Sunday, September 30, 2012

Building Blocks of Writing and Speaking


In fifth grade, Sister Mary McCauley introduced the eights parts of speech to us as “building blocks.” She cut out a different colored block of construction paper for each speech part. Throughout the school year, we learned what each block represented and its use in sentences.
            To activate our brains we’d started, as I posted last Sunday, with memorizing forty-five prepositions and using them to make up story-sentences. Thus we had already used nouns and verbs together. Soon our more formal training in their use began.
             We started with nouns and ended with interjections. In between we met brightly colored blocks for pronouns, verbs, adjectives and articles, adverbs, and conjunctions. Of course, we’d already memorized that list of prepositions.
            Sister used these blocks to build sentences on the bulletin board. By the end of the school year, we twenty-six fifth graders had learned the power of the eight parts of speech and their syntax. We had also mastered sentence parts: subjects, verbs, objects, and complements.
            With our blocks we stacked words in different ways and found what we could build with them. Here are the activities I remember as we began to construct with our building blocks:  
·      Sister gave each of us a colorful magazine picture. We listed in our Big Chief Tablet all the persons, places, and things we saw. We used these pictures throughout the year as we learned each new part of speech.


·      Next, we took our tablets home and wrote in them all the nouns we saw. The next day, we shared our lists and got ribbons for outstanding nouns. The noun block went on the bulletin board. All alone.
·      We learned additional nouns, going from general to specific: Vehicle, car, sedan, Chevrolet. Animal, cat, tiger, Tony the Tiger. Toy, game, Monopoly. House, room, kitchen, pantry. Furniture, footstool, hassock, ottoman.

·      Each of us pantomimed doing something while the rest of our classmates called out each action they saw us perform.
·      We took our Big Chief tablets home and wrote in them all the verbs/actions we saw. The next day we got ribbons for our most descriptive actions; zoom, whittle, stumble, twist. Sister pinned the verb block to the right of the noun on the bulletin board. Thus, we saw first visual of the most common syntax of the English language.


·      Once again we learned more specific synonyms: Walk, amble, meander, stroll, plod, hike. Run, dash, sprint. Smile, laugh, guffaw, chortle, giggle, tee-hee, smirk. Read, peruse, scan, skim.  
·      Next we built simple sentences with our lists of nouns and verbs: Cats jump. Mothers read. Dads whittle. Dogs protect. Cars zoom. Children play.
·      Each of us pantomimed a noun and its action before the class: book falls, foot kicks, hand raises, lips whistle, face smiles, eraser erases, chalk writes.
·      We returned to our tablet pages of nouns and added a one-word description of each: Furry kittens jump. Busy mothers read. Tired dads whittle. Yellow dogs protect. Racing cars zoom. Happy children play. The adjective block went on the bulletin board to the left of the noun.



·      We did the same for our list of actions: Furry kittens jump high. Busy mothers read aloud. Tired dads whittle easily. Yellow dogs scratch frantically. Racing cars zoom nosily.



·      Sister added the adverb block to the right of the verb. We now had four different colored blocks in a line: Adjectival modifier, noun subject, verb predicate, and adverbial modifier.
·      The list of assignments and activities went on throughout the year: block by block, step by step, a progression of learning.
·      Ultimately, we got to sentences with a modified subject, a modified verb or action word, a noun used as a direct object, and a number of prepositional phrases used to describe the nouns or the verb.
·      To do all this, Sister would usually start by pantomiming a scene that became a sentence. We might end up with the following: In her frayed black habit, the tired teacher accidentally dropped the dog-eared geography book on the wooden desk by the window.


Now we were ready for sixth grade when we would begin to study the various types of sentences and learn more about punctuation. In seventh grade we’d diagram these sentences and locate misplaced modifiers. It was there that syntax began to make sense.
Is this how you learned the parts of speech and how to build sentences? When did you first begin to realize the power of words? And how has that early training affected your writing? Have you had to forget a few things?!?!?   
                                                                                                              
All photographs from Wikipedia.

20 comments:

  1. This sounds like a brilliant (& fun) way to learn how to use English correctly. I wish my teachers had done this!

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    1. Dear Fran, Sister Mary McCauley was a fine teacher. She had her degree in English and she certainly loved the language. Peace.

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  2. As a teacher and grammar lover, this is a thing of beauty to me. Throughout all my years of public school, I had only the most minimal writing training, but a cornucopia of grammar training (often redundant).

    I internalized much about grammar, but I still feel like I've missed something vital in not having writing training.

    I love the way you describe Sister Mary McCauley teaching.

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    1. Dear Shelly, you write so well so whatever you learned that helped you become such a fine writer did the trick! That and probably your own persistence, good ear, and the reading you do. Peace.

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  3. I wish my teachers had done this, too. I know I can probably break a sentence down, but I have forgotten what the pieces are called--LOL! :)

    This was such a fun way to learn. :)

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    1. Dear Rita, truly what does it matter whether we can name nouns and verbs, etc? It's the way we put our words together to convey meaning that's important. And you always do that! You convey your passion for art so seamlessly. Peace.

