773 articles since 2009
The Pennington Publishing Blog
Grade-level 4-adult standards and assessment-based ELA and reading instruction. Free Diagnostic Reading and ELA Assessments
Articles · page 17
Wordiness | Eliminating Expletives
Expletives are just cuss words! Teach students to eliminate unnecessary words and phrases in their writing in this lesson. Often, expletives add emotion or emphasis to…
Reading Incentive Ideas
As an M.A. reading specialist, I have served in elementary, middle school, high school, and community college settings. Getting kids and adults to put down their…
Avoid Attention-Getting Alliteration
Avoid using poetic devices, such as alliteration, in essays. Poetic devices focus the reader’s attention on the writing itself, while essays are designed to argue a…
Three Types of Conjunctions
“Conjunction junction, what’s your function?” A clever rhyme, but the rest of the lyric provides little help to answer the question. Here’s the answer with some memory…
Coordinating Conjunctions | Writing Style
Frequently, teachers will tell their students not to begin their sentences with coordinating conjunctions. Teachers give this advice because many students who use these sentence beginnings…
Standards Based Grading Rehab
We teachers are impaired by our culturally inculcated group think. We need to make amends and take the 12 steps in standards based grading rehab.
Similes | Essay Writing Rules
Don’t use similes or other figures of speech in formal writing, such as essays. If comparisons are used to provide better understanding or analysis, the objects…
Split Infinitives
Splitting infinitives is fine in casual conversation and in informal writing; however, avoid adding more than one word between the to and the base form of…