Description
Students need instruction on sentence construction through the upper secondary grades! As they move through middle and high school, their speech becomes more sophisticated, as should their writing. Learners have trouble transferring the grammar knowledge they have learned in isolation, so they often struggle with sentence syntax, punctuation, and other mechanics as they go into high school. By manipulating sentence parts and learning about function and style, students are learning how to put grammar to work. Using professional authors as our models, we will study sentences’ form, function, and aesthetics. This helps students write, and it also helps them analyze literature.
Each of these classes is short and upbeat, and we laugh. Meeting frequently gives learners the repetition and practice they need to soak up the skills for varying their sentence structure and writing something beautiful. This class is a two-day sample of what the ongoing class, “State of the Art: Putting Grammar to Work to Write Something Beautiful,” is like (see link below). That class continues throughout the school year. We have found that students need to be immersed in this practice with lots of repetition and writing with instructor feedback to master these skills. Becoming competent will make them stand out far and above other writers.
Day 1—Students learn to see sentences as a combination of “chunks.”
Day 2—Students learn how to manipulate participial phrases in sentences for variety and style.
