest in writing, since they cannot do so themselves. They prioritize writing because they recognize, via their own communication problems in America, how beneficial clear writing skills can be.

4a) Many American parents, seeing how the Asian and Indian cultures have exceeded our schools in math and science progress, feel the need to focus their kids on scientific and mathematical studies to keep up with our "competition." This need to compete has caused many Americans to neglect and place a lower priority upon the language arts.

5) Many Asian and Indian kids I've met are avid readers whose appreciation for literature suffers in school, where writing instruction focuses not on meaning, but on formulaic assignments that restrict creativity and make writing a pressure-filled task.

5a) American parents may think that their avid readers learn how to write by osmosis and don't need more than good literature as examples to emulate.

These are some of the reasons that seem logical to me as answers to the question posed in this post's title. If you have any to suggest, please comment here.