Grammar Punk Blog

Teaching Grammar With Blogs!

I’ve blogged about blogs before, am doing it again, and will no doubt blog again about blogging sometime in the future. Blogging fascinates me, and not always in a good way.  But for the purposes of this particular blog entry we’ll go with the good kind of fascination.

According to Wikipedia—yet another source of constant fascination—a blog (a portmanteau of the term “web log“) is a type of website or part of a website. Blogs are usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. “Blog” can also be used as a verb, meaning to maintain or add content to a blog. Much as I might wish to go off on yet another nonsensical word added to the dictionary tangent I’ll restrain myself and stick to the topic of blogs at large.

When we first created Grammar Punk™ it was ostensibly in an effort to make a difficult subject a bit more palatable, okay, a lot more palatable. And we succeeded. Big time. Grammar Punk™ not only makes grammar more approachable, teachable, and learnable, it manages to make it fun. Laugh out loud fun. Wrack your brain to think of a cool word that contains a specific consonant and vowel fun. Creating sentences that while reaffirming the rules of the comma also happen to be the jumping-off point of a story fun. Why? Because writing, the reason for a sound basis in grammar, is fun. Should be fun. Can be fun. Will be fun. With Grammar Punk™. And exposure through things like reading and teacher enthusiasm and practice, lots of practice.

Practice with things like blogging. Things like good blogging, as in trying hard to add something substantive as well as simply entertaining to the great void of online offerings. Teachers you should be blogging. Why? Here are just a few good reasons and a few more actual suggestions.

      Start (or continue) a classroom blog

      Start a Grammar Punk™ Blog (http://www.davis.k12.ut.us/ffjh/thompson/gphalloffame.htm

      Encourage students to blog weekly. Select a topic (by teacher design or by committee)    

      Assign blog entries with students working alone or in small groups

      Encourage students to research their topics with cross –education (history, science, social studies, etc.)

      Select a Genre from one of the Grammar Punk™ card sets and have students to write their blog entry using Genres specifications

      Select an Emotion from one of the Grammar Punk™ card sets and have students write their blog entry using those specifications

      Select a character type from one of the Grammar Punk™ card sets and have students write their blog entry from that character’s (type) point of view

Blogging can be an invaluable way to steer students towards practicing their writing skills under the guise of something they enjoy. This is the age of technology and instant information, tap into it to create stronger writers.

Be sure and check the Grammar Punk™  Blog at www.grammarpunk.com regularly as we continue to talk about teaching grammar, writing, and whatever strikes our fancy.