Pennington Publishing Blog

The Essay Ten Commandments

Let’s begin by admitting that the academic essay is a mere construct. God did not provide Moses a tablet containing the five-paragraph essay format. Do a quick search of the most popular historical essays, and none will even remotely look like what you and I teach our students.

That being said, teaching the essay rules does make sense. When teachers provide an ideal in terms of guidelines (for example, “Write on only one topic”); when teachers provide restrictions and rules (for example, “Use no first and second person pronouns, and begin the conclusion with a thesis re-statement”); and when teachers clearly delineate the differences between, say, an argumentative essay (CCSS W1.0) and an informational/explanatory essay (CCSSW2.0), these essays become more comprehensible to their readers.

If we encourage writers to compose with their audience in mind, it makes sense to follow the expected norms of communication. When we hear a joke about three people walking into a bar, we expect the punchline to occur after the third entry, not the first or second. If we read a comic strip, we expect that the ending frame will leave a finished feel to that particular comic. If we listen to a message in church, mosque, or temple, we expect an application to our own lives to follow the scriptural text. If we watch a romantic comedy, we choose that genre with same expectations as everyone else.

In other words, teaching the essay rules helps the writer and is considerate to the reader.

Of course, we also teach the rules so that mature writers can intentionally break the rules when necessary to their purposes.

The 10 Essay Commandments

1. Don’t go beyond the limitations of the writing prompt. Follow directions and don’t read into the assigned writing task what is not there. Check how How to Dissect a Writing Prompt to teach students how to do so independently.
2. Keep writing consistent with the type of essay. For example, don’t add opinion (as is necessary in the W1.0 argumentative essay) in the W2.0 informational/explanatory essay.
3. Properly cite all sources. An academic essay requires textual citations to avoid plagiarism.
4. Write in third person. Talk about the essay topic. Don’t personalize the essay with first person pronouns such as I, me, my, mine, we, us, our, ours, ourselves. Don’t address the reader with second person pronouns such as you, your, yours, yourself, yourselves. Essays must remain objective (fair and balanced), not subjective (personalized). Therefore, essays shouldn’t use “I think,” “I believe,” and “In my opinion.”
5. Don’t abbreviate. Abbreviations are part of informal writing. They don’t belong in essays. Write United States of America, not U.S.A. in essays.
6. Don’t use slang, such as kids. Use official, or formal, words, such as students, adolescents, or children.
7. Don’t use contractions. Again, essays are very formal, so write “can not” rather than “can’t.”
8. Don’t use figures of speech. Use precise academic language in essays. Essays do not use poetic devices or idiomatic expressions. For example, don’t write “He really blew it.” Instead, say “He made a mistake.”
9. Don’t over-use the same words or phrases. For example, avoid over-use of the “to-be” verbs: is, am, are, was, were, be, being, been.
10. Include all three structural components of the traditional essay: an introduction, body paragraphs, and a conclusion.

TEACHING ESSAYS BUNDLE

Find 8 complete writing process essays (4 argumentative and 4 informational-explanatory) with accompanying readings, 42 sequenced writing strategy worksheets, 64 sentence revision lessons, additional remedial worksheets, writing fluency and skill lessons, posters, and editing resources in TEACHING ESSAYS BUNDLE. Also get the e-comments download of 438 writing comments to improve written response and student revisions.

Writing

Fair to say that the essay conclusion tends to be the weakest instructional piece of our essay teaching repertoire. The full extent of my own high school English instruction regarding this essay component was “Re-state the thesis, sum up the essay main points, and give a finished feel to the essay.” Not much help and not much thinking required of the writer with those instructions!

For good and bad, most teachers teach as they were taught (or not). True, we do pick up a few things along the way… Early in my teaching career, I attended a writing workshop or read a book encouraging the teaching of a “Call to Action” in the conclusion paragraph. A revelation to me and to my fellow English teachers… something concrete I could teach to my students and a strategy that actually required some thinking! Unfortunately, English teachers square pegged that one to death. I remember an English teacher assigning a response to literature essay analyzing the themes of Moby Dick and requiring a “Call to Action” as part of the conclusion. Made absolutely no sense.

