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Grammar Keepers

Lessons That Tackle Students' Most Persistent Problems Once and for All, Grades 4-12

By: Gretchen S. Bernabei

This kid-friendly cache of 101 lessons and practice pages helps your students internalize the conventions of correctness once and for all.

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Product Details

Grade Level: 4-12
ISBN: 9781483375465
Published By: Corwin
Series: Corwin Literacy
Year: 2015
Page Count: 280
Publication date: January 15, 2015

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Description

Students and teachers need accessible ways to talk about and use grammar. In Gretchen's trademark style, she gets these ever-important conversations started and keeps them going. This book is a keeper.”
-Jeff Anderson, Author of Revision Decisions and Everyday Editing

Almost everyone could benefit from a grammar check every once in a while—even we teachers. But our students desperately need something much more systematic, and they need it right way.

No matter what state you teach in, you can be certain that grammar is being tested . . . frequently and across the grades! Meanwhile our students entering middle and high school are still making the same errors they made back in third grade. Luckily, Gretchen Bernabei, author of Fun-Size Academic Writing for Serious Learning, comes to the rescue with Grammar Keepers: a kid-friendly cache of 101 lessons and practice pages to help your students internalize the conventions of correctness once and for all.

Gretchen’s secret? Embed the lessons in ten minutes of daily journal writing, then use students’ own writing as models for discussion and practice. Students are much more interested in learning from one another than from stodgy sentences in a dusty primer, and these ultra-relevant examples more easily transfer into students’ talking, thinking, reading, and writing.

Here are the three ingredients of Gretchen’s approach:

Daily journal writing, which increases writing practice and allows students to implement and master the lessons on punctuation, usage, and sentence structure in an authentic context
Minilessons and Interactive Dialogues that model for students how to make grammatical choices
A “Keepers 101” tracking sheet for teachers to monitor teaching and a “Parts of Speech Sheet” for students to use as a reference tool

We have known for years that traditional grammar instruction falls short for a great many students, but until now we didn’t know how to replace it. With Grammar Keepers, we have the right tool for today’s students. Think of it as the Warriner’s English Grammar and Composition for the spell- and grammar-check generation.

Author(s)

Gretchen S. Bernabei

A popular workshop presenter and winner of NCTE’s James Moffett Award in 2010, Gretchen Bernabei has been teaching kids to write in middle school and high school classrooms for more than thirty years. In addition to four other professional books and numerous articles for NCTE journals, she is the author of National Geographic School Publications’ The Good Writer’s Kit, as well as Lightning in a Bottle, a CD of visual writing prompts.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction: What’s a Keeper?

