Teach Writer's Craft Instead of Grammar and Conventions and Watch Your Students Writing Improve

Grammar and conventions booklets are effective to a degree. Students learn some language skills, but the booklet can present a barrier to real-life context. It can become a set of rules floating in the ether that don’t seem to make their way into students’ writing. If people examine a painting, they can observe some of the choices the artist made: light, colour, brush strokes, brush size, type of paint, ect. The artist made choices with the tools they had to communicate meaning to the viewer. It is the same in a text. An author makes choices to communicate meaning. Grammar and conventions are not a list of rules to follow, but a dynamic set of tools to choose from to help clearly communicate what is inside our brains. When I started reframing grammar and conventions in this way for my students, they became more engaged and their writing improved. In this session, I will explain how I do this every day and how you can too in your jr. high or high school classroom.