Systematic Language Study in Reading and Writing Contexts
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Faculty Work Comprehensive List
5-2012
Grammar Workshop: Systematic Language Study in Reading and Writing Contexts
Leah A. Zuidema Dordt College, [email protected]
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Recommended Citation Zuidema, L. A. (2012). Grammar Workshop: Systematic Language Study in Reading and Writing Contexts. English Journal, 101 (5), 63. Retrieved from https://digitalcollections.dordt.edu/faculty_work/21
This Article is brought to you for free and open access by Digital Collections @ Dordt. It has been accepted for inclusion in Faculty Work Comprehensive List by an authorized administrator of Digital Collections @ Dordt. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Grammar Workshop: Systematic Language Study in Reading and Writing Contexts
Abstract Responding to claims that grammar instruction has become too limited, Zuidema describes field notebooks, mentor text, show-and-tell essays, and other strategies for engaging students in systematic language analysis.
Keywords writing, grammar
Disciplines Education | Educational Methods | English Language and Literature | Rhetoric and Composition
Comments Copyright © National Council of Teachers of English 2012.
This article is available at Digital Collections @ Dordt: https://digitalcollections.dordt.edu/faculty_work/21 Leah A. Zuidema
Responding to claims that The Grammar grammar instruction has become too limited, Workshop: Systematic Zuidema describes field notebooks, mentor texts, Language Study in show-and-tell essays, and other strategies for Reading and Writing engaging students in systematic language Contexts analysis.
grammar course? No way. I want tematic study of grammar, of sentence structure, to teach grammar in context!” In has no place in the classroom” (12–13). (For fur- my head, I shouted at my depart- ther discussion of the recent history of grammar ment chair. In reality, I swallowed instruction, see Kolln and Hancock; to see recent my words and worried silently. I had taught gram- perspectives on grammar instruction from English Amar in the context of high school writing units teachers, see the March 2011 English Journal, in- and college composition classes, and my teaching cluding Ken Lindblom’s concepts for enriched dis- had benefited greatly from guides such as Con- cussions of English language.) stance Weaver’s Teaching Grammar in Context. But I Whether or not Kolln is correct to blame couldn’t envision a practical way to study grammar NCTE, she is right that prevailing views of the “in context” outside of my writing courses. Worse, “right” context for grammar learning have been too as I contemplated the semester-long grammar class limited. In too many cases, “teaching grammar in that lay before me, I feared I was doomed to reenact context” is either fancy parlance for “I don’t teach skill-and-drill approaches that have long been ac- much grammar” or a mantra that forces a false di- knowledged as ineffective (Braddock, Lloyd-Jones lemma: “My school requires me to teach a stand- and Schoer; Hartwell). Planning for meaningful alone grammar course/unit, which means my only grammar study seemed like an impossible task. option is to use traditional drills, worksheets, and exercises.” Thus, Kolln is right about this much: we have to expand our understanding of the context Reframing Contexts for Grammar Study for grammar instruction. Our students are awash My worries were rooted in assumptions that teach- in texts, and as readers, it is essential that they un- ing grammar in context always meant “in the con- derstand how the working parts of these texts are text of a writing course” or at least “as a supplement manipulated to shape arguments, hold their atten- to a larger writing project.” Conversations with tion, and persuade them to “buy in.” Furthermore, high school teachers and reports from college pro- as composers of everything from academic papers fessors (e.g., Leahy) suggest that these assumptions to YouTube videos, social text messages, workplace are fairly common. In her July 2010 letter to EJ, emails, and tweets calling for civic change, young respected grammarian Martha Kolln pointedly writers benefit from having a more conscious com- criticizes NCTE for policies and publications that, mand of their words. In this “prosumer” era in in her view, advocate “teaching of grammar only in which we seem always to be producing and con- the context of writing.” Kolln claims that over the suming texts (D. Anderson), words matter as much past 30 years, this “only in the context of writing” as—or more than—they ever have. Learning how approach has become an entrenched view—and has grammar works in the texts they read and write is led many English teachers to believe “that the sys- essential to students’ literacy. It is time to reframe
