FREQUENTLY
ASKED QUESTIONS
- Does Grammarlogues work on
both Macs and PCs?
- How
does Grammarlogues allow teachers to differentiate their
teaching of grammar both within their classrooms and across
grade levels?
- Why
isn't Grammarlogues broken up by grade level?
- Can
you provide some recommendations for implementing Grammarlogues
in our curriculum?
- Does
every purchase of Grammarlogues include both the software
and web components?
- Can
you provide our school with a demonstration of Grammarlogues?
- Can
I have a list of all the texts and authors used in Grammarlogues?
- Why
does Grammarlogues use literary examples to teach grammar?
- Is
Grammarlogues only for grammarians?
- Why
is Grammarlogues a "renaissance in reading and writing"?
- What
is NCTE's position on the teaching of grammar?
Does Grammarlogues work on both
Macs and PCs?
Yes.
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How does Grammarlogues allow teachers
to differentiate their teaching of grammar both within their
classrooms and across grade levels?
The classroom component of Grammarlogues provides teaching
and practice slides for each grammar concept. The literary
examples on these slides range in difficulty to allow teachers
to differentiate their classroom instruction. Should one example
be too easy, simply click again to reveal a more complex example.
This same idea holds true for a concept that might be initially
taught at one grade level but reviewed at another. We have
intentionally chosen literary examples that offer many layers
of complexity. Our teacher's notes highlight the layers of
complexity and offer suggestions for differentiation. Additionally,
Grammarlogues.com provides multiple practice sets of varying
levels of difficulty for each grammatical concept in
Grammarlogues.
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Why
isn't Grammarlogues broken up by grade level?
Grammarlogues provides a comprehensive grammar curriculum
for 6th-12th grades. We intentionally chose not to separate
our program by grade level because different schools approach
and teach grammar in a variety of ways. In other words, concepts
taught at one grade level in one school may be taught at an
entirely different grade level at another school. As such,
we want schools to use Grammarlogues to tailor than own curriculum
rather than try to force a predefined grammar roadmap.
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Can
you provide some recommendations for implementing Grammarlogues
in our curriculum?
-
HAVE STUDENTS
SECURE A NOTEBOOK
We believe that grammar is most effectively taught through
daily mini-lessons that leverage prior knowledge. As such,
we strongly urge you to have your students secure a notebook
that they use exclusively for Grammarlogues. In so doing,
your students will create a grammatical resource that
they can reference and build upon as their knowledge of
grammar expands.
-
ESTABLISH
A DAILY GRAMMAR ROUTINE
Because nearly every concept in Grammarlogues has both
a “teaching slide” and a “practice slide”
(see the video tours of Grammarlogues on the ABOUT
GRAMMARLOGUES tab), we recommend that you
create a grammar routine for your students. We have had
tremendous success in opening every class with a “teaching
slide.” Students come in, write down the grammarlogue,
and then engage in a class discussion about the featured
concept. As students become more comfortable with grammar,
you’ll find that you’re simply a moderator
of their discussion. In addition to the incredible benefit
of students becoming their own teachers, Grammarlogues
also provides several other advantages: 1) By writing
down the concept first, students have the opportunity
to mull over the information and formulate questions before
the discussion occurs; 2) while the students are writing,
you have the chance to take note of where individual students
are emotionally and intellectually; and 3) you have a
few moments to take care of class peripherals (attendance,
handouts, etc.).
-
TAILOR EACH
GRAMMAR LESSON
Grammarlogues is designed to be as flexible as your teaching
style and schedule require. It can be custom-tailored
to meet your needs. If, for instance, in a given class
you don’t have time to discuss a full slide, you
can show only the first half of the slide. All slides
in Grammarlogues easily allow you to hide or highlight
a given piece of information. Don’t be afraid to
let a particular dialogue (a "grammarlogue,"
if you will) run over a couple of classes. While we have
designed the slides to take between five and eight minutes,
it is not unusual for certain concepts to require additional
attention. We believe that these extended discussions
are extremely valuable and should be encouraged at every
chance. Since each group of students is different, you’ll
move through some concepts faster than others. The time
you spend on ensuring a solid grammar foundation will
be more than repaid when you start to teach the more nuanced
concepts. Regardless of the difficulty level of a given
slide, however, it is always beneficial to use the “practice
slides” and grammarlogues.com as reinforcements
to the teaching slides.
