Reflection on Grammar Project

Studying modifiers for my grammar blog has been very beneficial for me.  I have personally learned more about modifiers in grammar.  However, I have also gained some ideas of how to teach modifiers to students in my elementary school classroom.

Learning about adjectival and adverbial clauses/phrases was the newest learning for myself.  As I mentioned in posts above, I have been using them and even demonstrating them in class, but never knew this is what they were called.  Using the clauses and phrases I feel is going to be a great way to push students with their writing.  Instead of just describing a character, a setting, etc. in one word they will be able to describe using phrases and clauses.  This will be especially helpful when teaching English Language Learners.  I can encourage them to speak in sentences.  This will help with their English language development.

A dangling modifier was another new term for me during this study of modifiers.  Dangling modifiers seemed very important to me.  I feel that sometimes my students and even myself when trying to change wording around when writing errors can happen in this area.  It is so important that I pay close attention to what I am writing.  If I do not I may not be conveying meaning in the proper way.  

I really feel that I am more comfortable with modifiers now than I was previously.  I feel more confident when I need to teach students about modifiers.  I found some great teaching tools for modifiers.  I found videos, visuals, and examples for students in my classroom.  When I researched about common mistakes with modifiers I feel that helped me prepare for misconceptions that students may have.  Having these possible misconceptions in mind will help me prepare my lessons for my students.  

Teaching Modifiers

I thought I would look this week for possible anchor charts to put up in my classroom.  These anchor charts can be useful when teaching modifiers to students.

Misplaced Modifiers

http://www.quickanddirtytips.com/education/grammar/misplaced-modifiers

This website was fun to read.  Misplacing modifiers gives sentences different meanings, and some of them were funny and entertaining.  Reading this was helpful for me because I know that I have misplaced modifiers.  I also think going through some of these examples will be helpful to my students as they misplace modifiers.  Discussing the silly meanings will hopefully help them remember that if they do not place their modifier correctly their sentence takes on a different meaning.

Dangling Modifiers

http://www.grammar-monster.com/glossary/dangling_modifier.htm

While researching modifiers I came across the term dangling modifier.  I honestly have never heard this term before taking this class.  I thought I should look more into it.  I read the examples on this website.  I have definitely left out words before when trying to convey meaning.  This website I found to be very informative on the issue.  When thinking about students I am sure they confuse this and when reading the writing of others I am sure they can become very confused.

Adjective & Adverb Practice

I took at look at this website: https://www.ixl.com/ela/grade-12/choose-between-adjectives-and-adverbs

I use this one often with my students.  You are supposed to pay in order to use it.  However it will allow a free trial for about 20 questions I believe.  You can do a trial everyday until it times out.  I looked at the grade 12 practice with adjectives and adverbs.  The website is nice because when you answer incorrectly an explanation is provided.  I also took a look at some of the lower grade versions of the adjectives and adverbs thinking about my current students, and how I could use this website with them.  Go ahead and try out your adjective and adverb skills on this website.

Adverbial Phrases and Clauses

Last week I took a look at understanding adjectival phrases and clauses.  This week I thought I should look at adverbial phrases and clauses.  

http://examples.yourdictionary.com/adverb-phrase-examples.html

On this website I was able to look at several examples of adverb phrases. Adverb phrases tell how, where, why, or when.  Again, I found that I use these all the time when I am writing.  I just did not realize what they were called.  As a teacher, I am always asking these types of questions of my students to try and pull more out of them when they are writing.  I am thinking I might be able to make some sort of chart with these questions and it would help guide my students to write with more details.  Also, I think it will be very beneficial to mention this vocabulary of adverbial and adjectival phrases and clauses.  I think it is always good to expose student to vocabulary.  If I were told this is what I was doing when writing, I may have already felt confident with adverbial and adjectival phrases.

Adjectival Phrases and Clauses

http://grammar.yourdictionary.com/parts-of-speech/adjectives/adjective-phrase.html

This website helped me understand an adjectival phrase.  It states right on the website that most people know what an adjective is, but they are confused about an adjectival phrase.  I was certainly one of those people.  After reading through this page I have a better idea of an adjectival phrase.  These phrase can help you explain and give better descriptions.  Often, when I am teaching I am asking students to write more and give more details.  This will help me demonstrate what I mean by that.  

http://www.grammar-monster.com/glossary/adjective_clauses.htm

An adjectival clause was another thing I was unsure about.  I remember it being a choice in our grammar quiz during the first week of class.  I had no idea about adjectival clauses or phrases.  I only knew adjective.  An adjectival clause can come after the noun in a sentence. The website above gave some great examples and how to correctly place commas when using adjectival clauses.  I have been writing using these clauses, but have not placed commas correctly.

I restarted my grammar blog

Here is the link to my first grammar blog.  I was having difficulty getting my posts to come out right so I started over.  I am including the link in case anyone wanted to look back, but I moved all of the information into the new blog.

http://bsgb2017.blogspot.com/2017/08/what-is-modifier-in-english-grammar.html#comment-form

Videos about Adjectives

School House Rock video on adjectives.  I remember watching these videos as a kid.  Many of the little jingles and visuals still stick with me to this day.  I think anytime you can make something more visual and entertaining for kids the topic will stick with them better.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NkuuZEey_bs

Here is another video.  This one would be great for all students.  It has some higher level vocabulary.  It mentions vociferous  and putrid.  This will help push students thinking when using modifiers.  It will encourage them to be as descriptive as possible.  For example, students will learn to use words such as "gigantic" instead of saying just "big."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5hIqdPrH--k


Here is another great introduction video for kids.  Starting by describing people I think is a great way to introduce adjectives.  Making sure to encourage students to focus on the way a person looks, act, and feels to describe them.  Be sure students are not describing people only by their profession which would be a noun.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sEDy0wGaXJY

Teaching Modifiers to English Language Learners

http://www.fluentu.com/blog/educator-english/esl-syntax/

I took a look at this website this week. I was thinking about English language learners this week since school has started. I thought about how in many languages the adjectives come after the noun. I remember learning to do this in Spanish and in French. There are some games put on this website where sentences are scrambled for students and where they must put the sentences in the correct order. I thought this would be a fun game for any student even a native speaker of English to correctly place order their sentence. As I teach grammar in my classroom this year I think I will create some sentence scramble for students to sort out. This will be helpful to all students and make learning syntax more fun in the classroom.

Common Mistakes With Modifiers

This week I thought I would look into common mistakes with modifiers. As a teacher, I see students make errors with modifiers in their speaking and writing. I am especially thinking about English language learners with modifiers. I found this website that I read some mistakes with examples. I really think I would like to use this as a tool when I am teaching modifiers to English language learners as well as my general education students. Take a read through and try the quiz out for yourself. I did not get a 100% the first time through.

https://www.englishgrammar101.com/module-5/modifiers-adjectives-and-adverbs/lesson-13/common-mistakes-and-dangling-modifiers

What is a Modifier in English Grammar?

A modifier is a type of word.  It is usually an adjective or adverb used in a way that restricts or adds meaning to a noun.

Here is a website that I read to build an understanding of what a modifier is.  This website also provided a few examples of modifiers in sentences.
http://www.chompchomp.com/terms/modifier.htm

Something it stated on this website was that sentences without modifiers would be no fun to read.  My husband and my mother-in-law love to write.  They love to write in creative ways that make everything more interesting or entertaining.  Therefore, I believe having a strong understanding of modifiers can be helpful when trying to write especially if you want others to read it.  It is a lot of fun to read when the writer has made something more interesting by appropriate use of modifiers