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our view to include both writing and reading as con- framework for curriculum and pedagogy in which texts for grammar learning, and in doing so, to cre- careful language study is foregrounded, even as it ate opportunities such as courses and units in which is embedded in the contexts of both reading and contextualized grammar study can take center stage. writing. A grammar workshop encourages students to do meaningful and in-depth language study—to Tools for Designing a Grammar Workshop explore and play with grammar as it is used in au- thentic texts. Grammar study functions as the center The challenge, then, is to create opportunities for point of the workshop, but three different aspects of grammar study that are both rigorous and relevant, learning about English—literature, language, and that prompt students to systematically explore the composition—are put into reciprocal relationship. language in texts that are A successful grammar workshop could be designed If reading and writing are meaningful to them—both as in any number of ways, so my intent in sharing my two sides of the same readers and as writers. Helpful approach is not to be prescriptive. Rather, I offer coin, then grammar study tools for designing this kind an illustration of a grammar workshop that I hope of grammar study may be de- is one way in which these will spark your creativity in designing significant rived from the book Engaging experiences in grammar learning for your students. two types of language Grammar: Practical Advice for study can be connected. Real Classrooms (Benjamin and Oliva). Explaining her con- A Grammar Workshop Overview ceptual framework for planning grammar lessons, One of the key projects in my grammar workshop lead author Amy Benjamin describes how she uses is the Field Notebook assignment. This collabora- the simple heuristic “notice, name, apply”: tive project requires students to take on the role Going from reading to writing is a recursive pro- of grammar researchers: to start noticing and nam cess in which grammar is the craft to be discovered ing how grammar works “in the wild,” and to apply in the former and practiced in the latter. . . . Just their findings by experimenting with grammar in as the artist’s trained eye sees the use of geometri- their own writing. The mechanics of the project cal shapes in a painting, the writer’s eye can be are fairly simple. Near the beginning of the course, trained to notice writerly shapes. Once patterns students form research teams. Like professional re- emerge for us, we name them. Then we apply searchers, the student researchers collect data and them. (7) make “field notes” as they analyze those data. For If reading and writing are two sides of the same this project, this means that the three or four mem- coin, then grammar study is one way in which these bers of a team study texts by one author, working two types of language study can be connected. together throughout the semester to label and ana- The notice-name-apply concept is simple, yet lyze their selected author’s grammatical choices. For powerful. When we understand that grammar study each of the twelve major topics that we study as a can be foregrounded in an expanded context encom- class (see fig. 1), the team prepares a corresponding passing both reading and writing, it is as though language study becomes a swinging door that can be pushed open in either direction into two equally FIGuRE 1. Field Notebook Units/Topics of Study wonderful rooms. At different moments in our study 1. Sentence patterns of grammar we can step more deeply into either the 2. V erbs reading or writing room, and in pushing the door 3. Fragments open farther in one direction, we also gain a better 4. Coordination and subordination view of the other room. That is, when we as readers 5. Cohesion 6. Sentence rhythm explore how grammar works in another author’s text, 7. Writer’s voice we also have the opportunity to think about how we 8. Adverbials author grammar in our own texts—and vice versa. 9. Adjectival 10. Nominals Working from this view of grammar, I use the 11. Stylistic variations term grammar workshop to refer to an inquiry-based 12. Gendered language
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Field Notebook section that includes a sample of ful models—not only because they have so much their author’s work with the group’s annotations— to teach us about language craft but also because markings, marginalia, and analytical commentary my students and I establish a long-term literary re- discussing their findings (see fig. 2). lationship with their authors. We familiarize our- Throughout the course, students also work selves with several works by the same author and individually to draft, revise, and polish Show and repeatedly revisit concen- Tell essays. Students write about grammar- related trated selections from those An important way to issues, and they apply their Field Notebook knowl- texts. In this way, these begin noticing language edge by experimenting with the same kinds of authors and their work craft is to develop