To my knowledge I’ve never met a teacher who said she remembers learning specific conclusion strategies in undergrad or grad school English composition classes. Nothing in Strunk’s Elements of Style on essay conclusions, either. We all tend to devalue what we don’t understand or experience and esteem that which we easily comprehend and practice. For example, I came across the same set of instructions when grading state writing exams a number of years ago. I was surprised in discussing the scoring rubric that a student could achieve a perfect 6 score without including a conclusion. Clearly, these test-writers did not appreciate the value of the essay conclusion.

As a teacher, I’ve found that most of my colleagues do an admirable job of teaching essay and paragraph structure, especially how to dissect a writing prompt, how to write an effective thesis statement, and how to compose body paragraphs. However, the teaching of the introduction strategies (the hooks) and the conclusion strategies receive short shrift. My guess is that teachers have little knowledge and experience about these essay components, and so they focus on what they know, have done, and can teach best.

But we do have other models of how the essay conclusion can be an essential ingredient to the essay. Talk to any upper elementary, middle, or high school science teacher about the role that conclusions play in the scientific method. The conclusions in science lab reports come to mind: a true analysis of the observations; commentary on the experimental design; verification of the hypothesis; suggestions for related research and experimentation.

I say let’s re-focus our attention on the essay conclusion. Let’s broaden the opportunities for students to reflect and provide meaningful analysis and application of the evidence, argument, and/or information presented in the body paragraphs. Let’s encourage students to not just re-state the thesis (Do so… the audience expects it!), but also to analyze the degree to which they were able or unable to prove their purpose or point of view.

Conclusion Strategies

Check a related article on How to Teach the Essay Conclusion for a variety of conclusion strategies. Also, look at the targeted comments I’ve developed for all components of the essay, including conclusion paragraphs. They are the same kinds of comments you’d type up and program if you took the time to do so. Learn how to use these comments to respond to first or second drafts, and not just as summative comments on the final draft.

I’ve developed 438 of the most common comments teachers make to respond to student essays. Comments are categorized and given a simple alphanumeric code to access a downloaded comment.

Examples:

e46 Needs Thesis Re-statement Essay conclusions traditionally begin with a thesis re-statement. Consider using a different grammatical sentence opener or opening transition word to avoid repetition.

e47 Needs Another Conclusion Strategy Use at least two conclusion strategies. Add a Generalization, Question for Further Study, Statement of Significance, Application, Argument Limitations, Emphasis of Key Point, Summary Statement, or Call to Action. GQ SALE SC

e48 Needs a Different Conclusion Strategy Use a  variety of conclusion strategies. Add a Generalization, Question for Further Study, Statement of Significance, Application, Argument Limitations, Emphasis of Key Point, Summary Statement, or Call to Action. GQ SALE SC

e49 Needs a Finished Feeling  A conclusion needs to provide a finished feeling for the reader. The conclusion must satisfy the reader that the purpose has been achieved or point of view has been convincingly argued.

As we all know, many of the same comments will apply to most students. How many times have we veteran English teachers written out this comment in an essay conclusion: “Don’t introduce new evidence in the conclusion”? 1000? One smart solution would be to develop a bank of most-often used essay comments to help students revise all areas of the essay:

Introduction Paragraphs, Body Paragraphs: Argument, Analysis, Evidence, Conclusion Paragraphs, Coherence, Word Choice, Sentence Variety, Writing Style, Format, Textual Citations, Parts of Speech, Subjects and Predicates, Types of Sentences, Mechanics, and Conventional Spelling Rules 

I’ve developed 438 of the most common comments teachers make to respond to student essays. Comments are categorized and given a simple alphanumeric code to

Essay Conclusion e-Comments

access a downloaded comment (See above examples). Using e-comments to insert into online student essays submitted on Microsoft Word or in Google Docs can save grading time and allow teachers be selective, prescriptive, and efficient. Of course, many teachers prefer to copy and paste these comments and then print off a comments for each student. Teachers can then hold students accountable for revision.

TEACHING ESSAYS BUNDLE

Works great in Microsoft Word and can be batch dumped easily into Google Docs. Nice for paper comments as well. The comments use the same, consistent language Common Core language of instruction. I’ve included this comment download in my TEACHING ESSAYS BUNDLE and The Pennington Manual of Style (a slice of the comprehensive essay program).

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Most teachers have the same general sense of what an essay hook (or introduction strategy) is and what makes a good one.  To make sure that my assumption was right, I googled “essay hooks” to verify the consensus.

