1. Michael W. Smith & Jeffrey D. Wilhelm
Getting It Right
Michael W. Smith
&
Jeffrey D. Wilhelm

2. Getting It Right
Fresh Approaches to Teaching Grammar, Usage, and Correctness

3. Organization Chapter 1: About the book Chapter 2: Teaching grammar
Chapter 3: “Errors Matter, but Not Equally and Not as Much as We Think They Do”
Peer editing

4. Organization
Chapter 4: Some common errors, and how we can correct them
Chapter 5: “Will it Work in the Real World?”
“Embedding focused instruction in grammar in contexts in which kids get kids get repeated practice writing meaningful texts would seem to better serve everyone involved” (146).

5. Teaching Grammar Language is complex!
And sometimes “paying attention to grammatical forms and rules diverts attention from structuring coherent prose” (12).

6. For instance…
What is the rule for ordering adjectives of age, nationality, and number in English?

7. Put the following words in correct order:
French the young girls four

8. Put the following words in correct order:
French the young girls four
The four young French girls

9. What to Teach
The term is so commonly used that teachers, texts, and tests presume that students know it.
The term is essential to being able to explain an important issue of style or correctness.

10. Guiding Principle
“Because we are interested in engaging kids in activities that will improve their writing, their writing is our focus. We don’t suggest having them read sentences and then underline the verbs. We don’t have them circle auxiliary verbs. We don’t do any kind of project that only involves making lists of individual verbs” (18).

11. Teaching Verbs Pantomimes Brainstorm Thesaurus Scenario Response
Video Excerpts
Dialogue and Inflection

12. Teaching Active and Passive Voice
Using headline and sentence comparison
Applying the passive to student writing
Debating school policies
Creating headlines for own writings, events in class readings

13. Correctness Is there a standard? The issue of dialects
Six primary ways that nonstandard dialects of English tend to differ from Standard English

14. From Schuster (2000) Different Verb forms
Also, different forms of irregular verbs
Double negatives or comparatives
Difference in subject-verb agreement
Different use of pronouns
Using an adjective form in an adverbial context
Miscellaneous words and phrases such as ain’t, anyways, this here

15. Errors Establish a hierarchy
Errors that interfere with communication and understanding
Errors that undermine the authority of the writer
Commonality of errors

16. Errors Attention to individual issues
Sheet on the inside of each student’s portfolio that indicates both class and individual goals for that semester
Dual Grade Sheet

17. Peer Editing Many different worksheet examples
Students give an overall grade (1-5) and explain
Students offer suggestions (and reasons for those suggestions) which the authors must accept, adapt or reject, and give their reasons

18. Teaching Text Structures
Classification
Essential to all forms of inquiry
“Classification and pattern seeking are essential to good reading (seeing repeated patterns and the complex implied relationships among them” (115).

19. Example: School Activities Curricular Extracurricular Math English
Algebra
Calculus
English
American Lit
Extracurricular
Sports
basketball
Clubs
Drama

20. Guiding Principle:
“What’s critical is not the precise form the lessons would take, but rather the insights that guide the construction of the lessons. First, any lesson should be designed to give students tools for the writing they’re currently working on, not simply to give them a term to learn. Second, students should learn terms and how to use them through extended practice in their own writing, as opposed to only doing a work sheet or analyzing someone else’s writing in a textbook” (27).

21. Getting It Right Smith & Wilhelm
A LOT of lesson ideas
A LOT of handouts available for these lessons
$14.95 on Amazon