Teaching grammar can be overwhelming and is often an overlooked part of effective instruction. The Middle School Grammar Toolkit to the rescue! Now in its second edition, this comprehensive guide makes grammar instruction fun and meaningful. You will learn how to: Teach grammar in a practical and applicable way by presenting each grammar rule as a useful writing tool for students. Use mentor texts—excerpts from great literature—to help students understand grammar in action. Promote metacognition along the way, so that students become responsible for their own learning. Implement innovative instructional strategies and tools aligned with Common Core and other state standards. Throughout the book, you’ll find step-by-step recommendations for teaching grammatical concepts, such as understanding intensive pronouns, choosing language that expresses ideas precisely, forming verbs in different moods, and maintaining consistency in style and tone, and much, much more. Organized to help students meet the Common Core State Standards and other state language standards for Grades 6–8, the book includes tips addressing teaching for each of these grades, classroom snapshots that show you the tools in action, and specific instructional recommendations to engage students. New! The second edition features revised classroom snapshots and exemplars to showcase successful practices, and new flowcharts to visually represent instructional recommendations. The expanded, free annotated bibliography is updated to include contemporary, high-quality young adult literature and gives examples of key grammatical concepts found in each work. These resources are available as Supplemental Downloads on our website.

Grammar Toolkit Lesson Plans for Middle School: Mentor Text-Based Grammar Lessons for the Middle School English Classroom contains detailed grammar lesson plans for teachers in grades six, seven, and eight. The lesson plans in this book incorporate the research-based best practices of grammar instruction. They present grammatical concepts in the context of effective writing through the use of mentor texts. These mentor text examples, which students read from a writer’s perspective, deepen students’ metacognition of the importance of these concepts and help them see the elements of grammar as tools for strong writing that authors use strategically to make their work as strong as possible. The thorough plans in this book are designed to help teachers put the best practices of grammar instruction into action in their teaching in concrete, practitioner-oriented ways that are informed by key research findings on the teaching of grammar. The ideas, examples, and instructional suggestions in this book will give teachers the necessary resources to incorporate mentor-text-based grammar lessons that develop students’ metacognition of the tools of effective grammar and communication.

"Teaching grammar can be overwhelming and is often an overlooked part of effective instruction. The Elementary School Grammar Toolkit to the rescue! Now in its second edition, this comprehensive guide makes grammar instruction fun and meaningful. You will learn how to... Teach grammar in a practical way to help students grow as readers and writers by presenting each grammar rule as a useful writing tool. Use mentor texts-excerpts from great literature-to help students understand grammar in action. Promote metacognition along the way, so that students become responsible for their own learning. Implement innovative instructional strategies and tools aligned with Common Core and other state standards. Throughout the book, you'll find step-by-step recommendations for teaching each of the grammar tools to help students meet the Common Core State Standards and other state language standards for grades 3-5, plus classroom snapshots that show you the tools in action, handy templates that you can use in the classroom, and new tips for extra support at the end of every chapter. New! The second edition features revised classroom snapshots and exemplars to showcase successful practices, new visuals, more free charts and activities, and new "Bonus Tips for Support" in each chapter, with extra practices and strategies to use with students who need extra support. The expanded, free annotated bibliography is updated to include contemporary, high-quality children's and young adult literature and gives examples of key grammatical concepts found in each work. These resources are available as Supplemental Downloads on our website"--