Quite a mix of results! Essays for sale sites, scholarly comments, teacher tips, and even an essay hook generator. I’ve included brief comments in order of the resources with links, although my ELA teacher cognitive dissonance pits my need to cite references and avoid plagiarism with my distain for cheating and paying others to do one’s own work. Here’s representative sample of comments:

An essay hook is the first one or two sentences of your essay. It serves as an introduction and works to grab the reader’s attention. The first couple sentences will help your reader decide whether they want to continue reading your essay or not.

The hook provides an “emotional connection with your reader” (Tucker).

“A fisherman will use a shiny lure to get a fish on his or her hook” George Brown University.

When writing an essay, the hook is a connection to the real word that gets the readers interested in reading the rest of the essay.

“Getting your reader to say, ‘Wow! Cool!’ or ‘I need to read more about that!’” (Unknown Blogger)

Generally, I think my assumption was correct. Teachers agree that introduction strategies, such as hooks, are necessary to engage the reader and set up the thesis statement in an essay introduction.

Essay Introduction Strategies

Teachers may even know how to teach a variety of essay hooks. However, writing comments to respond to student essays as formative assessment (first or second drafts) and summative assessment (final published draft) is tougher work. It’s both art and science.

The Art of Writing Essay Introduction Comments

Obviously, the teacher needs to comment so that students will actually read and apply the advice. The more I teach, the more I realize how much of my success (and lack thereof) is due to how much I can motivate students. In terms of teaching writing, this means that the teacher needs to know the individual student—what the student already knows, how much criticism the student can take, and if the student responds to cajoling or praise. How many comments will the student be able to handle? How general or specific should the comments be? Does the student have a thin or thick skin?

The Science of Writing Essay Hook Responses

The teacher has got to have the experience both as a reader and as a writer to know what an effective essay introduction looks like. Doing essay read-arounds and norming student essays can be eye-opening (and sometimes humbling) experiences for teachers. Writing is both an objective and subjective experience, as is reading. What makes sense or moves me can be quite different than what does so to a colleague or student. However, most of us can learn to spot a good essay introduction and a poor one… an effective hook and an ineffective one.

Combining the art and science of essay comments, it makes sense to have options. Frankly, many of the same comments will apply to most students. How many

Essay Introduction e-Comments

times have most writing teachers written the same comment a dozen times in grading a batch of student essays? Using e-comments to insert into online student essays submitted on Microsoft Word or in Google Docs helps teachers be selective, prescriptive, and efficient. Of course, many teachers find that printing off a page of e-comments works better for students. Either way, there is a built-in accountability for students to revise work according to the comments. Let’s face it… having an effective bank of essay e-comments would save teachers a whole lot of grading time!

Check out these 16 introduction strategies (hooks) and thesis statement e-comments, with clear instructions about how to insert this comment bank into Microsoft Word HERE. Plus learn how to insert your own comments into your own e-comment bank.

I’ve developed 438 of the most common comments teachers make to respond to student essays. Comments are categorized and given a simple alphanumeric code to access a downloaded comment, for example:

e2 Needs a Different Introduction Strategy Use a variety of introduction strategies. Add a Definition, Question to be Answered, Reference to Something Known in Common, Quote from an Authority, Preview of Topic Sentences, Startling Statement, Background, or Controversial Statement. DQ RAPS BC

TEACHING ESSAYS BUNDLE

Works great in Microsoft Word and can be batch dumped easily into Google Docs. Nice for paper comments as well. The comments use the same, consistent language Common Core language of instruction. I’ve included this comment download in my TEACHING ESSAYS BUNDLE and The Pennington Manual of Style (a slice of the comprehensive essay program).

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Academic Language

Since the adoption of the Common Core State Standards way back in 2009… Has it been that long ago? the term Academic Language has remained as one of the longest-lasting educational buzzwords. As educators and publishers have unpacked that term in the years since, it has taken on various meanings; however, its original intent was to assert that the types of words that we teach do matter. Specifically, teaching Tier 2 words which have utility across subject areas makes a lot of sense. For plenty of examples and the research-based Academic Word List, I’d refer teachers HERE.

The ability of these Tier 2 (Beck, McKeown, Kucan) words to transfer across subject areas and reading genre helps developing readers access more complex text. This is why teaching academic language matters. The Tier 2 academic vocabulary words are not ends in themselves; they are gateways to more sophisticated reading. Academic language is all about access to text complexity.

