Pennington Publishing Blog

Remember using Warriner’s English Grammar and Composition back in high school and Strunk and White’s The Elements of Style back in college? Each resource provided tips on grammar, usage, mechanics, spelling, and composition. Many students found these resources to be indispensable writing partners for essays and term papers. Writing Guides, English Handbooks, and Style Manuals all provide useful tools to students and professional writers alike. However, print copies are often out of date as soon as they are published. With commonly accepted guidelines in flux, the resources of the web are much better suited to the needs of today’s writers.

Constantly updated, The Pennington Manual of Style has been designed to serve as a complete writer’s reference guide (not merely a guide to citation formatting) for fourth-twelfth grade students and their teachers… with one major improvement over the old Warriner’s English Grammar and Composition and The Elements of Style: This style manual is fully interactive with 438 downloadable essay e-comments to make essay response efficient and comprehensive. Teachers can SAVE TIME GRADING ESSAYS AND GIVE STUDENTS BETTER COMMENTS with this resource. Plus, teachers are licensed to print Read more…

Grammar/Mechanics, Spelling/Vocabulary, Writing e-grading, essay grading, essay revision, essay rubrics, grammar book, grammar reference, grammar rules, how to grade essays, Strunk and White, style manual, writers guide, writing style

Good teachers know that students need detailed, prescriptive, and personal comments on their essays throughout the writing process to make significant improvement. However, the process can be time-consuming and frustrating. It would not be unusual for a teacher to spend 15 minutes to red-mark and write comments on the rough draft of a five-paragraph essay, then repeat the process to evaluate the final draft. Even with that significant amount of time, comments would have to be concise and rely upon abbreviations and diacritical marks. The focus has to be limited to identifying what is wrong, not explaining why it is wrong. No time for examples or suggestions as to how to improve the writing. Maybe a quick positive comment. Exhausting!

Additionally, frustration mounts as the teacher has to write the same comments over and over again throughout a stack of student papers. Only to be exacerbated when, after receiving their graded essays, students simply glance at their final grades before cramming the essay into the bottom of their backpacks. There has got to be a better way… Read more…

Grammar/Mechanics, Spelling/Vocabulary, Writing computer grading, e-grading, essay grading, essay revision, essay rubrics, how to grade essays

Thought I’d share how I started using computers to grade essays and offer fellow teachers a great resource to provide better essay response and cut grading time by half. Years ago I played around with the Insert Comments feature of Microsoft Word® and learned how to put in and format the bubble comments. I started using these comments to respond to and grade student writing submitted by email. At first, I only assigned a holistic rubric score, made a few comments, and patted myself on the back for learning how to insert audio files for brief summary responses. Students loved this paperless process. Read more…

Grammar/Mechanics, Spelling/Vocabulary, Writing computer grading, e-grading, essay grading, essay revision, essay rubrics, grammar checker, how to grade essays, spelling checker

Teaching the voiced and unvoiced consonant digraphs in the context of beginning and remedial reading instruction can be tricky. Speech therapists and ESL teachers insist that the differences are critically important; reading specialists and special education teachers tend to ignore these as “distinctions without differences.”

As a reading specialist, I usually stay on the practical “whatever works” side of the ledger. However, with respect to this one issue, I think my speech therapist and ESL friends have won me over.

Without getting over-technical (Please… if I see one more diagram of the vocal cords or hear the word fricative, I will not be held responsible for my actions), here are a few instructional tools that will help us all teach the voiced and unvoiced “th” consonant digraph.

I’ve spent countless training sessions trying to hear and feel the differences in the “th” sounds in beginning, medial, and end positions. I’m not the only one who has problems hearing these sound distinctions, but most of us can hear when a student mispronounces one of them. Here’s the best help I’ve found yet regarding how to differentiate the sounds:

To know if your voice is turned on, try this simple test. Put your hand gently over the front of your throat and breathe. Do you feel anything? No, you shouldn’t. Now, put your hand on your throat and say “ah”. Feel the vibration? That’s because your voice is turned on.

