Grammar in the Classroom

When looking for articles about grammar, I found a lot of articles that were focused on how the parents didn't approve of the teaching methods. I thought that was very interesting because as much as many parents complain about the way they were taught grammar and other areas in school they don't like the idea of their kids being taught in other ways. I guess it scares the parents to not have the "correct" grammar rules being set out for their students in black and white but they have to let the students learn in other ways.
The article says, "Students learn to write best by writing." I think this is really important for all of us to understand because simply having students fill out grammar worksheets probably will not teach them how to combine all of the rules and create a good piece of writing. Of course, students do need to be taught the correct grammar rules but they will be more beneficial to them if they can use it correctly. Students need to be allowed to think for themselves and be able to put it all down on paper. We have to let the students write without attacking them with red pens.

Indy Teach Lesson Plan

Book: Rethinking Our Classrooms: Teaching for Equity and Justice- A collection of articles and teaching ideas from many different teachers and researchers. (Pages 4-5, 38, 75)

Essential Question: How can we make our schools and classrooms to be “laboratories for a more just society that we live in now?”

Main Idea: The main purpose of this book is to show the students what they can do to make a difference. We want the students to not only study the progressive social movements and the current social problems but, to encourage the students to really think about what is going on around them and want to take charge and do something about it. It is important for the children “to see themselves as actors in the world, not just things acted upon.” (Rethinking Our Classrooms)

This lesson is to help students understand how our language can affect the ideas that we think about regarding different people. It is supposed to help us look at the different connotations and see how some of our phrases can be very harmful to prejudices.

Activity: First of all we would separate our class into groups or 4 or 5 and tell them that we are going to examine language. Have the groups think together of different phrases and words that contain the words black and white. And after 10 minutes or so have the groups go through their lists and mark each phrase or word as a positive, negative, or neutral connotation. Once they go through their lists, come back together as a class in a big circle and have the groups all share their lists. Then, I will have different definitions for the words black and white and share those with the class. After the definitions, we will have an open discussion with a few questions and finally we can have the students think about any other phrases or words that have prejudices lied within them and share those. As a homework or in-class assignment depending on how long the activity takes, you can assign a free-write about how the activity made the class feel about the prejudices that are everywhere.

The English Teacher's Red Pen

I actually have very mixed feelings about this article. I understand why they believe the "red pen" is evil but I see the other side too and am not exactly sure which side I stand on.
We know that we have had papers returned to us covered in red marks and how that makes us feel. When this happens, I'm sure some of us have just thrown the paper away never to look at it again and some have looked it over to see what we did wrong. And as crappy as this can make us feel, I also hate the feeling when I get a paper back with just a grade and nothing else. When this happens I feel like the teacher didn't even care enough to really read my paper and I can't learn what I did wrong when they don't tell me.
I'm curious to learn other ways to go about explaining to the students where they need to spend more time but I don't think the answer is to not circle the rough spots. I also really dislike red pens so to start I don't believe that we should use them for anything.
Practice makes perfect. So we must have our students write as much as possible but how do we teach our students how to write and help them grow in the writing process? How do we let them know what they did wrong without discouraging them from wanting to write again?

Useful Websites

teaching tolerance

effective teaching

I am from...

I am from beaches and sunshine
to ice and snow.
I am from a place that is mine
and others know.

I am from family and friends
and little dogs too.
I am from comfy couches
and pictures in every room.

I am from antiques and candles
and coffee every morning.
I am from a small town
where everyone knows each other.

I am from Andy Griffith in the living room
and my younger brother running in and out.
I am from calm nights under the moon
to feelings of chaos.

I am from a place that I love
and can't wait to go home.

The Need to Write

"Write what you need to write. Write to explore what you don't know and want to know. Write about what makes you laugh or cry, angry or happy, surprised or puzzled, worried or satisfied."
-Murray
You can write about anything and by getting out what you are feeling, one can get to know themselves better. There are times when things are just sitting in your brain and wanting so badly to be thought about and since you don't know where to start they just sit there until you finally go crazy and have to figure out the situation. I think if you could just deal with issues before that by writing about them, you could be relieved so you don't have to deal with those things anymore.

"During our read-arounds, we socialize together and create community, but we also teach and learn from each other."
-Christensen
In all of our education classes so far, we have heard how important it is to have a save environment for our students. So by getting to know each other on a more personal level we can create the connections and the community that will allow new friendships. I think the read-alouds are a great idea because you can always learn something new and by hearing other people's writing you can find things to bring into your own. Also by getting to know each other by what they write, you can create new friendships and new relationships between yourself and all of your students.

Best Practice Teaching

Best practice teaching is basically good teaching and caring about the people that you are teaching and using these feelings to help the students. It calls for classrooms that are student-centered, experimental, reflective, authentic, holistic, social, collaborative, democratic, cognitive, developmental, constructivist, and, challenging. When you bring all of these into a classroom, it should be successful because it allows the students to learn and know how to learn without being forced to just memorize facts. A teacher that stands up in front of the class and lectures everyday, has you copy notes, and read a textbook does not really teach you. Without discussion about the topic, students will forget everything you say to them and most likely not listen when you are talking anyways.
I think having group projects and obviously class discussions on a daily basis will be a normal part of my classroom. But also talking to other teachers at the school and bringing what the students are learning in other classes at that time as well will be really important. I want the students to tell me what they think and let me know what they like and what they dislike because it is much easier to want to learn and pay attention if you are talking about something that they know they can share their opinions about and have opinions that they would want to share.

Express Yourself

Writing is a way to find out who you are. By writing down your thoughts, you get to create yourself, your life, and affect many lives around you. You get to discover who you actually are by putting words down onto paper instead of just keeping it all bunched up inside. Writing makes it real and allows you to really figure out who you are and what you are wanting to do with this information.

"Blank pages as well as the written pages are a testimony to how we live our lives."
-Donald M. Murray
A life without writing is basically a life without understanding who you are. You must write down your thoughts and your experiences to truly see what happened and live through them again.

"Writing, I think, is not apart from living. Writing is a kind of double living. The writer experiences everything twice. Once in reality and once in the mirror which waits always before or behind him."
-Catherine Drinker Bowen
Life with writing and literature, allows you to relive your own life as well as experiencing other people's lives. You would be horribly bored if you just went from day to day with only your own experiences. I think it is really important to look at your life and create and discover it fresh everyday.