As detailed in Appendix A of the Common Core document and the research described in the 2006 ACT, Inc., report titled Reading Between the Lines, reading comprehension scores have dropped over the last 20 years. Two reasons were cited for this decline: 1. decreasing text complexity and 2. lack of independent reading. We educators have got to make our word study more rigorous and require more challenging independent reading to enhance the academic language of our students.

How Not to Teach Academic Language

1. Don’t spend excessive amounts of time reading entire novels out loud to your class. I agree with those who have argued against teachers reading complete novels out loud as spoon-feeding. Of course, reading out loud does have some benefits and re-reading a passage or portion of an article as a close reading does have merit, but not as the primary means of developing academic language and increasing reading comprehension.
2. I also concur with those who have also argued against independent reading in the classroom as a “waste of instructional time.” Spending oodles of class time with free-choice independent reading does not build academic language. Independent reading is vitally important… but as homework. By the way, Accelerated Reader is not an academic vocabulary program. Teachers are clever enough to incentivize and hold students accountable for independent reading without an outside program.
3. Don’t have students memorize long lists of academic language words. While memorization is certainly a part of effective word study, students retain more at the end of the year with a quality, not quantity approach to vocabulary study. Some in-depth vocabulary instruction is certainly valuable.
4. Avoid spending excessive amounts of vocabulary instructional time on learning words in the context of teaching a short story, article, or novel. Pre-teaching a few essential words is unavoidable, but don’t let the reading drive your vocabulary instruction. The tail shouldn’t wag the dog.

How to Teach Academic Language

1. Increase the amount of independent reading homework with proper incentives and accountability. But do teach students how to read independently and require students to read complex material at their individual instructional levels. Lexiles are a useful tool, but a much simpler and flexible approach to determine reading levels is word recognition. Assign limited choices for independent reading. Students don’t naturally gravitate toward text complexity. Like adults, students look for the easy reads. Don’t worry about taking away a students love of reading. Teachers won’t damage children for life by assigning challenging reading homework. Certainly, informed educators know what’s best for students.
2. Teach a balanced approach to vocabulary development, using the Common Core Vocabulary Standards detailed in the Language Strand. Teach academic language in isolation and in the reading context. Don’t be a purist. Students may have to read a 1000 novels before being exposed to, say, an important figures of speech. Vocabulary acquisition is not a completely natural process. The Standards focus on teaching a balance of vocabulary skills: multiple meaning words (L.4.a.), words with Greek and Latin roots and affixes (L.4.a.), figures of speech (L.5.a.), words with special relationships (L.5.b.), words with connotative meanings (L.5.c.), and academic language words (L.6.0). Check out How to Teach the Common Core Vocabulary Standards.
3. Plan. Insist upon grade level and department articulation to coordinate a year-to-year academic language instructional scope and sequence. We all too often wind up teaching, say, the same list of Greek and Latin prefixes year after year. We need a plan to move students from A to Z. Here’s a helpful instructional scope and sequence for grades 4-8 academic language. Yes, a multi-grade vocabulary program does make sense to unify instruction.
4. Choose the right words to teach. Some academic language words more often than others. It makes sense to focus instruction on the high frequency Tier 2 words found in content area textbooks and in academic articles.Dr. Averil Coxhead, senior lecturer at the Victoria University of Wellington School of Linguistics and Applied Language Studies developed and evaluated The Academic Word List (AWL) for her MA thesis. The list has 570 word families which were selected according to certain criteria:
   • The word families must occur in over half of the 28 academic subject areas. “Just over 94% of the words in the AWL occur in 20 or more subject areas. This principle ensures that the words in the AWL are useful for all learners, no matter what their area of study or what combination of subjects they take at tertiary level.”
   • “The AWL families had to occur over 100 times in the 3,500,000 word Academic Corpus in order to be considered for inclusion in the list. This principle ensures that the words will be met a reasonable number of times in academic texts.” The academic corpus refers to a computer-generated list of most-frequently occurring academic words.
   • “The AWL families had to occur a minimum of 10 times in each faculty of the Academic Corpus to be considered for inclusion in the list. This principle ensures that the vocabulary is useful for all learners.”

