A Systematic Approach to Grammar Instruction

The teacher in this article had one goal in mind, and it was to improve her students writing skills. She searched endlessly to provide the students with the help they needed. So, she started a two year grammar sequence program. The program started when the students were in the seventh grade and continued until the end of their eighth grade year. Each month the students covered a new topic and reviewed previous material. I was amazed at how the teacher used all the stages in the learning cycle, explain, extend, evaluate, explore, and engage. She made her students incorporate what they had learned into their own writing. Also, she allowed them to edit their peers writing, so they would become better at recognizing simple mistakes that are made. The teacher always provided the students with practice material, mainly from her own writing. At the end of the program, the teacher evaluated the students progress. One student told the teacher how she was able to apply what she had learned and was able to fix the mistakes she made in the past. If I was a teacher or was interested in teaching, I would follow the model this teacher provided because it explains and give details on how to help students improve their writing!

What is AAE?

AAE should be considered a dialect and not a language. Dialect is a variation in speech spoken by a certain group of people. Whereas, language is a system of sounds, symbols, gestures, etc by which humans and other creatures communicate.