Literacy Speaks Volumes

Sir Francis Bacon wrote, "Reading maketh a full man, conversation a ready man, and writing an exact man." As teachers, we want our students to be full, ready, and exact. But how do we do it without poking our eyeballs out with our red pen? Writing is not like other subjects where there is one correct answer. Writing requires that students look inside themselves for the answer, which most students are reluctant to do. Writing is both abstract and concrete; it is subjective and up to interpretation. So how do we as teachers instill a culture of writing in our classrooms? First, we must be writers ourselves. We need to know what it feels like to "have nothing to say." We should be able to describe our own process of sitting before a blank page and composing essays and stories from words. Students need to understand our passion and true belief that the pen is mightier than the sword. Teachers should regularly share their writing with students. Parents expect the...

This week the students will demonstrate their understanding of correct subjet-verb agreement and use verbs that agree with their subject. This unit is always so difficult for students to learn (and teachers to teach) because there are just so many darn rules for agreement. Here is a basic list of the rules for agreement: When a word refers to one person, place, thing, or idea, it is singular in uumber. When a word refers to more than one, it is plural in number. A verb should agree in number with its subject. Singular subjects take singular verbs and plural subjects take plural verbs. The number of a subject is not changed by a phrase following the subject. The following indefinite pronouns are singular: anybody, anyone, anything, each, either, everybody, everyone, everything, neither, nobody, no one, nothing, one somebody, someone, and something. The following indefinite pronouns are plural: both, few, many, several. The indefinite pronouns all, any, more, most, no...