Make Your Students Want To Use Correct Grammar!

Raise your virtual hand if you have ever had a student over the age of eight years old who still doesn't put capital letters at the beginning of his or her sentences. Every year, I receive countless of these students, along with the students who don't write in complete sentences and the students who don't bother putting any punctuation whatsoever in a paper.

For the vast majority of these writers, though, the problem isn't so much "can't" as "won't." I am pretty certain that, at some point in the past six years of education, these students have heard about these basic grammar rules. And though we constantly stress how important it is for students to adhere to these rules, it seems that at some point, teachers gave up on enforcing them. It's not surprising, given how much we have to teach and how consistently these students immediately revert back to old habits following any review session.

To alleviate this problem, I began creating "Grammar Crimes" with my class two years ago. Grammar Crimes are those basic rules that every middle grades student should know--using capital letters at the beginning of sentences and proper nouns, using correct punctuation, etc.

I explain to the class that there are some grammatical mistakes that it is so embarrassing for a fifth or sixth grader to make that they really should be considered crimes. After all, wouldn't it be humiliating to make mistakes about things that even first graders know? (At this point, I have many emphatic "Yeahs!" and nods from even my most frequent grammar offenders).

I propose to the class that we come up with a list of our top five "Grammar Crimes" and agree as a group that we will not be caught making such terribly embarrassing mistakes. After giving an example of a Grammar Crime (I always use "Using complete sentences" as my example), I allow students to propose their ideas. We take a vote in each class, and, once our Grammar Crimes have been decided on, I make a poster that each student gets to sign. This poster hangs in our class all year, as a reminder of how much better at grammar we are than your average first/fifth/sixth grader.

Our actual Grammar Crimes poster that hung in the class all year long.

Because we worked together to create this covenant, and because there is a sense of slight embarrassment at the idea that students might be making the same mistakes as much younger students, I find that this technique really builds buy-in for applying these basic grammar skills. For those students who still refuse to abide by our agreement, I have a red stamp that says "Grammar Crimes! Please correct and return by: ____"  (you can buy your own here!). After enough corrections, most students finally realize that it's easier to do things right the first time. I hope this technique helps lessen the never-ending grammar battle for you!

Cheers,