What? This book is an easy-to-read-and-follow instruction manual for writing and grammar. It has five chapters: Parts of Speech (nouns, verbs, etc.), Sentenced for Life (sentence structure), Punch Up Your Punctuation (take a guess), Quick and Dirty Tips (my favorite), and Your Right to Write (everything else).
Why? I chose this text because I have heard of Grammar Girl before and have been curious how a book about grammar and writing makes the New York Times Bestseller List. I never thought grammar could be exciting enough to make a bestseller list. Learning grammar can be super annoying as a teenager so I’m seeking advice from this author to hopefully bring grammar and writing to life or just simplify it. Mignon Fogarty also makes you feel normal for feeling like a bad writer and offers great advice and encouragement that makes you believe you can write. I would love a classroom set of this book to use in my classes. If I can’t do that, I will at least keep this book handy for when I fall short and have no clue what I’m doing.
How? Ways to use
the Ultimate Writing Guide for Students to
inspire…
1. I would have my class make “zines”
or charts similar to Fogarty’s to help them remember the rules… then use these
charts to help with writing and editing their own works. (It was said in class
that people learn best from reviewing their own work).
2. The book has “Quick and Dirty
Tips” to help with writing. I want to have my classes come up with and share
their own anecdotes that they use in writing and spelling. (Like when I write Wednesday
I don’t say wends-day in my head I say wed-nes-day. Stupid? But it works.)
3. The last chapter is motivational
and also addresses writing appropriately for the audience. Filters are a must
in writing and speech. I would like to have my class write an article or story
and rewrite it for different audiences. They could take a newspaper article and
turn it into a children’s story then a research article and have them notice
the differences in how they write per audience and that we do the same thing
when speaking.
Why not? Challenges I can see arising with
these ideas in the classroom… a student could lose their grammar-zine so then I
would maybe want to have the students leave them in class or have larger one on
the wall as a visual. Not everyone likes to share anecdotes but not everyone would
have to because they will learn regardless. I could encourage those students
who choose not to share to mention their favorite that someone else shared.
No comments:
Post a Comment