Critical Reading Through Grammar

Essential Questions

• How can I teach discrete skills for application, retention, and transfer?

• How can I combine rigor and fun?• How can I help students rise to the challenge?

4

YES/BUT

• Claim: Grammar should be taught again• Yes, students do not know how to diagram sentences, but teaching grammar to the Dad did not help him with Standard English

The Trivium: Grammar, Rhetoric, Logic

Philosophy and the Seven Liberal Arts

• Nouns and verbs are the building blocks of our language.

• Nouns name our world and allow us to communicate with others about it.

• Nouns help identify main ideas and themes. • Vague nouns do not usually add much depth to

writing.• Concrete nouns create pictures.

Nouns

Nouns that namePeople

Nouns that Name Things/Objects

Nouns that Name Places

Nouns that Name an Idea

Student Directions

• Identifying and analyzing nouns are an excellent reading strategy. They will help you focus on the main ideas. Listen for nouns as I read the poem "My Papa's Waltz" to you. As you hear a noun, write it in the proper column. After I finish reading the poem two times, your grammar squad will have five minutes to compile a team list and answer the following questions. Your team will receive one point for each correct noun.

The whiskey on your breathCould make a small boy dizzy;But I hung on like death:Such waltzing was not easy.We romped until the pansSlid from the kitchen* shelf;My mother's countenanceCould not unfrown itself.The hand that held my wrist

Was battered on one knuckle;At every step you missedMy right ear scraped a buckle.You beat time on my headWith a palm caked hard by dirt,Then waltzed me off to bedStill clinging to your shirt.

My Papa’s Waltz

NounsNouns that namePeople

Nouns that Name Things/Objects

Nouns that Name Places

Nouns that Name an Idea

BbBoy Pans ShelfCountenance?HandWristKnuckleBeltEarHeadPalmDirtBed?ShirtWhiskeyBreath

Death Waltzing Step Time

NounsSubject Direct Object Object of the

PrepositionAdjective

whiskeywaltzing countenancehandears

boywrist (object of the relative pronoun “that”buckletime

(on your) breath(on like) death(until the) pans(from the kitchen) shelf(on one) knuckle(at every) step(on my) head(with a) palm(by) dirt(to) bed(to your) shirt

kitchenmother’s

So What?• Who is the poem about? • Why is the setting important? • What is the significance of the objects? • Why do you think Roethke uses the noun kitchen as an

adjective to modify the noun shelf? • What is the poem’s theme? • What is Roethke’s tone?• Write a thesis statement.