The Mechanics of Writing Teacher Workshop
Learn interesting and unusual ways to teach grammar, spelling, punctuation, capitalization, and vocabulary
Quite often, during one of my seminars on the writing process, teachers will approach me during a break and quietly share a lack confidence in teaching grammar. Many of us readily admit that we were never taught the mechanics of writing in school, and now, we are required to teach what we have never mastered.
Thirty years ago when my teaching career first began, I generally knew about the use of the apostrophe in possessives, the rules for forming plurals of words, how to identify direct and indirect objects, and when to capitalize. Unfortunately, I had no idea how to present this information so students could demystify, retain, and apply these rules.
This course is not intended for those who have mastered the mechanics of English; rather, it is designed to provide background, purpose, and techniques for those teachers who want to teach well but were not taught well. In this day-long seminar, the "mechanics" of writing are broken down into a realistic framework that identifies WHAT to teach, WHY it must be taught, and HOW to teach it.
What can you expect to learn?
- Identify the difference between the various parts of speech
- Explain pronoun usage realistically
- Use the apostrophe in possessives correctly
- Introduce vocabulary so students will retain and use new words
- Show students how to recognize subject, predicates, and objects
- Diagram sentences as a learning tool
- Teach spelling as a comparative experience rather than in isolated rules
- Explain capitalization rules that are tangible and consistent
- Apply clear and concise comma rules
- Expand sentences through rules of grammar
- Identify and analyze simple, compound, complex and compound-complex sentences
- Differentiate the spelling curriculum to meet the needs of natural vs. challenged spelling abilities
Current The Mechanics of Writing Workshop Schedule
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