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  4. I have no experience with Sisters, but I have a deep feeling of respect for them and believe they really knew,and hopefully still know, how to teach a child. Then I got so profoundly sad, thinking of the children in city schools, in this rich nation......

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    1. Dear Inger, many of the nuns who taught me were excellent teachers. And so, having known such excellence, I am with you in being "profoundly sad" about the children in our inner-city schools who are getting shortchanged year after year. Peace.

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  5. What an incredible way to learn. I think that being taught in this way would bring meaning to the learning process, and ensure retention.
    I don't remember much about how I was taught except being told that 'a verb is a doing word', and also told (incorrectly) that each sentence had to have a verb and a noun. Why? For which question I was reprimanded for cheekiness. Which was not my intent at all.

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    1. Dear EC, it's always sad to me when a child's natural curiosity about life and all its many facets is rewarded with censure and not wonder. I'm sorry that you've experienced that. Peace.

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  6. I did not learn the way you did. I learned how to write -- for the most part -- by reading. I wish all students had the basic background education you received. I didn't really learn the parts of speech until I took a grammar class in college.

    Love,
    Janie

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    1. Dear Janie, I surely learned a lot about writing from my reading. And one of the future postings in October (I hope!) will be about the latest writing technique I learned from reading today's best-sellers. Peace.

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  7. I am the same as Janie. I mostly learned to write by reading. I remember long ago learning how to diagram a sentence, but it was only one class. You were really fortunate to have the education you did! :-)

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    1. Dear DJan, I am fortunate in so many ways, not the least of which is the education I've had. My parents so valued learning and encouraged me always to learn more and more. That's why, even though times were hard, they bought a set of World Book Encyclopedias for my brother and me.

      Each night at the dinner table some question would be asked and Mom or Dad would say, "Let's look it up after the dishes are done." Then we'd spend the evening going from one World book to another as new topics were mentioned after the original one. Mom and Dad nurtured in me a thirst for learning and so they gave me my first and foundational education. Peace.

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  8. Dee, I loved this post and your last one about adjectives. My old-fashioned head teacher in primary school was a firm believer in teaching parts of speech and the rest of grammar and syntax. Unfortunately her methods were't quite such fun as Sister Mary's, but they worked. :-)

    I was sad when "progressive" teaching methods in the UK pushed grammar aside in favour of "expressive" writing. How were children supposed to learn to express themselves clearly if they don't know how their language works? Thankfully the pendulum is swinging back towards the formal teaching of grammar, but first they have to teach the teachers....

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    1. Dear Perpetua, like you I'm grateful that I learned all this in grade school, and again like you, I'm also glad to learn that the pendulum is swinging back toward formal teaching of grammar. I don't know whether that's happening here in the states.

      I'm please that you "loved this post" as well as the one before as I've wondered if anyone would be interested in how I learned grammar. In the next couple of Sunday postings, I'll share how I learned more about syntax, the kind of sentences, and outlining. I bet you learned all this too. Peace.

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  9. I am really sorry that grammar is barely taught in our schools anymore. I can't remember the grade where we had it in our English classes, maybe 8th? But the teacher was really strict and detailed and it was the entire year's course. I was nervous at the beginning since everyone said how hard it was, but by the end of the year I'd met the challenge, knew how to diagram sentences, had unlocked the puzzle that is grammar and didn't want the course to end.

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    1. Dear Karen, yes, I, too, bemoan the lack of grammar education today. For many reasons: One of course is that grammar with its syntax and diagramming helps us think more logically. I'm not saying more linearly, but that can happen also. I think grammar also helps us more easily evolve a writing style.

      But these are just my thoughts as I reflect on how I've learned to put words and sentences together somewhat effectively. Peace.

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  10. My experience is very different. ESL and a drive to be accepted by those who were native speakers sent me scurrying to learn all I could. At the same time I had to keep up studies of my mother language. They were not any where close in sentence structure but I did understand the different parts that made up a sentence in both. agreement of gender was huge. By ninth grade I was introduced to French and loved it. In tenth grade came Latin. UGH! But I loved how literature of each had a historical element. I became fascinated with literature and music and studied both by the time I was in university. Later I was fascinated at how young children grasped reading and writing and how their ability to sing in pitch led me to study learning disabilities in language acquisition.

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    1. Dear Heidrun, thank you for this most interesting and intriguing comment. You've learned at least four languages and I would imagine that the syntax of those differ at least in some ways. I know Latin and English do. So your mind has absorbed all this and can think in four different ways. I so admire that and envy it also.

      Like you, one of the things I enjoy about language is the historical aspect. You have such a fine background in so many fields. And like you, also, when I was teaching and also when I watched my nieces and nephew and their children learn to talk, I was astounded at how we learn a language from listening and imitating. I don't know anything about singing in pitch but I hope someday you will blog about that and about why it lead you to study learning disabilities in language acquisition. Peace.

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