The Elementary School Grammar Toolkit

Using Mentor Texts to Teach Standards-Based Language and Grammar in Grades 3–5

Sean Ruday

• Editorial: Routledge
• Año: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781000041279
• Edición: 2
• Categoría: Didattica
• Categoría: Didattica delle lingue

Teaching grammar can be overwhelming and is often an overlooked part of effective instruction. The Elementary School Grammar Toolkit to the rescue! Now in its second edition, this comprehensive guide makes grammar instruction fun and meaningful.

You will learn how to…

• Teach grammar in a practical way to help students grow as readers and writers by presenting each grammar rule as a useful writing tool.

• Use mentor texts—excerpts from great literature—to help students understand grammar in action.

• Promote metacognition along the way so that students become responsible for their own learning.

• Implement innovative instructional strategies and tools aligned with Common Core and other state standards.

Throughout the book, you'll find step-by-step recommendations for teaching each of the grammar tools to help students meet the Common Core State Standards and other state language standards for grades three to five, plus classroom snapshots that show you the tools in action, handy templates that you can use in the classroom, and new tips for extra support at the end of every chapter.

New! The second edition features revised classroom snapshots and exemplars to showcase successful practices, new visuals, more free charts and activities, and new "Bonus Tips for Support" in each chapter, with extra practices and strategies to use with students who need extra support. The expanded, free annotated bibliography is updated to include contemporary, high-quality children's and young adult literature and gives examples of key grammatical concepts found in each work. These resources are available as supplemental downloads on our website.

PART 1

Grammatical Concepts Aligned With Grade Three Common Core Language Standards

1

The Importance of Pronoun Reference

What Is Pronoun Reference?

Common Core Language Standard 3.1 addresses the importance of pronoun reference, emphasizing “pronoun-antecedent agreement” as part of a more general standard that states students should “demonstrate command of the conventions of standard English grammar and usage when writing or speaking” (Common Core Standards, 2010). When talking with students about pronoun-antecedent agreement, I like to use the term “pronoun reference,” as it highlights the most important aspect of this concept: pronouns must clearly refer to particular antecedents. Whether or not a state adheres to the Common Core Standards, pronoun reference is an essential tool for effective and clear writing: If a piece of writing does not have clear pronoun reference, readers will get so bogged down in trying to make sense of what a particular pronoun refers to that they can lose all sense of the narrative.

Pronoun reference problems appear in all kinds of situations; when talking with a group of third graders about their Halloween adventures, I heard this example: “Josh went as Darth Vader for Halloween, and Dan dressed up like Yoda. His costume was awesome.” In this situation, the pronoun his was problematic; I didn’t know if it referred to Josh’s costume or Dan’s. Because the pronoun did not clearly refer to a particular antecedent, the audience was bound to be confused. I wanted to fully listen to more about the Halloween adventures of Josh and Dan, but the unclear pronoun reference distracted me.

Figure 1.1 (page) summarizes some key points regarding pronoun reference.

Figure 1.1 Information About Pronoun Reference

Figure 1.2 A Note on Pronouns

Why Pronoun Reference Is Important to Good Writing

When discussing pronoun reference with students, I emphasize the importance of this concept to good writing. Writing without clear pronoun use can confuse readers and make it impossible for readers and the writer to share a common understanding of what’s taking place. It’s best if students can think of this concept as a tool of effective writing that helps readers fully engage in a piece of writing instead of being confused by its pronouns. I like to illustrate the importance of clear pronoun reference by using the works of published authors. By calling attention to the ways those authors use pronouns and why clear pronoun use helps those pieces make sense, students can understand why this concept is important to good writing.

The following example, from Mary Pope Osborne’s novel Sunset of the Sabertooth, contains clear pronoun reference: “Annie held the rope with both hands. She pushed her feet against the side of the pit. She rose into the air with the rope” (Osborne, 1996, p. 45). The pronoun reference in this passage is clear because it’s obvious to readers that she refers to Annie each time it is used. Although this may seem obvious, that’s because Osborne used pronoun reference correctly; when the pronoun reference in a passage is unclear, it’s extremely hard to decipher what’s happening in a sentence. If Osborne’s piece read, “Annie held the rope with both hands. She pushed her feet against the side of the pit. They rose into the air with the rope,” the piece would be quite different. Instead of focusing on the action in the piece, readers would find themselves asking questions such as “Whom does they refer to? Isn’t this just about Annie? Are there other characters involved that I’ve missed?”

Another example from Sunset of the Sabertooth further illustrates the importance of clear pronoun reference to effectively communicate meaning. Early in the novel, readers learn that “Eight-year-old Jack and his seven-year-old sister, Annie, climbed into the tree house. They found it was filled with books” (p. 1). This passage tells us that Jack and Annie did these things together; they both climbed into the tree house and discovered the books. This information is important to the novel, as the book goes on to describe the many adventures Jack and Annie had together. If the passage about the siblings climbing into the tree house instead read, “She found it was filled with books,” the passage would take on a very different meaning. Instead of showing Jack and Annie finding the books together, the text would indicate that only Annie did so, leaving readers to ask what Jack was doing and why only Annie found the books.

As these examples from Osborne’s novel illustrate, clear pronoun reference is important because it allows readers to understand what’s taking place in the text. In the next section, we’ll look at how Ms. Jay helps her third graders understand how pronoun reference can play a major role in good writing.

A Classroom Snapshot

As the excited third graders in Ms. Jay’s third-grade class enter the room and find their spots on the carpet that serves as the class’s meeting place, they see Ms. Jay standing next to an easel pad. The phrase “Pronoun Reference: A Tool for Clear Writing” is written across the top. Ms. Jay’s students are working on memoirs, in which they focus on particular events from their lives that strike them as especially meaningful. While she’s happy with the students’ progress on these pieces, she has noticed that some students are making mistakes regarding pronoun reference in their works: “I know they’ve learned about pronouns, and they can definitely pick them out from grammar workbooks and things like that, but they confuse them a lot in their writing,” she explained to me before class.