   Words Excluded From the Academic Word List

   • “Words occurring in the first 2,000 words of English.”
   • “Narrow range words. Words which occurred in fewer than 4 faculty sections of the Academic Corpus or which occurred in fewer than 15 of the 28 subject areas of the Academic Corpus were excluded because they had narrow range. Technical or specialist words often have narrow range and were excluded on this basis.”
   • “Proper nouns. The names of places, people, countries, for example, New Zealand, Jim Bolger and Wellington were excluded from the list.”
   • “Latin forms. Some of the most common Latin forms in the Academic Corpus were et al, etc, ie, and ibid.” http://www.victoria.ac.nz/lals/resources/academicwordlist/information

   The Academic Word list has been ordered into lists by frequency of use. Why not teach the academic language words that appear most often in academic text?

Common Core Vocabulary Toolkits Grades 4, 5, 6, 7, 8

Mark Pennington, an M.A. reading specialist, is the author of the grades 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8 Common Core Vocabulary Toolkits–slices of the comprehensive Grammar, Mechanics, Spelling and Vocabulary programs. These full-year programs help students master the grade-level Anchor Standards for Language: Multiple meaning words and context clues; Greek and Latin word parts; language resources (dictionary and thesaurus); figures of speech; word relationships (homonyms) and connotations; and academic language (Frayer four square model using the leveled, high frequency Academic Word List).

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Developing a curriculum map for English-language arts, also referred to as an instructional scope and sequence, can be a time-consuming process for most grade level teams or departments. Detailed curriculum maps help get teachers on “the same page” in terms of what needs to be taught by the end of the term or year. Most teachers agree on what to teach, but prefer a bit more latitude on how to teach.

The curriculum map is most effective when the grade level or course content meshes with the previous and next year curriculum. Of course, a built-in review is necessary to clear away the summer brain drain that most students seem to experience. If teachers are able to agree on diagnostic and summative assessments, all the better to know right where to start a class and exactly what remediation will be necessary for individualized instruction. Check out our free ELA and reading assessments HERE.

Most teachers find that reading and writing are process-oriented subjects, while grammar, mechanics, spelling, and vocabulary are more content-oriented subjects. The devil is in the details for the latter subjects. To serve as a starting point for the curriculum map, check out these grades 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8 instructional scope and sequence charts HERE from my Grammar, Mechanics, Spelling, and Vocabulary programs. I think you’ll find them to be helpful.

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Pennington Publishing Grammar Programs

Teaching Grammar, Usage, and Mechanics (Grades 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, and High School) are full-year, traditional, grade-level grammar, usage, and mechanics programs with plenty of remedial practice to help students catch up while they keep up with grade-level standards. Twice-per-week, 30-minute, no prep lessons in print or interactive Google slides with a fun secret agent theme. Simple sentence diagrams, mentor texts, video lessons, sentence dictations. Plenty of practice in the writing context. Includes biweekly tests and a final exam.

Grammar, Usage, and Mechanics Interactive Notebook (Grades 4‒8) is a full-year, no prep interactive notebook without all the mess. Twice-per-week, 30-minute, no prep grammar, usage, and mechanics lessons, formatted in Cornell Notes with cartoon response, writing application, 3D graphic organizers (easy cut and paste foldables), and great resource links. No need to create a teacher INB for student make-up work—it’s done for you! Plus, get remedial worksheets, biweekly tests, and a final exam.

Syntax in Reading and Writing is a function-based, sentence level syntax program, designed to build reading comprehension and increase writing sophistication. The 18 parts of speech, phrases, and clauses lessons are each leveled from basic (elementary) to advanced (middle and high school) and feature 5 lesson components (10–15 minutes each): 1. Learn It!  2. Identify It!  3. Explain It! (analysis of challenging sentences) 4. Revise It! (kernel sentences, sentence expansion, syntactic manipulation) 5. Create It! (Short writing application with the syntactic focus in different genre).

Get the Diagnostic Grammar, Usage, and Mechanics Assessments, Matrix, and Final Exam FREE Resource:

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When it comes to grammar, teachers have a wide variety of instructional preferences.

Broadly speaking, teachers agree that standard English grammar and usage needs to be learned, but they disagree on how it should be taught. Some prefer the inductive approach of learning grammar through natural oral language development (Krashen, et al.) or through the process of writing via mini-lessons or learning centers (Graves, Weaver, Calkins, et al.), while others prefer the deductive approach of traditional grammar via rules instruction and practice (D.OL., D.L.R., worksheet-based resources, etc.)

