Description
Promote a sophisticated and effective writing style built on strong foundations of grammar, punctuation, sentence structure, and sentence fluency in your classroom!
Students of all ages have mastered an immense body of knowledge about English in an oral environment. Unleashing Your Language Wizards uses that existing knowledge to help students acquire a more mature, sophisticated, effective writing style built on strong foundations of grammar, punctuation, sentence structure, and sentence fluency.
Leaving behind traditional pedagogy that imposes arcane rules, rote memorization, and endless drills that have little interaction with existing competencies, this first edition book breaks new ground by developing a research-based, active-learning approach to teaching lasting sentence management skills by tapping into students’ natural learning abilities.
Unleashing Your Language Wizards is written for pre-service and in-service teachers, grades 3-12, who want to provide their students with lifelong skills and approaches that will help them conquer their written language issues. Instructors are provided with basic principles, specific examples, and sample activities, all of which teach the most important brain-based language concepts from a variety of different angles and approaches.
Table of Contents
| Table of Contents | |
| Acknowledgements and Dedication | x |
| List of Tables | xiii |
| List of Illustrations | xv |
| Preface: Introduction & Overview | xvii |
| Section 1: The Grammar Wizard | |
| Chapter 1: Background | |
| PC? | 2 |
| Processional Caterpillars | 4 |
| A Classroom Example | 5 |
| Student Reactions | 7 |
| What Is Grammar? | 8 |
| Traditional Grammar | 11 |
| The Grammar Wizard | 11 |
| What Students Already Know and Don’t Know | 12 |
| To Teach or Not to Teach | 13 |
| Discussion Questions | 15 |
| Chapter 2: Meet Your Grammar Wizard | |
| Native vs. Non-Native | 18 |
| English Speaker Competencies | 19 |
| Meet Your Grammar Wizard | 20 |
| Word List Demonstration | 21 |
| Chunking | 23 |
| Phrase Building Demonstration | 27 |
| Colorless Green Ideas Demonstration | 29 |
| Movement Demonstration | 30 |
| Letter Scrambling Demonstration | 31 |
| Reversal Demonstration | 32 |
| Where Is My Grammar Wizard? | 33 |
| Discussion Questions | 33 |
| Chapter 3: Brain-Based Learning and TGP | |
| Traditional Grammar and Traditional Grammar Pedagogy | 38 |
| TGP—Historically Speaking | 38 |
| Brain-Based Learning | 40 |
| Types of Memory | 42 |
| Your Grammar Wizard | 44 |
| Natural vs. Rote Learning | 45 |
| The Natural Learning Process | 46 |
| Depth of Processing | 50 |
| Methods of Presentation | 51 |
| Natural Learning and TGP | 52 |
| Brain-Based Learning Tenets and TGP | 53 |
| Moving On | 54 |
| Discussion Questions | 54 |
| Chapter 4: The Grammar Wizard Approach | |
| Grammar Wizard Basics | 68 |
| Wrapping Up | 77 |
| Discussion Questions | 78 |
| Section 2: Using the Grammar Wizard | |
| Chapter 5: Grammar Wizard Tests | |
| What Are Grammar Wizard Tests? | 86 |
| How Do I Present Grammar Wizard Tests? | 87 |
| Parts of Speech | 89 |
| Nouns | 90 |
| Verbs | 90 |
| Adjectives | 91 |
| Adverbs | 91 |
| Pronouns | 92 |
| Prepositions | 96 |
| Possessives | 98 |
| Recursiveness and Elaboration | 102 |
| Discussion Questions | 106 |
| Chapter 6: Grammar Wizard Activities | |
| Introduction | 118 |
| Brain-Based Checklist | 119 |
| Body Grammar | 120 |
| Tag Questions | 124 |
| Yes-No Questions | 127 |
| Manipulatives | 130 |
| Index Cards—Possessive | 131 |
| Noun Phrase Building | 133 |
| Reading Rods Sentence-Construction Kit® | 136 |
