November 17, 2010

Homework:
I gave the students a worksheet for subjects and verbs in unusual order. 

Today:
We are continuing to practice identifying subjects and verbs in sentences.  The main goal for doing this is to eliminate run-on sentences and fragments.  In order to know where to place a comma in a compound sentence, students need to be able to identify that there are, in fact, two complete sentences. 

But more importantly, I want to give students the pleasure of looking at all the words in a sentence to find subjects and verbs.  It's strange.  I don't think teaching grammar is terribly important, yet some things do need to be taught.  I can't not teach grammar either.  I try to find a balance.  Sentences are made up of words.  Every word has a name and a function.  The words can be arrange in various ways to create interesting sentences.  Much of this is learned through reading.  We pick up on the patterns we read.  Teaching grammar is a way of explicating those patterns we pick up on as we read and try to emulate.

I do not know why I felt the need to say all that.  :)