Of course, balanced grammar programs, which attempt to teach grammar in the listening, speaking, reading, and writing contexts do exist and are becoming increasingly popular in many classrooms. Following are brief descriptions of the Pennington Publishing grammar programs, which adopt the latter instructional preference and accommodate the challenges of teaching grammar as a secondary instructional focus in most classrooms. Please click on the title you wish to explore further or click HERE to view the entire grammar collection.

Teaching Grammar and Mechanics Grades 4-8 and High School

Teaching Grammar and Mechanics Grades 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, and High School

Teaching Grammar and Mechanics Grades 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 and Teaching Grammar and Mechanics for High School is its own program.

The grades 4-8 programs feature these components:

*56 language conventions (grammar, usage, and mechanics) lessons with teacher display and student worksheets

*Simple sentence diagrams and mentor texts

*Writing application and formative grammar and mechanics lessons for each 25 minute, twice-per week lesson
*28 biweekly grammar, usage, and mechanics assessments
*Diagnostic grammar, usage, and mechanics tests with corresponding remedial worksheets–each with a formative assessment

The high school program features these components:

*64 quick language conventions (grammar, spelling, and mechanics) lessons for twice-per-week instruction in place of D.O.L. Includes grammar, spelling, and mechanics rule, concept, or skill for each lesson with short practice, simple sentence diagram, mentor text, writing application, grammar cartoon, and three formative sentence dictation assessments

Comprehensive and effective. User-friendly for the novice or veteran grammarian with YouTube training videos.

“Teaching Grammar and Mechanics is the most comprehensive and easy to teach grammar and mechanics program I’ve ever taught. It’s got everything! I’m teaching each grade-level Standard and students are filling in the gaps from previous grade level Standards. This program is written by teachers for teachers and their students. You can tell. Takes no prep and hardly any correction. Both veteran teachers like me and new ELA teachers will really appreciate the scripted grammar lessons.”

Robin M

Writing Openers Language Application

Writing Openers Language Application

Want to teach grammar through writing? This one’s for you! It’s direct instruction with only two 5-10 minutes openers per week, but it gets the job done… much better than Daily Oral Language or adhoc grammar and mechanics mini-lessons in writers workshop.

These separate grades 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8 programs each provide 56 whole-class, twice-per-week “quick writes,” designed to help students learn, practice, and apply grade-level grammar, usage, mechanics, sentence structure, and sentence variety Standards.

The Writing Openers Language Application lessons are formatted for classroom display and interactive instruction. The teacher reads and explains the Lesson Focus and Example(s) while students follow along on their own accompanying worksheet. Next, the students annotate the Lesson Focus and summarize the Key Idea(s). Afterwards, the students complete the Practice Section (sentence combining, sentence revisions). Finally, students complete the My Own Sentence writing task.

“These quick openers teach grammar in the writing context. So much better than Daily Oral Language!”

Jonathan L.

Interactive Notebook for Grammar

assessment. Students self-correct their work from the answers and mini-conference with the teacher to review the formative assessment.

“This is an amazing product. It makes individualized instruction a breeze!”

Teaching Grammar and Mechanics Interactive Notebook Grades 4-8

The Teaching Grammar and Mechanics Interactive Notebook Grades 4-8 provides key grammar, usage, and mechanics lessons to address each of the grades 4-8 Language Strand Standards formatted for interactive notebooks (INBs)… culled from the Grammar, Mechanics, Spelling, and Vocabulary and Teaching Grammar and Mechanics programs…

The Teaching Grammar and Mechanics Interactive Notebook Grades 4-8 program will help your students master each of the Common Core grade-level grammar and mechanics Standards. This rigorous, fun, and easy-to-teach interactive notebook is neither a fact-filled collection of boring lecture notes, nor a time-wasting portfolio of art projects.

