Famous Last Words

 I don't know how much you know about this guy:

His name is Thomas de Mahy and he was the Marquis de Favras during the French Revolution.  He was arrested and condemned to death on the testimony of two men, but without corroborating evidence.

So why does he get his own post on Extreme English Teachers?  Because of his last words.

Upon reading his death warrant, his only response was, "I see that you have made three spelling mistakes."

Ha!  THAT is AWESOME!  If you've got to go, might as well go out in style.

Daily Grammar Practice Plan of Attack

Our school wanted to get all the English teachers teaching grammar and in a way that was consistent with each other.  So the program Daily Grammar Practice was chosen.  It's not a bad program.  I like the way I taught grammar better because it was more my style, but it is nice knowing that we are all working toward the same process.

If your school uses DGP, you may find that students feel a little overwhelmed with everything that could possibly be labeled on Monday and Tuesday. I find that by providing some structure and creating a pattern for what to look for, students are able to process it faster and soon will be able to do it without constantly looking at notes.  That's the key to grammar practice - students can recognize it in the wild.

If you want to give it a shot, try it out.  You can get it here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/16m2uuAc4SfNrD-SPqY7WobWJbycEpACzYkpzOq-SpWc/copy

I just made it and haven't classroom tested it long enough to find everything that could be tweaked.  If you have comments on how to make it better, please share them with me either on this post or by shooting me an email.  

Teach Pronoun Antecedents with Puns

 The phrase pronoun/antecedent agreement sounds difficult to students, but in reality it is not a hard concept.  Taking the time to teach it, though, is a worthwhile endeavor.  Students are often unclear in their writing and one problem is pronoun/antecedent agreement.  Plus learning how words can be unclear will help them to think out other problems that are not necessarily pronoun related.

The term antecedent just means whatever the pronoun is taking the place of.  When that object/person/place is ambiguous, students get errors in their writing.  To teach them this, show them how these puns are funny because the antecedent is unclear:

She had a boyfriend with a wooden leg, but she broke it off.

I wondered why the baseball was getting bigger, then it hit me.

I borrowed, and then lost, my wife's audio book.  I'll never hear the end of it.

I offered my elderly neighbor $20 to give me a ride up her stair lift.  I think she's going to take me up on it.

The ghost teacher said to the class - watch the board and I'll go through it again.

Who says grammar can't be fun!

Got another good pun to add to the list?  Just drop it in the comments.