Once Ms. Jay’s students have settled into their assigned spots, they listen as she introduces the topic: “OK, y’all. Let’s get going! Take a look at what I’ve written here: Pronoun Reference: A Tool for Clear Writing. Can someone tell us what a pronoun is?”

Student hands shoot up and Ms. Jay calls on one student to provide an explanation: “Words you say when you don’t say someone’s real name.”

“Rock on!” replies Ms. Jay. “Pronouns are tools that writers use when they don’t want to say nouns’ actual names. Pronouns take the place of nouns.” Ms. Jay goes on to explain that pronouns are important because they can help writers avoid being repetitive. “If you were writing about me, you wouldn’t want to say ‘Ms. Jay, Ms. Jay, Ms. Jay’ over and over again. That would be soooo boring!” The students laugh. “You could say she to make it less repetitive,” Ms. Jay continues. “Even though pronouns are really good for this reason, they can also be tricky. Writers who use pronouns need to make sure readers can tell whom pronouns are talking about. That’s pronoun reference. Let me show y’all what I mean.”

Ms. Jay turns the large pad of paper on the easel pad to reveal the following text, which she has transcribed from Louis Sachar’s novel Sideways Stories from Wayside School: “Joe had curly hair. But he didn’t know how much hair he had. He couldn’t count that high” (Sachar, 1985, p. 19). She reads the text aloud to the class and asks, “What are the pronouns?” Students raise their hands, identifying the different examples of the pronoun he in the text, all of which refer to the antecedent Joe. Ms. Jay commends their efforts and then asks, “What if we changed one of these pronouns? Would the passage make sense?” The students look around, presumably wondering how the passage would read with different pronouns. Ms. Jay then provides her next instructions: “Y’all get together with your partners (the students in this class have assigned partners for pair assignments such as this one) and make a change to this passage: rewrite it, but change at least one of these he pronouns we’ve picked out to a different pronoun.”

The students move to the tables in the classroom, working with their assigned partners to rewrite the passage with a changed pronoun. Ms. Jay checks in with various pairs, nodding thoughtfully as they show her their work. Once she is satisfied, Ms. Jay returns to her place on the carpet and asks the students to come together and share their work. Students volunteer to share their sentences and point out which pronouns they replaced; as they do this, Ms. Jay writes the sentences on the easel pad and discusses with the class how the sentences’ meanings have changed. One volunteer shares: “Joe had curly hair. But he didn’t know how much hair he had. She couldn’t count that high.” Ms. Jay asks the student how this passage differs from the original text, to which the student responds: “Well, we changed the last he to she, so now it’s saying that a girl couldn’t count that high.”

Ms. Jay smiles, pleased with this response, and comments further: “The meaning’s very different now, isn’t it?” Students nod as she continues: “When the pronoun was he, we could assume that he referred to Joe. Now that the last pronoun is she, we know there’s a girl or a woman who couldn’t count that high but we don’t know who that is, whom the pronoun refers to or is talking about. This is why pronoun reference is so important. If pronoun reference isn’t clear, readers can get really confused.”

Another student volunteers a different revision: “Joe had curly hair. But it didn’t know how much hair he had. It couldn’t count that high.” Again, Ms. Jay follows up by asking the student how this new example varies from the original text. The student replies, “We changed two of the hes to its. It’s not the same anymore, because the sentence is talking about an it.”

“The pronoun it sure does make the sentence different!” responds Ms. Jay. “I know it makes me wonder what it is referring to.”

“Maybe a monster!” shouts one student, as others laugh.

“Yes, maybe a monster,” smiles Ms. Jay. “One thing we definitely know is changing that pronoun really makes a difference in the meaning of this piece of writing. When you write, make sure that the pronouns you use clearly match up with what they’re replacing.” She turns back to the piece of chart paper headed Pronoun Reference: A Tool for Clear Writing and asks a student volunteer to explain why pronoun reference is a tool for good writing. A number of students’ hands go up. The first one whom Ms. Jay calls on offers her thoughts: “If the pronouns are confusing, you might not really know what’s going on.”

Ms. Jay is pleased with the response: “Rock on! This is an important tool for making sure your writing makes sense.” She tells the students that she’ll be conferencing with them about their memoirs and discuss pronoun reference in their work. As the students begin the writing workshop portion of their day, Ms. Jay sits down with individual students for writing conferences. She focuses on pronoun reference and asks the students to explain which nouns specific pronouns refer to.

Recommendations for Teaching Pronoun Reference

In this section, I described a step-by-step instructional process I recommend teachers use when teaching about pronoun reference. This process was designed to help students understand the importance of pronoun reference and apply that understanding to their writing. I organized it into the following parts:

1. Present the use of pronouns as a tool for clear writing.
2. Provide models of clear pronoun reference.
3. Ask students to change some of the pronouns.
4. Help students analyze the changes.
5. Ask students to apply this concept to their own writing.

This process was designed to help students take an active role in understanding pronoun reference; instead of simply being told of the importance of this concept, they can change pronouns in existing models, examine differences in the sentences, and apply the concept to their own work. Depending on the time you have available and your students’ needs and characteristics, you can spread the lesson’s components over multiple days or conduct the whole lesson at one time.

1. Present the Use of Pronouns as a Tool for Clear Writing

I recommend beginning by describing why using pronouns is an important tool for clear writing. In my experience, third-grade students frequently understand what pronouns are but often have little to say when discussing why they are important to effectiv...