SYNTAX FOR SAILORS NAVIGATING THE ENGLISH CHANNEL
AN EXTRAORDINARY LANGUAGE ARTS RESOURCE
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Keep it logical and sequential…..
Many students spend their language arts periods in hot pursuit of a maniacal dervish spinning madly from one topic to the next. A few days are spent exploring the correct business letter format; then there’s another couple of days delving into the secrets of the noun clause; and then there’s a two-day investigation of the prepositional phrase; and before jumping wholeheartedly into the Diary of Anne Frank unit, there’s a light review of verbs. In this scenario, the language arts curriculum seems nothing more than a hodgepodge of unrelated information.
An effective curriculum builds upon itself. Present single words as single part of speech first; then groups of words without subjects and verbs used as single parts of speech (phrases); and then follow up with groups of words with subjects and verbs used as single parts of speech (clauses). A logical and sequential approach will totally eliminate dervish-created confusion.
A “souped-up” engine is an engine that has been modified to produce enhanced performance.
Much like incorporating “souped-up” color choices (cerulean, thistle, orchid, fuchsia, aquamarine, mulberry, plum, melon, periwinkle, sepia, goldenrod) has the potential to turn an ordinary crayon project into a masterpiece, incorporating “souped-up” syntactic choices (participial phrases, compound-complex sentences, gerunds, noun clauses, infinitive phrases, adjective clauses) has the potential to improve ordinary communication by dynamically enhancing versatility, flexibility, clarity, and effectiveness.
If we expect grammatical sophistication from today’s writer and speaker, we need to ensure they have a full box of crayons--not eight crayons; not sixteen crayons; but a full box of sixty-four.
I have all the crayons,
and unlike those who fail to foster the incredible variety of readily available syntactic choices that make our language rich, dynamic, and versatile,
I enthusiastically share them all.
Bill Miller
Copyright Bill Miller 2022