In order to teach students grammar in a meaningful way, it must be taught through their writing. In this latest addition to my TpT Store, I have created Grammar Tasks: Building Strong Paragraphs, and it tries a different approach to teaching grammar.
Start at Application
Students are given a Cheat Sheet and a rubric so that they can begin with application. The Cheat Sheet provides definitions for each convention with examples. Students can even use the examples in their own writing. As for the rubric, it allows the student to understand the expectation before they begin. By placing these two resources on the same sheet, the student has everything he/she needs in one place.
When designing this resource, I had Bloom’s Taxonomy in mind. This activity cuts out the “remember” phase and supports students through the “understand” phase so that they can start at “application,” and begin to put the information into practice.
Grammar Stories
Each level of Grammar Tasks has 10 original grammar stories with varying content. These can be used in a number of ways:
- Assign 1 story to the entire class and allow them to work together or independently.
- Laminate the stories so that they can be used repeatedly, and allow each student to choose a story.
- Create a Grammar Station and allow students to work together to enhance a story. Then, have them use the rubric to grade another group’s.
Task Sheets
Students are provided a task card with an original paragraph that tells an interesting story. Students are tasked with enhancing the story using the grammar tasks on their Grammar Story Task Sheet.
Through revising and editing, students enhance the original paragraph. Have students keep all of their grammar stories in one notebook. All revisions and editing happens in the notebook. Then, on the task sheet, have students write their final draft. This is important for two reasons:
- When students have one place to house all of their writing, they can appreciate how far they’ve come. A student that has revised 5 different stories should see growth in word choice and development of the writing.
- When students have to copy the original story down before they can revise and edit it, they are reading and processing the information, as well as understanding where punctuation is impacting the reader.
Feedback
Each time students complete a paragraph, they need feedback. Students should turn in their Task Tracker with their Task Sheet. There are two options here:
- Provide feedback directly on the final edit and have students record their score on their task tracker. Then, have students choose 1 piece of feedback to place on their tracker. This will be their focus area of improvement for the next paragraph.
- Provide feedback for the paragraph on the tracker with a score.
Beyond the Task
Other ways to use the tasks include:
- Have students compare the original story with their revised story. This could be a discussion or a constructed response. What do they notice?
- Analyze how words impact tone and mood. Have students only choose positive words. Then, have them choose only negative words. What do they notice? How do the words impact the tone? mood? meaning? the reader?
- Challenge students to make the passage more concise. Teach students how to replace chunks of words with more specific words.
- Add a figurative language challenge.
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If you are interested in these products, you can purchase them by clicking any of the links below:
- Grammar Tasks: Building Strong Paragraphs – Level 1 – Adjectives, Adverbs, and Verbs
- Grammar Tasks: Building Strong Paragraphs – Level 2 – Adjectives, Adverbs, Verbs, Prepositional Phrases, & Appositives
- Grammar Tasks: Building Strong Paragraphs – Level 3 – Adjectives, Adverbs, Verbs, Prepositional Phrases, Appositives, & Absolute Phrases
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