2018 VATE Conference: We Are The Change

Teachers of English work hard to help their students understand grammar,  but the results can be disappointing. Often it seems that no matter what we do, the same punctuation errors and problem usage patterns appear in student writing again and again. Teaching grammar with mentor texts can open our classrooms to positive change. This method moves instruction away from Mug Shots and grammar worksheets toward integrating reading, writing, and language instruction.

This session is intended for teachers of elementary, middle school, or high school students. Goals for this session include the following: (1) recognizing that grammar taught in isolation from writing does not produce improvements in writing; (2) realizing the importance of teaching a few things really well and of providing practice writing key grammatical constructions; (3) knowing how to choose and use mentor texts as models for particular grammatical constructions; (4) examining a framework for scaffolding students' learning of particular grammatical constructions.

Presenters in this session will show how to use mentor texts to teach grammar within the context of writing. Carolyn Mathews, Professor of English at Radford University, will provide rationale and guidelines for creating grammar lessons using mentor texts. Students from Radford University’s English Education Program will share lessons based on this approach.