a grammatical maneuvers that they notice in the become more than just deep familiarity with texts they are studying for their Field Notebooks. good examples; they are el- one author’s ways with What I’ve provided so far is a bird’s-eye view evated to the status of true words across a variety of of my grammar workshop. However, it is also im- mentors. portant to share more detailed explanation of some This enriched notion texts—and then to draw of the noticing, naming, and applying components of mentor texts requires on that understanding for of this project, not only to clarify how the projects that students learn to look analyzing works by other provide meaningful occasion for grammar study to written texts as teachers. authors. but also to illustrate how students engage in in- In Wondrous Words: Writers quiry throughout the grammar workshop semester. and Writing in the Elementary Classroom, Katie Wood Ray shares her practical wisdom about “how to help students read like writers so that they can see craft Mentor Texts: Noticing for themselves” (25). Readers need to know what to For the Field Notebooks, each student team ana- look for: lyzes texts by a single author. To begin, each team When you see that a writer has crafted something collects at least six samples of their chosen author’s in a text, you see a particular way of using words published writing. If the samples are lengthy, they that seems deliberate or by design—like some- choose one substantial excerpt (such as a chapter thing that didn’t “just come out that way.” . . . or section). We refer to these samples of published Crafted places in texts are those places where writ- work as mentor texts, borrowing a phrase widely used ers do particular things with words that go beyond among writing workshop teachers. Teacher Jeff just choosing the ones they need to get the mean- Anderson suggests that a mentor text is “any text ing across. . . . This is what helps writers write that can teach a writer about any aspect of writer’s well when they have an audience in mind, it helps them garner attention for what they have to say, craft, from sentence structure to quotation marks and it helps them find that place beyond mean- to ‘show don’t tell’” (16). Anderson’s description ing where words sing with beauty. (28; italics in is a good place to start understanding what men- original) tor texts are and what they can do, but I wish to tighten this definition. Perhaps an analogy will An important way to begin noticing lan- help to explain why. As a professor, I often seek guage craft is to develop a deep familiarity with advice from colleagues. But not everyone who has one author’s ways with words across a variety of taught me is my mentor. I reserve the term mentor texts—and then to draw on that understanding for for a select group—for those special people who are analyzing works by other authors. In a demonstra- particularly skilled in what they do and who, over tion lesson, for example, Ray draws extensively on the long term, stay in a relationship with me and her knowledge of author Cynthia Rylant’s craft to continually teach me more. analyze a Sports Illustrated piece. She explains: “You The same is true for mentor texts. There are might have noticed that my connections drew innumerable texts we can turn to in order to learn heavily from my knowledge of the work of Cyn- grammar craft. But not just “any text that can teach thia Rylant. That’s not an accident. I know Rylant’s a writer” qualifies as a mentor text. In my classes, work like the back of my hand. She’s my mentor. mentor texts are those that are especially power- It’s important for us to know the work of a few
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2. RE u IG F
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writers very well, to have what Lucy Calkins calls ticle, uses labels that elementary children invented: certain ‘touchstone’ texts that we know almost by close echoes, runaway sentences, commenting on the text. heart” (41). In the grammar workshop, it is impor- Ray’s point in using invented labels is not that we tant that students know the work of one writer es- should avoid grammatical jargon; in fact, she argues pecially well so that they can extrapolate from that the opposite point a few pages later. Rather, Ray knowledge to notice how language craft functions emphasizes that when we take the liberty of cre- in others’ works and in their own writing. ating names for what we notice, we free ourselves Because each team focuses on a different au- to see complex techniques and intricate patterns thor, individual students have the opportunity for which we don’t yet have the names. I stress this to choose grammar mentors who are personally point with my students, too. There will be time interesting to them. Some teams choose canoni- later in the course to learn about parallelism, periodic cal authors such as Edgar Allan Poe, Mark Twain, sentences, and metadiscourse. But during the early days Flannery O’Connor, and