• Grades 4- 8 lessons aligned to the Common Core (alignment documents included). Note that this is not specifically a grade-level program.
• 64 Lessons designed in the interactive Cornell Notes format with plenty of online links to help students practice. Lessons take 40 minutes, twice per week.
• Students are provided the full note-taking text and write only the examples from the teacher display. LESS time copying and MORE time learning. Students self-correct from answers on the display. Plenty of practice in this program.
• Brief grammar and mechanics sentence dictations to formatively assess whether students have achieved mastery.
• Students read, laugh, and respond to 64 color grammar cartoons by master cartoonist, David Rickert. 
• Students use their grammar and mechanics notes to label, color, cut, and glue 3d graphic organizers from easy step-by-step directions. Completed color graphics (the answers) are included to serve as models. No need to create a teacher INB; it’s done for you and for absent student make-up work.
• Minimal preparation and correction. Just copy off two or three student pages and set out the materials. Students self-correct throughout every INB lesson and with the remedial worksheets to learn from their mistakes and save you time.
• Biweekly unit tests with answers assess definition, identification, and application of the grammar and mechanics concepts and skills.
• Diagnostic assessments with over 100 targeted remedial worksheets and online resources. Students complete the worksheet practice, self-correct and edit from the answer booklets, take a brief formative assessment, and mini-conference with you to assess whether students have mastered the Standard.

Grammar Comics

A terrific collection of grammar and usage, parts of speech, and sentence problems grammar cartoons by ELA high school teacher, David Rickert. Featured in the Teaching Grammar and Mechanics Interactive Notebook Grades 4-8 and Teaching Grammar and Mechanics (for high school) programs…

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Since the publication of Erin Cobb’s wonderful Interactive GRAMMAR Notebook in 2014, the sale of Interactive Notebooks (INBs) in every subject area has boomed on such key teacher-author curriculum sites as Teachers Pay Teachers.

To say that Erin has been successful is an understatement. As of this writing, her interactive grammar notebook has sold over 30,000 downloads with 6,958 reviews (most all gushingly supportive and/or at least thankful in order to receive the 5% credit for a rating and review on the Teachers Pay Teachers site).

Erin has also been influential. Her clever grammar activities, foldable templates, cover art, and incredibly low price have set the standard for other interactive notebooks. Erin is also prolific. The number of her Lovin Lit products increases at a seemingly exponential rate.

Although secure in her market share of interactive grammar notebooks because of Teacher Pay Teachers page/site position by sales and reviews and Erin’s renowned customer service, any industry standard can be improved upon… After all, “New and Improved” is the American way.

Rather than a specific critique of what an interactive notebook should not be (see my article titled “10 Reasons Not to Use Interactive Notebooks”), let’s learn from Erin’s example and the improvements other teacher-authors have made to the interactive notebook style of instruction for grammar. Here’s a checklist of what to look for in your first grammar INB or if you’re looking for a “New and Improved” version of a grammar INB.

The ideal grammar interactive notebook should include the following characteristics:

• Less class time wasted… no more than ninety minutes of instructional time per week… two lessons of 45 minutes each seems to be ideal (you do have other subjects to teach)
• More focus on concepts and skills, less focus on art work
• Cute, but not too cute with fonts and graphics which do not get in the way of clarity and purpose
• Less mess and less waste. Keep on the good side of your custodian
• Minimal prep for each lesson… teach on the fly. Good curriculum is user-friendly.
• A completed teacher INB for absent students to copy
• Clear, consistent, and simple directions to be user-friendly to students and so that a new teacher or substitute could teach any lesson with success
• Less simplistic copying and more time in truly interactive learning via writing down relevant examples, highlighting, annotation, making connections… in short, student response to teacher-provided content… that’s interactive learning
• Rigorous, grade-level Standards-based lessons based upon a balance of grammar, usage, and mechanics. Check for specific grade-level Standards alignment documents, not a general one page reference.
• Narrow focus on grade levels… A grades 4-8 notebook will either be too simplistic or too challenging, too juvenile or too mature for any one grade level
• Enough practice, but not too much practice in the lesson’s concepts and skills
• Application of the concepts and skills in the reading and writing contexts
• Easy for students to self-correct and less time-consuming for teachers to skim grade
• Graphic organizers, aka foldables, templates, pop-outs which are quick and easy for students to cut, glue or tape
• Graphic organizers which help students problem-solve, classify, reinforce lesson content, and provide a study review for unit tests
• Biweekly unit tests (with answers) which require students to define, identify, and apply the grammar and mechanics skills in their own writing
• Formative assessments for each grammar and mechanics lesson to provide immediate feedback to individual students and the teacher
• Specific remedial worksheets (not just extra practice) to help individual students master grammar and mechanics concepts and skills yet unmastered following the lessons and/or unit test. That’s assessment-based, individualized instruction with a formative assessment to determine mastery on each and every worksheet.
• Cornell note-taking… the note-taking format used by most every high school teacher
• Online links and resources with proper copyright permission. Teachers need to model proper digital citizenship and fair use. If we insist upon student citations and warn against plagiarism, then… enough said.
• Online links and resources need to be extensive and integral to instruction, not mere window dressing

