"I think editing's most important. And by that, I don't just mean is the text correct? I mean is it crystal clear to readers?"
- Lucy Calkins
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Kelly Quintero prepared this activity plan to help her students look at verbs in the context of their writing. You can adapt this plan to address many other issues of usage and mechanics, including parallel construction, sentence variety, and other parts of speech.
You can involve your students in an activity that's similar to the one proposed by Kelly Quintero by using the sports section of any newspaper. Find an article or group of articles that relates the progress of a game. Ask students to underline all the active, vivid verbs in the article, and then talk about the image of the game they create in their minds as they read.
This activity could be done in small groups, with groups sharing their findings at the conclusion of their discussions, or as a whole class discussion
Even professional style guides disagree on some aspects of usage and mechanics within the patterns of standard English. Your class might find is useful to examine several texts on a particular topic and compare and contrast the information they find in each. Consult this list for some print and online resources you may want to examine. Perhaps you could adopt one as the source your class relies on to answer questions of usage and mechanics.
What's your take on usage and mechanics? What kinds of experiences do students need to become credible writers in many communities? Share your thoughts on these and other related issues on Channel-Talk.