Sandra Cisneros. Others of the grammar workshop, the point is to learn to study works by children’s and young adult authors notice, to see how language really functions. such as Patricia Polacco, Roald Dahl, Jerry Spi- After we consider how Ray and her students nelli, Lois Lowry, and Chris Crutcher. Teams may read like writers, my students try this rather or- choose any published author whose writing they ganic approach to noticing and naming. We prac- deem worthy of emulation, and I encourage them tice first, all working together through a text that to consider not only novelists and short story au- meets three criteria: thors but also essayists, poets, travel writers, inves- • A thoughtful analytical essay that tigative journalists, and syndicated bloggers. (Since addresses a serious topic. Often, under- most groups do focus on fiction, I also bring other graduates are skeptical that Ray’s approach writing samples into our class discussions: poems, for elementary students will have merit for presidential speeches, blog entries, columns from them as college students. They need to test newspapers and popular magazines, articles from the rigor and benefits of Ray’s method—to academic journals.) Regular reports and discussions see how it can work not only with children’s of examples from each team allow everyone to con- books or Sports Illustrated articles but also sider how different authors shape their words. with what they see as “serious” writing. • A showcase for skillful crafting of Conversations about Craft: Naming En glish grammar and punctuation. I choose a piece where there is much to For the Field Notebook, students analyze their notice. Some of what is notable is evident mentor texts during each unit of study, labeling with a passing glance (e.g., dashes, colons, grammar choices and considering how they affect intentional fragments). Other aspects of craft readers. There is power in naming; for this reason, may be observed only through more careful my students are given opportunities both to create study, and their technical names may be names and to learn existing names for grammatical unfamiliar to students (e.g., parallelism, structures and strategies. asyndeton, sentence appositives). When stu- dents notice these techniques, they are soon Inventing Names persuaded that (1) authors make many delib- erate choices in crafting language and (2) this When we observe without bringing preexisting approach to noticing is a rigorous, worth- category names as analytical lenses, we may no- while method for upper-level study—even if tice phenomena and patterns that we might other- we do use invented names until they learn wise have overlooked (Glaser). Early in the course, the technical terms. I teach students to read grammar in literary texts • A recently published one-page piece. in this manner. We start by studying how others Some students imagine that grammar was rel- go about this same task: my students read Chapter evant long ago, before people wrote on 2 from Ray’s Wondrous Words, and we discuss how screens. Students need to see that linguistic Ray, in her lengthy analysis of a Sports Illustrated ar- attentiveness continues to be a contemporary
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concern—both in spite of and because of the Moving from our brief review of textbook ex- fact that texting, status updates, and other ercises to more extended, in-depth analysis of Field types of screen writing are bringing about Notebook mentor texts raises the challenge (and rel- new conventions of grammar, usage, and evance) to a new level. When students complete ten spelling. Limiting the selection to one page textbook problems about participial phrases, they prompts students to recognize just how many know that they are likely to find at least ten participial conscious grammar choices an author may phrases. However, when they read ten sentences from make in a short passage. A one-pager also makes it easy to work through a piece with a a mentor text, there is no assurance that there will be document camera or overhead projector. ten participial phrases (or any at all). To confidently identify participial phrases and explain their function Each semester, I choose a different piece for the in mentor texts, they have to know what participial class’s first noticing practice session so that I, too, phrases look like, where they might be located, what analyze with fresh eyes. Most recently, I used a “tests” one might use to determine whether or not a Newsweek column by Jon Meacham: “Don’t Wait structure is a participial phrase, and what purpose a for a Thank You, Mr. President.” We analyzed the participial phrase would serve within a given sentence. opening paragraphs together, and then students Since this kind of grammar analysis is quite completed their analysis with partners. challenging, I structure Field Notebook noticing- and-naming activities so that students have many Learning Names opportunities to develop their understanding of each For the remainder