Publications
Enter the Rubber Chickens
To make grammar memorable, you need some rubber chickens. On the day that I decide to insert the first grammar mini-lesson of the year, one of my rubber chickens makes its first appearance. I visibly hold it, playing with it a bit, so that someone needs to ask, "Why do you have a rubber chicken?" "For grammar!" I respond, and we begin. In order for grammar instruction to be memorable, it must be fun. Rubber chickens are fun. Enter the Rubber Chickens is a book of activities, songs, and mini-lessons for teachers of middle school students. It incorporates action, touch, play, laughter, music, and competition into the usually dry realm of grammar instruction. Students engaged in activities from this book will likely remember what they have done with the rubber chickens, thus remembering finer points of grammar. They will use what they remember in their writing, and that is what grammar instruction is really all about. This refreshing change to typical grammar instruction is not meant to replace an existing program, but to enhance good teaching. Information about grammar is discovered, repeated, and recorded. Then the laughing, playing, acting, singing, and remembering occur. After this, good writing always follows. Allow a few rubber chickens to enter your English and Language Arts classroom, and see what happens.
Shoes and Boxes and Peanuts and Keys
If I want to get good writing from students, any students, I need to give them an object-something they can touch or hold or see. There is something almost magical about writing when a physical object is involved. Some of the best writing I have received from students has come from peanuts, acorns, shoes, stones, sticks, keys, boxes, or pictures. As writers, we need to engage our senses to make our writing real. Something happens when multiple parts of the brain engage in the writing process. Depth occurs. True creativity emerges. Writing, its joy and fun and wonder, simply happens. I hope to equip you with a few things that have provided fun and joy in writing in my classroom, prompts that have consistently resulted in writing-worth-reading. In most cases, these prompts require a number of objects, so planning ahead is encouraged. I hope that I can help you and your students find joy in this complex process, because writing is work. Then, once the joy is found, you and your students can put this newfound love of words into different forms for different purposes.