Part I. Common Errors

Lesson 1. They’re

Lesson 2. There

Lesson 3. Their

Lesson 4. Too

Lesson 5. Two

Lesson 6. To

Lesson 7. It’s

Lesson 8. Its

Lesson 9. You’re

Lesson 10. Your

Lesson 11. Who

Lesson 12. Whom

Lesson 13. Who’s

Lesson 14. Whose

Lesson 15. We’re

Lesson 16. Were

Lesson 17. Where

Lesson 18. Our

Lesson 19. Are

Lesson 20. Then

Lesson 21. Than

Lesson 22. A Lot

Lesson 23. Already

Lesson 24. All Ready

Lesson 25. All Right

Lesson 26. Less

Lesson 27. Fewer

Lesson 28. Lie

Lesson 29. Lay

Lesson 30. Should’ve

Lesson 31. Used to

Lesson 32. Me/I

Lesson 33. Subject/Verb Agreement

Lesson 34. Accept

Lesson 35. Except

Lesson 36. Loose

Lesson 37. Lose

Lesson 38. Affect

Lesson 39. Effect

Part II. Punctuation

Lesson 40. Apostrophes—Contractions

Lesson 41. Apostrophes—Possessions

Lesson 42. Apostrophes—Plurals

Lesson 43. No Apostrophes—Plurals

Lesson 44. No Apostrophes—Verbs Ending in s

Lesson 45. Commas in a Series

Lesson 46. Commas in a Letter

Lesson 47. Commas in Appositives

Lesson 48. Commas After Beginning Phrases/Clauses

Lesson 49. Commas Before Ending Phrases/Clauses

Lesson 50. Commas With Direct Address

Lesson 51. Commas in a Date

Lesson 52. Commas Between City and State

Lesson 53. Quotations—Question Marks Inside

Lesson 54. Quotations—Ending in Punctuation

Lesson 55. Hyphenated Adjectives

Lesson 56. Colons

Lesson 57. Punctuating Dialogue—Chicken Dance

Part III. Capitalization

Lesson 58. Proper Nouns

Lesson 59. Proper Adjectives

Lesson 60. Letter Closings

Lesson 61. First Words in Sentences

Lesson 62. First Words in Quotations

Part IV. Spelling

Lesson 63. Silent E

Lesson 64. Words Ending in y

Lesson 65. Words Ending in Consonants

Lesson 66. I Before E

Lesson 67. Ce/Ci/Ge/Gi

Part V. Fragments

Lesson 68. Two-Word Sentences

Lesson 69. Sentence Wringer—Psst! Statement

Lesson 70. Sentence Wringer—Is There a Verb?

Lesson 71. Joining Sentences Legally

Lesson 72. Joining Sentences Illegally

Lesson 73. Sentence Wringer Practice

Lesson 74. Paragraph Overhaul

Lesson 75. AAAWWWUBIfication

Part VI. Pitchforking

Lesson 76. Pitchforking Actions

Lesson 77. Pitchforking Nouns

Lesson 78. Pitchforking Using Ba-Da-Bing

Lesson 79. Pitchforking Using Exclamations

Lesson 80. Pitchforking Using Descriptions

Lesson 81. Pitchforking Using Sounds

Lesson 82. Pitchforking Using Smells/Tastes

Lesson 83. Pitchforking Using Contrasts

Lesson 84. Pitchforking Using Participial Phrases

Lesson 85. Pitchforking Using Absolutes

Part VII. Parts of Speech

Lesson 86. Nouns

Lesson 87. Verbs

Lesson 88. Adjectives

Lesson 89. Adverbs

Lesson 90. Pronouns

Lesson 91. Prepositions

Lesson 92. Conjunctions

Lesson 93. Interjections

Lesson 94. Sentence Patterns

Part VIII. Beyond Verbs

Lesson 95. Direct Objects

Lesson 96. Indirect Objects

Lesson 97. Gerunds

Lesson 98. Participial Phrases

Lesson 99. Infinitives

Lesson 100. Predicate Nominatives

Lesson 101. Predicate Adjectives

Appendix

Reviews

“Students and teachers need accessible ways to talk about and use grammar. In Gretchen's trademark style, she gets these ever-important conversations started and keeps them going. This book is a keeper.”

JEFF ANDERSON, author of Revision Decisions and Everyday Editing

“Gretchen Bernabei is a force as a teacher and an important mentor for using grammar instruction to help students become better writers. Gretchen has always bridged teaching the mechanics of language with authentic reading and writing because, as she says in this practical, straightforward book, ‘We only have time for the best authors, the best poetry, the best ways of living, the best ways to learn the most valuable things.’ . . . This is a smart book to add to your collection of professional resources."

PENNY KITTLE, author of Write Beside Them and Book Love

“Gretchen Bernabei presents teachers with a buffet of concrete strategies to help student tackle grammar within the context of their own writing. Grammar Keepers provides teachers and their students with easy-to-follow, step-by-step recipes ranging from the simple concepts of grammar to more advanced structural understanding of writer's craft.”

TIM MARTINDELL, Ed.D, President, Texas Council of Teachers of English Language Arts

Other Titles in: English/Language Arts Common Core | Writing (Primary/Elementary) | Writing (Middle/High School)

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Related Resources

Access to companion resources is available with the purchase of this book.
Lesson Plans on Common Errors: They're, Their, There [Lessons and Strategies]