of the semester, students go on of the grammatical concepts we study. For example, to independently analyze grammar choices in many during a unit on adjectivals, I instruct students to other texts, especially in the mentor texts for their identify pre-noun participles, participial phrases, Field Notebooks. As they learn new terms and con- and relative clauses in one of their mentor texts. (I cepts, students use them to notice aspects of craft omit forms that most of my students recognize eas- that they might otherwise have overlooked (e.g., ily and use confidently in their own writing, such Where does the author use it clefts, what clefts, as adjectives and adjectival prepositional phrases.) and there transformations, and to what end? Where Working independently first, students mark their and why does the author use the known-new con- mentor texts, highlighting the structures they were tract?). In this way, names become analytical lenses. instructed to watch for. They annotate: labeling Students learn the language of grammarians and to forms and functions, commenting about patterns, use that discourse to see, think, and organize ideas remarking on the author’s possible motivations, and like knowledgeable grammarians do. noting their own reactions as readers. Students then To develop this deeper familiarity with the bring their completed homework to class, where the discourse of grammar, students must first be ex- teams meet to compare their findings and develop a posed to the technical labels. This is where mini- consensus about what they see. Within groups, lead- lessons and textbooks have their place. By taking a ership of the team rotates: each student takes a turn few minutes to complete and discuss short readings for three of four of the units of study. I check during and exercises from Martha Kolln and Loretta Gray’s each research team meeting that all students have Rhetorical Grammar: Grammatical Choices, Rhetorical done their individual work, but I collect only one Effects, my students build their initial understand- Field Notebook copy per unit per team. This means ing of key terms and concepts. Like aspiring scuba that each team must build consensus about how to divers practicing in a pool, students understand label and interpret their data. that their textbook exercises are practice for the The team conversations that ensue are essen- more authentic and challenging task of identifying tial to students’ learning. To complete their Field grammar structures “in the ocean.” They anticipate Notebook tasks, team members use their noticing the challenge of analyzing their Field Notebook and naming skills to argue how to correctly anno- mentor texts, so they work purposefully to learn tate their mentor texts and what to write about in new concepts as thoroughly as they can while we their interpretive commentaries. In doing so, they are still “in the pool.” reinforce and fine-tune their knowledge of gram-
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mar. When a research team has arrived at consensus, Noticing and naming grammar in this way the leader for that unit of study produces one copy is challenging; it is also fun—what Donald Mur- of the mentor text pages—complete with labeled ray and others have called “hard fun.” Students find and annotated grammatical features—that accu- their learning stretched by the many grammar puz- rately represents the team’s reading of their author’s zles in their mentor texts; at the same time, they writing. Additionally, team leaders compose com- enjoy the challenge precisely because it is puzzling, mentaries of at least 100 words that function much and also because they are working with texts they like researchers’ analytical memos. They share their admire more and more as they better understand group’s findings and interpretation:How does the au authors’ skill in crafting prose. thor use the grammatical techniques we studied in this unit, and to what end? What is especially noteworthy or Show-and-Tell Essays: Applying surprising about the author’s grammar craft? Team members also record questions that arise At the same time that students are busy noticing as they work together, and they report these to me as and naming grammar concepts in their Field Note- they meet. These inquiries serve as the heart of our books, they also apply what they learn to their own daily class discussions: team members rarely agree on writing. During the semester, they compose three everything, and they often make unexpected discov- short essays (about 650 words each) that explore eries, so students regularly have pressing, authentic grammar-related issues. They choose their topic, questions about grammar. They want to check their target audience, and genre; I suggest that they may understanding, to consider why well-known authors want to share a witty observation, offer cultural “break the rules” or favor particular elements of craft, commentary, recount a telling story, present a per- and to know how they might play with