Before buying a grammar interactive notebook, perhaps consider a FREE Teaching Grammar and Mechanics Interactive Notebook spelling rules and parts of speech review unit (which includes all of the “New and Improved” instructional features mentioned above. Why not try before you buy?

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Counterclaim and Refutation Sentence Frames

I teach a seventh grade ELA class and we’ve just finished reading Walk Two Moons by Sharon Creech. In fact, we’ve already written our argumentative essays on “whether Phoebe was a good friend to Sal.” Of course the writing prompt is a bit more complex. It’s my students first attempt at writing the argumentative essay. They are struggling with the counterclaim (counterargument) and refutation (rebuttal) as these are new Standards for seventh graders. The Common Core State Standards  for grades 7-12 include the counterclaim in the argumentative essay (W. 1.0).

Although writers use plenty of other options, I’m teaching the counterclaim and refutation in the final body paragraph.

The following sentence frames helped out my students considerably:

First Contrasting Transition + Name the Opposition + Strong Verb + Opposing Point of View + Evidence + Analysis + Second Contrasting Transition + Reference the Opposing Point of View + Turn

First Contrasting Transition +

However, But, Admittedly, Although, Alternatively

Name the Opposition +

others, some

Strong Verbs + Denial/Assertion or Assertion

Denial: reject, oppose,  disagree, question, doubt this view and Assertion: argue that, reason that, claim that, support, conclude that

Opposing Point of View +

State the opposing point of view.

Evidence +

Pick the best evidence to support the opposing point of view. Don’t pick a “straw man.” In other words, don’t pick a weak opposing argument that is too easy to refute.

Analysis +

Explanation, insight, example, logic to support the counterclaim evidence

Second Contrasting Transition +

Still, However, But, Nevertheless, Yet, Despite, Although, Even though

Reference the Opposing Point of View +

this argument, this position, this reasoning, this evidence, this view

Turn

Now you turn the opposing point of view, evidence, and analysis back to support your thesis statement. Various options can be effective:

1. Accept the criticism of the counterclaim. Tell why all or part of the opposing point of view may be reasonable, plausible, or valid, but minimize the opposing position. For example, This evidence may be true; however, the objection does not change the fact that…

2. Reject the counterclaim. For example, This view ignores the conclusive evidence that… This position is mistaken because…

3. Criticize the evidence and analysis of the counterclaim as being unimportant, irrelevant, or a misinterpretation. For example, this argument misses the key point that…

4. Criticize the reasoning of the counterclaim as being flawed, illogical, or biased. 

Some of the above points adapted from the Harvard Writing Center. In addition to using Counterclaim and Refutation Sentence Frames, writing teachers may also be interested in these related articles: Why Use an Essay Counterclaim?, Where to Put the Essay Counterclaim, and What is the Essay Counterclaim?

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TEACHING ESSAYS BUNDLE

The author’s TEACHING ESSAYS BUNDLE includes the three printable and digital resources students need to master the CCSS W.1 argumentative and W.2 informational/explanatory essays. Each no-prep resource allows students to work at their own paces via mastery learning. How to Teach Essays includes 42 skill-based essay strategy worksheets (fillable PDFs and 62 Google slides), beginning with simple 3-word paragraphs and proceeding step-by-step to complex multi-paragraph essays. One skill builds upon another. The Essay Skills Worksheets include 97 worksheets (printables and 97 Google slides) to help teachers differentiate writing instruction with both remedial and advanced writing skills. The Eight Writing Process Essays (printables and 170 Google slides) each feature an on-demand diagnostic essay assessment, writing prompt with connected reading, brainstorming, graphic organizer, response, revision, and editing activities. Plus, each essay includes a detailed analytical (not holistic) rubric for assessment-based learning.

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