Now, let’s try it with one pair of sounds: S and Z

Put your hand on your throat and say s-s-s-s-s. You shouldn’t feel anything.

Now, put your hand on your throat and say z-z-z-z-z. You should feel the vibration because your voice has to be turned on to make the Z sound.

Your mouth, teeth, and tongue should be in exactly the same position for saying S and Z; you just need to turn your voice off for the S and on for the Z.

Lisa Scott
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/4426340

The exercise works better than the other methods I’ve tried and I love the terminology “your voice has to be turned on.” So much better than “voiced-unvoiced” or “voiced-voiceless” for students (and reading specialists). Now, of course Lisa (and others) has picked the easiest pairing of sounds (/s/ and /z/) to demonstrate and the single consonants seem easier than the consonant digraphs, but starting with what is most clear usually does makes sense.

Now that we understand the difference between sounds with the voice turned on and off, we need to know how to teach them. I’ll provide a few pointers in the context of beginning reading instruction and then follow up with a recommendation for remedial readers and ESL students.

Decoding

Of course, we introduce the voiced and unvoiced consonant digraphs separately. We provide example words and help students blend and segment the sounds. However, we do have a problem. In most phonics (sound-spellings) instructional sequences, we first teach short vowels and single consonants and then turn our attention to the consonant digraphs. And we stick with single syllable words. This certainly has proven the right instructional order over time, but it does limit our example words significantly and, thus, our practice of such in decodable text. Notice, we even have to dip into the King James English to broaden our lists.

Voiced Decodable “th_” Single Syllable Words with Short Vowels and Single Consonants

this                  that                  them                then                 thus                 than

Voiced Decodable “th_” and Single Syllable Words with Long Vowels and Silent Final e

their (long a “ei” spelling)       though (long o “_ough” spelling)

thou                 thee                 thy                   these                those                thine

Voiced Decodable “th_” and “_the” Single Syllable Words with Long Vowels, Silent Final e, and Consonant Blends

clothe              breathe            bathe               teethe

Voiced Non-Decodable Single Syllable “th_” Words

the                   they                 there

Unvoiced Decodable Single Syllable “th” Words with Short Vowels and Single Consonants

thin                  thud                 path                 with

Unvoiced Decodable Single Syllable “th_” and Words with Long Vowels and Silent Final e

thief                 thigh                thieves            theme

Unvoiced Decodable Single Syllable “th” Words with Long Vowels, Silent Final e, and Consonant Blends

thank               thing                think                growth

Strategic Word Analysis

• Guess the voiceless “th” in meaning-based words, such as theme, thaw, and both.
• Guess the voiced “th” in grammatical words, such as that, they, or then.
• When in doubt, guess and use the unvoiced pronunciation. Other than the list above, most all “th” words are “sound off” pronunciations.
• Other than the low utility long vowel, silent e decodable words listed above, guess an unvoiced “_th” at the end of a syllable. Teach students “If a syllable ends in ‘th,’ turn your voice off.” Examples: path, both, with, moth
• Teach students to guess a voiced “th_” at the start of syllable when it is followed by a short vowel sound. Only a few words, such as thin, thick, and thought are exceptions.
• Teach students to guess an unvoiced “th_” at the start of syllable when it is followed by a long vowel sound. Only a few long vowel words, such as the, these, those, their, and though are decodable exceptions. Add on the sight word there and the King James thou, thee, thy, and thine (if you must) and this is a good generalization.

Remedial Readers and ESL Students

For remedial readers and ESL students, the ESL Gold Site does a wonderful job teaching the voiced “th” and the unvoice “th” with the following instructional sequence: 1. pronunciation 2. minimal pairs 3. challenging words 4. phrases 5. dialogue 6. oral reading. Adding a blending step to this sequence and, perhaps a timed word fluency exercise, would be especially helpful.