similar gram- suasive argument, or respond to one of the many mar craft in their own writing. Instead of providing grammar-related news stories and opinion pieces direct answers, I guide the class toward developing posted on our class website (http://homepages their own answers and insights. For these discus- .dordt.edu/~lzuidema/eng336.htm). Though they sions, I use a document camera to display a team’s now shift from reading to writing, students again annotated mentor text while team members explain act as researchers: as they draft, revise, and pol- what they find puzzling and hypothesize possible ish, students experiment with the grammar tech- explanations. The rest of the class then weighs in, niques we are simultaneously studying in the Field sometimes drawing similar examples from their own Notebooks—including the unique approaches to mentor texts to support their arguments. craft that their mentor authors use (see fig. 3). The
FIGuRE 3. Excerpt from Ruth’s Show-and-Tell Essay
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assignment includes these instructions about their be transmitted from the teacher (or the textbook) grammar experiments: to students, the grammar workshop approach pre- Where your experiments work well, leave them; supposes that grammar study is dynamic, a site where other choices would be more effective, where knowledge is continually being constructed replace them and paste the experimental excerpts through meaningful, contextualized inquiry. I have in an appendix. In either case, use the highlight- been consistently impressed with students’ engage- ing tool in Microsoft Word to mark your experi- ment and learning in the grammar workshop. The ments, and use the Insert Comments tool to add students seem impressed, too, and perhaps even a a note that names what you did and explains its bit surprised: their anonymous evaluations have rhetorical effect. been overwhelmingly positive, giving the course high marks for facilitating their learning. Many In this way, students show their grammar knowledge students comment about how the course was much and also tell about it—both through their essay con- different from what they expected—about how tent and in their margin comments annotating their useful, challenging, and fun they found it to be. experiments. By requiring experiments and reflec- Recently, my department chair visited the class. tive notes (rather than requiring inclusion of tech- I wondered what he would think about the way I niques regardless of their effectiveness), I emphasize had immersed our grammar study in the context of that good writers make choices about grammar craft. both reading and writing. I needn’t have worried. And by prompting students to make these experi- “This,” he reflected afterward with a grin, “is not ments during drafting, revising, and editing stages, your mother’s grammar class.” I emphasize how writers can consciously shape their prose at all stages of their writing. (For more about Works Cited planning for grammar learning throughout the writ- Anderson, Daniel. “Prosumer Approaches to New Media ing process, see Ehrenworth and Vinton 44–45.) Composition: Consumption and Production in Con- Show-and-Tell essays give students a meaningful tinuum.” Kairos 8.1 (2003). Web.
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Kolln, Martha, and Loretta Gray. Rhetorical Grammar: Meacham, Jon. “Don’t Wait for a Thank You, Mr. President.” Grammatical Choices, Rhetorical Effects. 6th ed. Boston: Newsweek. 16 Aug. 2010. Web. 26 Jan. 2012.
Leah A. Zuidema is delighted to have learned much of what she knows about grammar from her mother—and as a mother. Her interest in systematic (yet contextualized) grammar instruction began during her years as a high school English teacher. She continues to enjoy language study with her students at Dordt College, where she is now associate professor of English and specializes in composition and English teacher education. She welcomes email at [email protected].
READWRITETHINK CONNECTION Lisa Storm Fink, RWT “Analyzing Grammar Pet Peeves” is designed to help students become “rhetorically savvy” through their analysis of their own and others’ grammar pet peeves. Students begin by thinking about their own grammar pet peeves. They then read a Dear Abby column in which she lists several grammar pet peeves. Using a chart, students analyze each pet peeve and research it to determine its accuracy. By analyzing Dear Abby’s “rant” about bad grammar usage, students become aware that attitudes about race, social class, moral and ethical character, and “proper” language use are intertwined and that the rant reveals those attitudes. Finally, students discuss the pet peeves as a class, gaining an understanding that issues of race, class, and audience’s expectations help determine what is con- sidered “proper” language usage. http://www.readwritethink.org/classroom-resources/lesson-plans/analyzing- grammar-peeves-1091.html
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