Unit 3 - Grammar - Woe is me!

Unit Three assignments, which focused heavily on the technical structure of language, took me on a nostalgic journey. I went to school in the era of didactic instruction and basal readers, supplemented with heavy doses of formal phonics  and grammar exercises.  There were endless worksheets with drills. We usually did an intense unit of just grammar worksheets each year,  “diagramming” sentences.  It seemed disconnected
from the rest of the language arts curriculum. 

Sadly, my only lasting student memories of grammar terms are from  School House Rock  vignettes shown between cartoons on Saturday mornings. www.schoolhouserock.tv  ( I can still sing most of them: “A noun’s a special kind of word, it’s every name you’ve ever heard...”)

Later, when I began teaching, the local educational world was enamored of the “Whole Language” Philosophy. It focused on how students build meaning, and used real stories instead of readers. It was often seen by both educators and parents in a “Whole Language vs. Phonics and Grammar” dichotomy, although that’s not correct. The technical bits were to be integrated as appropriate, when it would be useful and meaningful to the learners, not learned in isolation as an academic exercise. It seemed to me they stuck with the students better.

It’s clear to me I need to up my own game in terms of revisiting the technical aspects of language and language acquisition.  Technical knowledge is a tremendous asset, and since I have not used it regularly (I mean the technical meta-language) as a content area teacher or salesperson, I need a refresher.  It’s an important tool. I think though, we need to think and plan carefully how and when to use our tools. All the best teachers I’ve had were very capable in their technical knowledge, but brilliant in the “art” of integrating that knowledge at the right moment. 

My intentions to improve my knowledge and use of Grammar are as follows: I am going to use a grammar app called "Grammar Up" to improve my technical knowledge and usage of grammar. This app is organized by topic, which I think is useful. I am starting right from the beginning, during Christmas Break this year, because I want to a experience what my students will experience starting from the beginning and also puzzle out a way to communicate the lessons without much technical meta-language as I go.  That in particular really confounds me at the present.  I will need to work with the Phoneme chart - I have never worked with it before.