REVIEW OF TEACHING GRAMMAR THROUGH READING AND WRITING

English 382Jenny Quarles

Article Summary

“Improving writing through teaching grammar in context: A silver lining to every cloud!”

Crystal Miracle

REVIEW OF TEACHING GRAMMAR THROUGH READING AND WRITING

Abstract

This paper is a brief review of “Improving writing through teaching grammar in context:

a silver lining to every cloud!” By Melanie Hendy, published in 2013. In this article, we

are given examples of writing activities that teachers have done with their students to

help their grammar and writing.

REVIEW OF TEACHING GRAMMAR THROUGH READING AND WRITING

This article is on embedding grammar in the teaching of reading and writing to

have a positive impact on the quality of the learners’ writing. The teaching was based on

the principles in “Grammar for Writing Schemes of Work” (Myhill et al. 2012b.) ‘, links

are always made between the feature introduced and how it might enhance the writing

being tackled, This is import ‘the use of “imitation” offers model patterns for students to

play with and then use in their own writing, Showing the students w how to do the

assignment helps them learn that material and see what is really expected and how what

they are learning enhances their writing. ‘Activities should support students in making

choices and being designers of writing and language play, Allowing students to make up

their own paper and use the language of a certain character will allow them to really take

ownership of their paper. This article gives us a few examples of lessons teachers did

with their year 6 writers. Becky Bond, a year 6 English teacher, had her students write in

the role of the main character of the book they were reading. She began by giving the

students paper bags of effective verbs and adjectives, some taken directly from the book

they were reading. The students then paired and had to define the words they did not

know and discuss if the words were appropriate or not for context. The students then

posted their definitions on their “working wall” for the whole class to use. A class

discussion was held, discussing how the use of this language could bring the character to

life and the effects language has on its reader. The teacher used modelled writing to

demonstrate the use of the vocabulary before the students wrote their own first person

accounts. Kaye Wilson, a year 6 English teacher, was focusing on embedding correct

punctuation of dialogue and the use of effective speech verbs.

REVIEW OF TEACHING GRAMMAR THROUGH READING AND WRITING

They were using a book by David Almond “Skellig” The teacher read a tense passage

from the book with the class. The class then discussed how the characters might react and

spent time role playing and speaking in the style and language of the characters. They

have short shared writing activities that enabled children to try out new techniques and

punctuation, imitating the author’s style. A year 2, English teacher, Ed Toone, used a

story line in “Biscuit Bear” (Grey 2005) to encourage his students to improve grammar

and punctuation, when writing stories with a familiar setting. The students were to create

a new biscuit friend and write an adventure about him. They looked at verbs and

adjectives from the text and then were given cake decorations to explore and write down

verbs and adjectives that described how they tasted, felt and looked. The students were

able to build on the descriptions in the text through shared writing sessions. This allowed

the children to write using their own language and detailed descriptions. These examples

show us how to let our students play with language allowing them to apply grammatical

techniques in their own writing.

REVIEW OF TEACHING GRAMMAR THROUGH READING AND WRITING

References

Melanie Hendy (2013). Improving Writing Through Teaching Grammar in Context:A Silver Lining to Every Cloud!

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