this could bore you.

I always start my classes with a bellringer. Some quiet, "sit at your desk and think about this on your own while I remember what I'm supposed to teach you" thing. It usually takes five minutes or so.
For them to do the work.
Not for me to remember what I'm teaching. That can actually take almost the whole class period.

anyway, in years past, I had students correct a paragraph with 10 errors. We'd discuss them. Grade them. Move on. It worked. I guess.

Well, at the beginning of this year, I tried the opposite of this. I had students copy a great sentence from the overhead. We found the subject and the verb. We talked about why it had apostrophe's here or there or commas. What made it great. Then they would kind of mimic the sentence and I'd flash some of their great sentences up on the board. This was like big time for them. They loved that. Each week, we'd work on specific skills. For example, at the first week of the year we focused on using commas to separate items on a list.

They'd copy: The monster gobbled up a boy, a hairy frog, and two toenails. Then, they'd write their great sentence, I munched on... We talked about why we needed the commas, where they needed to be, how the word munched gave you a different picture in your head than gobbled...

Are you following me?
None of you are still reading. I understand. This is magnificently boring. But I have had a crying day and I need to recognize some good in me.

Once my schedule switched, I stopped doing the great sentence thing because the other teachers kind of looked at me like horns were growing out of my head when I explained it to them. I probably didn't explain it well.

So, this week I've been working on the Revise/edit version of the TAKS test with my kids. They have to read a passage, and then answer a question like,
What change should be made to sentence 7?
a) change people to peopl.
b)insert a comma after animal
C)...
d)...
etc.

Well, half the time they don't have a clue why they need anything anywhere. Why they need commas in between a city and a state. Why they need apostrophe's in the phrase "mom's hair". Which way to spell climb.

But, I tell you what. Without a doubt, every single kid could tell me why I needed a comma in a list. Something we talked about in the first week of school. For five minutes a class period for five days.

You know how we're supposed to tell our kids, "walk" instead of "don't run."

I think we're supposed to tell them, "This is good writing. Do this. And here's why..."
instead of"look at this piece of writing full of mistakes and do your best to find 10 errors dealing with any grammar/spelling/punctuation/capitalization rule under the sun."

On Monday, the great sentences return.
I knew I should have stuck to my guns.