-
MAXIMIZE CLASS
TIME
We strongly suggest that as your students work through
the “practice slides,” they write down only
the answers, not the questions. This will ensure expediency
and allow you to focus all attention on the application
of the grammar concept. When you assign further practice
exercises on this website (grammarlogues.com), you can
also choose to make any grammar concept’s “practice
slide” available to your students. In this way,
students can continue to hone their grammatical skills
and study for tests by using the hundreds of practice
sets available on www.grammarlogues.com.
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Does
every purchase of Grammarlogues include both the software
and web components of Grammarlogues?
Yes. However, if you're just interested in one of the components,
please contact us via email (info@grammarlogues.com)
or call our sales representatives at 877-817-5740, extension
701.
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Can
you provide our school with a demonstration of Grammarlogues?
Yes. Please inquire further by contacting info@grammarlogues.com.
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Can
I have a list of all of the texts and authors used in Grammarlogues?
You can find this information by clicking on the LIST
OF AUTHORS or LIST OF TEXTS links located in
the bottom green section of every page. Alternatively, you
may download them here:
List
of Texts in Grammarlogues
List
of Authors in Grammarlogues
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Why
does Grammarlogues use literary examples to teach grammar?
Our steadfast belief in the value of grammar, particularly
as it informs us as both writers and readers, led us to draw
all of our grammatical examples from compelling literary pieces.
We have culled examples from as many literary genres, time
periods and geographies as possible to allow students to experience
a diversity of literature that rarely exists in a single course.
(Grammarlogues includes excerpts from more than 1320 literary
texts and more than 900 authors, including two-thirds of all
Nobel Prize-winning authors, three-fourths of all Pulitzer Prize-winning
authors, and all authors on the AP College Board’s recommended
reading list.)
We wish to underscore the idea that while
Shakespeare, Dickinson, Emerson, Milton and the like may truly
set the bar, literary geniuses like Achebe, Heaney, Kawabata,
Walcott, and Naipaul are giving that bar cultures and colors
it has lacked for far too long. As Grammarlogues becomes a
mainstay of your daily classroom curriculum, students will
find themselves intrigued by various excerpts and authors
and, consequently, seek out the texts on their own. Our MLA
citations for each and every literary excerpt allow this to
happen with ease.
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Is
Grammarlogues only for grammarians?
While Grammarlogues provides both the depth and breadth of
any good instructional tool, it is designed to meet the needs
of both the “neophyte grammarian” and the “grammarian’s
grammarian.” Given the dynamic nature of language, there
are several areas where grammarians are divided, or where
old rules are being slowly replaced by the informal rules
of daily parlance. Where this occurs, Grammarlogues has taken
a position and noted the debate in the Teacher’s Notes.
We urge you to discuss these debates with your students.
Ultimately, our hope is that Grammarlogues simplifies the
complexities of grammar and creates an environment where the
questions we ask about language are as important as the answers
we find. There is no denying that grammar has a largely negative
image. One of our main objectives at Grammarlogues is to remove
any “elitist" connotations associated with grammar
and involve everyone in the discussion. After all, more than
just a select few should have the opportunity to enjoy the
beauty, the power, the sheer versatility of the English language!
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Why
is Grammarlogues a "renaissance in reading and writing"?
We believe—and we have found that students wholeheartedly
agree—that when grammar becomes a conversation that
is laced with real world examples, it is instantly imbued
with a life and vibrancy that is contagious. Suddenly, grammatical
concepts that students formerly despised and reluctantly learned
only for a quiz become ideas that literally transform the
way students write and read. Perhaps more importantly, however,
students develop the confidence necessary to successfully
wrestle with the complexities of language and learn to become
intentional with their diction. At Grammarlogues, we believe
that a teacher’s greatest gift is to provide students
with the cognitive tools necessary to succeed in and transform
the world around them.
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What
is NCTE's position on the teaching of grammar?
Click
here to see NCTE's position on grammar.
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