A JOLLY GOOD TIME TEACHING GRAMMAR!

 

On Friday, I had one of the best grammar lessons with my sophomore classes ever!  English teachers know what a victory this is.  But, I have to give my 13 year old credit for helping me with the lesson’s success.  I was telling him how I wanted to make Grammar – types of clauses and classifying sentences, specifically – more interesting and important to my students.  I was feeling that they were not really seeing the importance of learning Grammar (HUGE battle to overcome with some), that they were not really getting it as much as I was trying to help them “get it, “ and that they were not really having any kind of fun.  And we all know that Grammar needs to be fun, right?

“What can I do to make them like Grammar more?”   I asked my son.

“Give them candy,” was his response.  

So I told my son, that I was not going to just give them candy just to make Grammar fun.  I needed more than that.

Again, a very short response from him, “Make it a competition.”

He even helped me with choosing candy they would all like:  Jolly Ranchers. 

And guess what?  Those beautiful watermelon, grape, cherry, sour apple, and blue raspberry candies and a little competition worked.  No one could get a Jolly Rancher until they answered all sentences in the exercises correctly and as a class they had to agree with the individual student whose turn it was to give an answer or help him get to the correct answer. 

So basically, they had to “get it” in order to get a Jolly Rancher. 

Best $5 I ever spent in the name of Grammar.  I will continue to see to it that none of my students makes a Grammar error like the one on this magazine cover.