1st Edition
From Texting to Teaching Grammar Instruction in a Digital Age
Don’t blame technology for poor student grammar; instead, use technology intentionally to reach students and actually improve their writing! In this practical book, bestselling authors Jeremy Hyler and Troy Hicks reveal how digital tools and social media – a natural part of students’ lives – can make grammar instruction more authentic, relevant, and effective in today’s world.
Topics Covered:
- Teaching students to code switch and differentiate between formal and informal sentence styles
- Using flipped lessons to teach the parts of speech and help students build their own grammar guides
- Enlivening vocabulary instruction with student-produced video
- Helping students master capitalization and punctuation in different digital contexts
Each chapter contains examples, screenshots, and instructions to help you implement the ideas. With the strategies in this book, you can empower students to become better writers with the tools they already love and use daily. Additional resources and links are available on the book’s companion wiki site: textingtoteaching.wikispaces.com
Notes on the Book
Dedication
Acknowledgements
Meet the Authors
Foreword by Liz Kolb
Chapter 1 - What’s the Matter with the Teaching of Grammar?
- The Great Grammar Debate, Part 1: 1890s to 1990s
- The Great Grammar Debate, Part 2: 100 Years and Counting
- The Great Grammar Debate, Part 3: Here Comes the Common Core
- Rethinking Grammar Instruction in a Single Year: A Guide to the Rest of the Book
Chapter 2: An Approach to Teaching Grammar with Digital Tools
- What the Research Says: The (Non) Effects of Text Speak
- Redefining Grammar Instruction in a Digital Age
- Triple E Framework: Engage, Enhance, Extend
- Tools of the Trade: Technologies for Digital Grammar Instruction
- Beginner: Getting Started with Screen Capture, Screencasting, and Annotation
- Intermediate: Sharing Media and Assessing Students’ Understanding
- Expert: Producing and Publishing More Enriched Media
- And...We’re Off... Ready, Tech, Go!
Chapter 3: Learning the Parts of Speech with Flipped Lessons
- What is Flipping the Classroom, Exactly?
- Critiques of the Flipped Model
- Digital Tools for Flipping Grammar
- Building a Flipped Video Lesson
- Working Through the Video: Steps for Student
- Using Flipped Videos from Other Sources
- Breaking it Down: Pronouns of the Personal Type
- Before the Flipped Lesson
- During the Flipped Lesson
- After the Flipped Lesson
- Building a Personal Grammar Guide
- Adverbs and Adjectives
- Final Thoughts and What’s Next
Chapter 4: Learning Sentence Style with Formal and Informal Writing
- Code Switching
- Compound, Complex, and Complete: Making Sentences Matter
- Sentence Combining with Lino
- I Tawt I Taw a Tweet Sentence
- Sentence Hacking
- Putting Lexile Leveling to Use for Writers
- What’s Next
Chapter 5: Enlivening Vocabulary
- The Struggle is Real
- Building Vocabulary with Quizlet
- Building "Study Sets" in Quizlet
- Building Toward Assessment with Quizlet
- Extensions for Quizlet
- Breathing Life into Vocabulary with Video
- The Vocabulary Video Assignment
- Extensions and Adaptations
- Student Vocabulary Growth Over Time
- Final Thoughts
Chapter 6 – Mastering Mechanics: Capitalization and Punctuation
- Capitalization
- The Dreaded Pronoun: "i"
- Capitalization Extensions
- The Paradox of Punctuation
- Taking Time to Pause with a Comma
- Is it a Period? Is it a Comma? No, it’s a Semicolon!
- Extensions and Adaptations
- Final Thoughts
Chapter 7 - Assessing Grammar in a Digital Age
- From Texting to Teaching: Four Tips
- Dealing with Assessments
- Summative Assessment through Portfolios
- Student Reflections
- Students Raise Their Voices: Asking For and Implementing Their Feedback
Afterword: Navigating Your Own Grammatical Journey
References
Biography
Jeremy Hyler is a middle school English teacher and a teacher consultant for the Chippewa River Writing Project, a satellite site of the National Writing Project. He is co-author with Troy Hicks on Create, Compose, Connect: Reading, Writing, and Learning with Digital Tools (Routledge, 2014).
Troy Hicks is a Professor of English and education at Central Michigan University, and Director of the Chippewa River Writing Project. He has authored or co-authored nine books, and over 30 journal articles and book chapters for teachers and other educators.
"From Texting to Teaching presents a new approach to teaching grammar. The use of social media among students is not going away. Acknowledging the importance of digital grammar to our students is a unique and necessary concept. I really like how the examples in this book are so relatable for kids, and how they actually helped kids see the difference between the two types of grammar and when each should be used. The templates provided are really good, and I like the way the authors provide step-by-step instructions. I recommend this book for middle school English departments."
--David Ellena, Principal, Tomahawk Creek Middle School, Midlothian, VA
“There are teachers who would like to be energized when it comes to grammar instruction. I am definitely not a grammarian, but that doesn’t mean I can’t do better to help my students in this area of writing. This book will help. And students will really enjoy practicing these strategies because the blend with technology increases the interest. The writers are respectful of children and students and what their reality is today.”
--Dana Dusbiber, English Teacher, Rosa Parks K-8 School, Sacramento, CA
