Seeing and Feeling Sentence Structure

Abstract

To develop a working knowledge of grammatical terminology with middleor high-school students, I begin by isolating some typical sentences in the textbooks they are using in some of their other courses-social studies, biology, home economics. I make a placard for each word in the sentences in question. Each placard, which can simply be a piece of mimeograph paper, has one word on it, written large with a dark-colored magic marker. As students come into the room, I distribute the placards, one to each student until each placard has been distributed. Then, as soon as such housekeeping chores as taking roll have been attended to, I say, Everyone who has a word come to the front of the room. Find other words you can attach yourselves to, and make yourselves into a sentence. The kids start scrambling. The activity is grammatical activity, and it is exciting. As adjectives, determiners, and prepositions search for nouns, auxiliaries search for verbs they can latch onto. Before long, a sentence takes shape before the students' eyes. Once this has happened, we discuss what part of speech each word in the sentence is and, more important, what function each word