MULTIMEDIA GRAMMAR

Sure, I know it's like pulling teeth and a great many people question the validity of teaching it at all, but it's still on the curriculum, isn't it? I'll keep experimenting, and as I get ideas, I'll post them here to share with you.

PARTS OF SPEECH

After giving the kids definitions of the various parts of speech, I looked for a way to get them to create original and vivid examples. Then I remembered the old game we used to play as kids: MADLIBS. Do you remember it? We were asked to supply various parts of speech and then they were put into a story.

I tried several references on the internet, but the one the kids had the most fun with was Kratt's Creatures. There were five different adventures. The kids tried them all, and I think, may have picked up some good definitions along the way. Try it here.

CLICK HERE TO GO TO KRATT'S CREATURES 

PREDICATE NOMINATIVES

The use of Pronouns in Predicate Nominatives is a real problem, because nowhere today do people use them correctly. Only on old movies and Nick at Night do we find people answering the phone with expressions like, "This is she," and "It is I."

The dear little darlings even ARGUE with us when we try to explain the correct way to speak. I reply with a wav file: Good old Skip and Flip in a song they sang back in 1959: IT WAS I.

CLICK ME TO HEAR THE PREDICATE NOMINATIVE 

CORRECT USAGE

This next remark is not multimedia, but it is important to me. When did school administrators start using the word IMPACT? (As in the sentence, "In what way do these tests IMPACT the school community?) Where did it come from? What happened to a simple, correct word like AFFECT?

Could it be that certain people were confused about AFFECT--EFFECT? Maybe they were never sure about getting that word correct, so they replaced it with IMPACT. The community is IMPACTED? What does that mean? Am I the only one who has noticed that colons and sewer pipes get impacted, not schools and communities? If you IMPACT a school, doesn't that mean you clog it up, stall it, prevent things from flowing smoothly?

Perhaps I'm old-fashioned, and out of touch with the modern Beavis and Butthead-loving times of the ninties, but I just can't help thinking about plunging and snaking my clogged up commode every time I hear that something has IMPACTED the school.

ADVERBS

While reviewing some textbook definitions on Adverbs, I found myself making up some Tom Swifties to illustrate the material. Remember Tom Swifties? They were a fad in the sixties, I think. The idea was to come up with adverbs which related back to the sentence, like this:

"Where is my ring?" he asked offhandedly.

"My cat got run over by a cement truck," he said, flatly.

There are a number of great Tom Swifty sites on the web:

MARK ISREAL'S CANONICAL COLLECTION 

TILMAN BECKER'S SWIFTIES AND LINKS 

GENERAL GRAMMAR REFERENCE

There are several linguistics experts who have established webpages that offer reference material and answers to grammatical problems. These three offer a wide variety of approaches, and are well worth visiting:

GUIDE TO GRAMMAR AND WRITING 

THE GRAMMAR LADY 

GRAMMAR GIRL 

CUTLER'S GRAMMAR PAGE 

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