Mark Pennington, MA Reading Specialist, is the author of the comprehensive reading intervention curriculum, Teaching Reading Strategies. Designed to significantly increase the reading abilities of students ages eight through adult within one year, the curriculum is decidedly un-canned, adaptable to various instructional settings, and simple to use—a perfect choice for Response to Intervention tiered instructional levels. Get multiple choice reading assessments , formative assessments, blending and syllabication activities, phonemic awareness and phonics workshops, comprehension worksheets, multi-level fluency passages, 390 flashcards, posters, activities, and games. Everything teachers need to teach a diagnostically-based reading intervention program for struggling readers at all reading levels is found in this comprehensive curriculum. Ideal for ESL and Special Education students, who struggle with language/auditory processing challenges. Simple directions and well-crafted activities truly make this an almost no-prep curriculum. Works well as a half-year intensive program or full-year program, with or without paraprofessional assistance.

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Teachers recognize the value of essay compositions as vital tools for learning, self-expression, and assessment. The essay remains a staple of college and post-graduate applications, as well as job applications. In terms of formulating coherent explanation, analysis, or argument, the essay best provides that means. Even a well-constructed objective exam cannot match the essay in assessing the degree to which teaching objectives have been mastered.

“Essays are considered by many researchers as the most useful tool to assess learning outcomes, implying the ability to recall, organize and integrate ideas, the ability to express oneself in writing and the ability to supply merely than identify interpretation and application of data. It is in the measurement of such outcomes, corresponding to the evaluation and synthesis levels of the Bloom’s (1956) taxonomy that the essay questions serve their most useful purpose.” (Valenti, Nitko and Cucchiarelli 2003)

However, essays are rather subjective vehicles of expression. Even the best attempts to develop objective evaluation criteria with analytical rubrics and check-lists fall short of unbiased objectivity. Yet, this shortcoming has not eliminated the cherished role of the essay in the British and American educational establishments.

There’s just one problem. Essays just take too much time to read, respond to, and evaluate. A conscientious teacher may realistically spend an hour per student essay if that teacher responds to multiple student drafts in the context of the writing process evaluates the final published essay.

Of course, teachers can spend less time, if they use simplistic holistic rubrics or buy-in to the convenient notion that making comments on a student’s essay somehow disenfranchises the autonomy of the writer. However, most teachers recognize that interactive dialogue between student and teacher on the student’s essay is unavoidably essential. And it does take time.

Enter the age of computers. Word processing, spell check, grammar check, word count, reading level, data bases, etc. Is there a savior?

Computer-scoring of student writing is being actively marketed to K-12 schools and universities. Multinational corporations, such as Educational Testing Services (ETS), claim that current technology is able not only to provide objective assessment, but is now also able to give accurate and useful feedback to the student writer. Criterion, a machine-reading service marketed by ETS, has become widely popular in both American K-12 schools and universities. Other similar automatic grading programs are open for business.

Both of the new assessment consortia that have been delegated the tasks of developing national assessments for the Common Core State Standards (now adopted by 43 states) have indicated that they are actively considering machine-scored essay software. “Automated assessment systems would provide consistency in essay scoring, while enormous cost and time savings could occur if the AES system is shown to grade essays within the range of those awarded by human assessors,” suggest the aforementioned researchers.

But, what to teachers say about computer-scored essays?

The National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) summarizes its position on machine-scored writing:

We oppose the use of machine-scored writing in the assessment of writing.  Automated assessment programs do not respond as human readers.  While they may promise consistency, they distort the very nature of writing as a complex and context-rich interaction between people.  They simplify writing in ways that can mislead writers to focus more on structure and grammar than on what they are saying by using a given structure and style.