Teaching grammar can be overwhelming and is often an overlooked part of effective instruction. The Elementary School Grammar Toolkit to the rescue! Now in its second edition, this comprehensive guide makes grammar instruction fun and meaningful. You will learn how to... • Teach grammar in a practical way to help students grow as readers and writers by presenting each grammar rule as a useful writing tool. • Use mentor texts—excerpts from great literature—to help students understand grammar in action. • Promote metacognition along the way so that students become responsible for their own learning. • Implement innovative instructional strategies and tools aligned with Common Core and other state standards. Throughout the book, you'll find step-by-step recommendations for teaching each of the grammar tools to help students meet the Common Core State Standards and other state language standards for grades three to five, plus classroom snapshots that show you the tools in action, handy templates that you can use in the classroom, and new tips for extra support at the end of every chapter. New! The second edition features revised classroom snapshots and exemplars to showcase successful practices, new visuals, more free charts and activities, and new "Bonus Tips for Support" in each chapter, with extra practices and strategies to use with students who need extra support. The expanded, free annotated bibliography is updated to include contemporary, high-quality children’s and young adult literature and gives examples of key grammatical concepts found in each work. These resources are available as supplemental downloads on our website.

If you want to start an argument in a teachers' lounge, bring up the topic of how best to teach grammar. There is a wide spectrum of opinion. Traditionalists claim that we must explicitly teach grammar. Students drill the basics and diagram sentences. Sometimes their study and drills take the place of writing, but these teachers claim that good writing demands good grammar. At the opposite end of the spectrum are teachers who claim that the best way to learn grammar is to write, thereby being forced to use grammar in writing and editing. They reason that students will learn grammar in the context of actually using it, without all the drills and worksheets. They trust the writing process to instill an appreciation for grammar, instead of actually teaching it. Teachers on the write-to-learn-grammar side claim that students who are only taught grammar rules might pass tests, but since they didn't learn in the context of writing, they typically don't apply the rules when they write. Grammar traditionalists say students in writing classes never learn grammar at all, because it is not explicitly taught. In Tools, Not Rules, authors Tommy Thomason and Geoff Ward take the middle-ground position that grammar should be taught as part of the writing process. Tommy Thomason is a veteran journalist and university journalism professor at TCU. Geoff Ward is a well-known Australian professor and associate dean from James Cook University in Townsville. Both have written several books and work extensively with American teachers. Publisher's website: http: //www.eloquentbooks.com/ ToolsNotRules-TeachingGrammarInTheWritingClassroom.html

Teaching grammar can be overwhelming and is often an overlooked part of effective instruction, especially for young learners. The Early Elementary Grammar Toolkit to the rescue! This comprehensive guide makes grammar instruction in the K–2 classroom fun and meaningful. You will learn how to: Teach grammar in a practical and applicable way by presenting each grammar rule as a useful writing tool for students. Use mentor texts—excerpts from great literature—to help students understand grammar in action. Promote metacognition along the way so that students become responsible for their own learning. Implement innovative instructional strategies and tools aligned with national and state standards. Throughout the book, you’ll find step-by-step recommendations for teaching grammatical concepts to young learners, including the use of punctuation, capitalization, parts of speech, and more. With standards-based resources and activities for grades K–2, the book includes tips addressing teaching for each of these grades, classroom snapshots that show you the tools in action, flowcharts, infographics, and specific instructional recommendations to engage students.

The Common Core’s language standards can seem overwhelming—students need to learn specific, complex grammar rules at each grade level. The Common Core Grammar Toolkit to the rescue! This comprehensive guide makes grammar instruction fun and meaningful. You will learn how to... • Teach the Common Core’s language standards for grades 6–8 by presenting each grammar rule as a useful writing tool. • Use mentor texts—excerpts from great literature—to help students understand grammar in action. • Promote metacognition along the way, so that students become responsible for their own learning. The book thoroughly covers how to teach the Common Core’s language standards for grades 6-8, on topics such as understanding intensive pronouns, using commas to set off nonrestrictive clauses, maintaining consistency in style and tone, forming verbs in different moods, and much, much more. You’ll learn how to present each of these grammar rules to your students as tools that will help them improve their writing. You’ll also find classroom snapshots that show the tools in action, and handy, reproducible charts that you can use with your own students. Bonus! The book includes a free annotated bibliography, which is offered as a Supplemental Download on our website. The bibliography lists high-quality young adult literature and gives examples of key grammatical concepts found in each work, so you can use additional mentor texts with your students.