| Velcro Punctuation | 137 |
| Games Based on Existing Games | 138 |
| Grammar Charades | 138 |
| Mad Libs | 139 |
| Grammar Jeopardy | 139 |
| Hollywood Squares or Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? | 139 |
| Discussion Questions | 140 |
| Chapter 7: Grammar Wizard Toolbox | |
| Introduction | 149 |
| The Joshua Tree Syndrome | 152 |
| High Yield Strategies | 153 |
| Participle Phrases | 154 |
| Gerund Phrases | 161 |
| Appositive Phrases | 164 |
| Infinitive Phrases | 168 |
| Parallelism | 169 |
| Nominative Absolute | 175 |
| Adjectives Out of Order | 178 |
| Inclusive Activities | 180 |
| The I Am Poem | 181 |
| Mini-Revisions | 182 |
| Literary Goldmines | 184 |
| Discussion Questions | 185 |
| Chapter 8: Punctuation | |
| Introduction | 193 |
| Traditional Comma Explanations | 195 |
| Voice Commas and Voice Periods | 196 |
| Voice Commas & Introductory Elements | 198 |
| Voice Periods: Recognizing Comma Splices and Run-Ons | 201 |
| Other Commas | 203 |
| Series Commas | 203 |
| Adjective Commas | 204 |
| Essential-Non-essential Commas | 205 |
| Contrary Commas | 206 |
| Commas between Clauses | 207 |
| Serial Semi-Colons | 207 |
| Colons | 208 |
| Hyphens | 210 |
| Apostrophes | 211 |
| Dashes and Parentheses | 212 |
| Discussion Questions | 212 |
| Section 3: The Sentence Wizard | |
| Chapter 9: Bridges | |
| Introduction | 224 |
| Recognizing Sentence Boundaries | 226 |
| Recognizing Incomplete Sentences | 228 |
| Joining Sentences “Legally”—Bridges | 230 |
| Step 1—Connectors | 231 |
| Step 2—Bridges and Non-Bridges | 232 |
| Step 3—Center Bridges (Coordinating Conjunctions) | 234 |
| Step 4—Center Bridges (Continued) | 235 |
| Step 5—Swinging Bridges (Subordinating Conjunctions) | 236 |
| Step 6—Floating Connectors (Conjunctive Adverbs) | 239 |
| Step 7: Floating Connectors (Conjunctive Adverbs) | 240 |
| Summary | 242 |
| Terminology | 242 |
| Recursiveness and Elaboration | 244 |
| Exercises | 244 |
| Graphic Representations | 245 |
| Literature | 245 |
| Student Writing | 246 |
| Bridge Commas | 246 |
| Discussion Questions | 248 |
| Chapter 10: Sentence Fluency | |
| Sentence Fluency Definition | 261 |
| Sentence Wizards Revisited | 262 |
| The Christensen Perspective | 266 |
| Sentence Beginners | 268 |
| Recursiveness and Elaboration | 272 |
| Sentence Interrupters | 275 |
| Sentence Expanders | 280 |
| Sentence Length | 288 |
| Discussion Questions | 290 |
| Section 4: The Rhetorical Wizard | |
| Chapter 11: Rhetorical Choices—Mechanics and Word Choice | |
| Introduction | 301 |
| Registers | 303 |
| Rhetorical Choices | 307 |
| Punctuation | 307 |
| The Rhetorical Comma | 307 |
| Semi-Colons | 309 |
| Dashes and Parentheses | 309 |
| Word Choice | 312 |
| Confusing Word Pairs | 314 |
| Slang or Regionalisms | 316 |
| Misused Words | 317 |
| Overly Fancy Words | 318 |
| Discussion Questions | 319 |
| Chapter 12: Rhetorical Choices—Structure | |
| Given vs. New Information | 322 |
| Movement | 324 |
| Participle Phrases | 324 |
| Appositives | 325 |
| Swinging Bridge Clauses (Subordinate Clauses) | 326 |
| Fronted Elements | 327 |
| Active vs. Passive Voice | 329 |
| Banning Passives? | 330 |
| Primary Uses | 330 |
| Sentence Length | 333 |
| Intentional Fragments | 335 |
| Voice | 337 |
| Reading and Writing | 340 |
| Discussion Questions | 341 |
| Glossary | 345 |
| Works Cited | 349 |
Purchase Info 
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Unleasing Your Language Wizards: A Brain-based Approach to Effecive Editing and Writing, CourseSmart eTextbook
Format: Electronic Book
$25.99 | ISBN-13: 978-0-13-704067-4