by Donna | Jul 15, 2017
Teaching writing is not for the faint of heart! It is the most subjective “subject” in school—and, consequently, can be one of the most challenging to teach. Oftentimes, materials designed to teach writing are more writing idea than writing instruction. They leave the student (and the teacher!) wondering exactly what to do to complete the writing prompt. This is one reason that after I write a book (one hundred in all!), test, test, and retest the book with real (or virtual starting this fall!) students to be sure that all of the steps are included and clear. Last week I shared a lesson from one of my books that I did with a mixed live/virtual class about writing from a given source. This week I’d love to give you another peek into my online writing classes for the fall with another cooperative “guinea pig” group!
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by Donna | Mar 18, 2017
I recently had the misfortune of seeing a sign outside a chicken franchise that read hot, juicy, chicken. You can imagine my outrage!!!
It, of course, took us here at Language Lady to Comma Clues #2: Use Commas to Separate Two or More Describers (But Not Between the Describer and the Word Being Described!).
Two benchmarks that I teach for inserting commas between describers:
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by Donna | May 30, 2016
Okay, Reish boys–and anybody else in my virtual world who has non-virtual poison ivy right now!
1. Itch
a. A noun that indicates a place on the body that is irritated, such as a spot of poison ivy that is bothersome
b. A verb that happens to a part of the body: my poison ivy itches (meaning it feels like it needs scratched)
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by Donna | Nov 17, 2015
Seventh Grade: Teach your student to apply his grammar learning to writing.
Hopefully, this has been happening even earlier than seventh grade because seeing the “why’s” of learning something (“I need to learn prepositions so that I can spot prepositional phrases so that I can be sure that I have accurate subject-verb agreement” or “I need to learn how to punctuate double and triple adjectives so that I can write with them in my descriptive paper”) is extremely motivating to students.
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by Donna | Aug 31, 2015
Have you been studying your Wacky Words “there, their, and they’re”? Are you ready for a pop quiz?
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