“Writing Assessment: A Position Statement.” NCTE.org. Nov 2006

The Conference on College Composition and Communication (CCCC) summarizes its position on machine-scored writing:

“We oppose the use of machine-scored writing in the assessment of writing.” Automated assessment programs do not respond as human readers. While they may promise consistency, they distort the very nature of writing as a complex and context-rich interaction between people. They simplify writing in ways that can mislead writers to focus more on structure and grammar than on what they are saying by using a given structure and style… We believe ourselves that machine-scoring fundamentally alters the social and rhetorical nature of writing—that writing to a machine is not writing at all.”

The CCCC Position Statement on Teaching, Learning, and Assessing Writing in Digital Environments

But, is there a middle ground? Can teachers use technology to save time and doing a more thorough job of responding to student essays? Can teachers maintain autonomy in the evaluation process and exercise their own judgment about which comments need to be made, which grammatical errors need to be marked, and which grade needs to be assigned?

Perhaps so. There can be a balance between technological efficiency and teacher judgment. Using the computer to grade paper and online essays can achieve both purposes. For those teachers interested in saving time and doing a more thorough job of essay response and grading, check out The Pennington Manual of Style. This style manual serves as a wonderful writer’s reference guide with all of the writing tips from the author’s three comprehensive writing curricula: Teaching Grammar and Mechanics, Teaching Essay Strategies, and Teaching Spelling and Vocabulary. The style manual also includes a download of the 438 writing, grammar, mechanics, and spelling comments teachers use most often in essay response and grading. Placed in the Autocorrects function of Microsoft Word® 2003, 2007, and 2010 (XP, Vista, and Windows 7), teachers can access each comment with a simple mouse click to insert into online student essays or print/e-mail for paper submissions. And best of all… the 47-page style manual with the essay e-comments bank costs only a nickel.

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At the outset of the Common Core State Standards Initiative, the research and writing committees latched upon the California and Massachusetts state standards to serve as reference points for establishing the Common Core State Standards. Both of these states’ standards were deemed to be the most rigorous and comprehensive in the nation. Both California and Massachusetts state standards followed a similar design and degree of specificity, unlike say the detailed Texas state standards.

Some educators in California and Massachusetts feared that the end product of the Common Core State Standards would water down the high expectations of their state standards, especially in the math strands. Scores of articles urged their respective state departments of education to head off the gutting of their standards at the pass. State Department of Education officials promised to red ink plenty of revisions to maintain the rigor of their standards. However, the final product (actually the revised draft) of the Common Core State Standards that was inadvertently leaked out to the press actually maintained most of the rigor of these two sets of state standards.

Teachers in California and Massachusetts are asking plenty of questions. For example, how do the Common Core State Standards differ from those of their states. How much red ink was used before the state legislatures of California and Massachusetts adopted the Common Core State Standards in the rush to qualify for the federal Race to the Top funds? In this article, I answer that question specifically with respect to the language strand of the California ELA/reading standards. To be short and to the point—not much.

In fact, only six additions (and no deletions) were made to the language strand of the English-language Arts/Reading Common Core State Standards. Each addition is relatively of minor concern and three reflect California’s unwavering support of penmanship.

Here are the differences:

1^st Grade L.1.d. The addition clarifies pronouns as including “subject, object” in “Use personal (subject, object), possessive, and indefinite pronouns.”

2^nd Grade L.1.a. The addition inserts “Create readable documents with legible print.”

3^rd Grade L.1.a. The addition inserts “Write legibly in cursive or joined italics, allowing margins and correct spacing between letters in a word and words in a sentence.”

3^rd Grade L.1.c. The addition inserts “Use reciprocal pronouns correctly.” Author’s Note: I am the author of a comprehensive grammar and mechanics program and I had to look these up to find that there are but two: each other and one another. Whew! Now I can teach third grade.

4^th Grade L.1.a. The addition inserts “Write fluidly and legibly in cursive or joined italics.”

4^th Grade L.1.b. The addition inserts “interrogative pronouns” next to the existing “relative pronouns.” Author’s Note: Interrogative pronouns stand without antecedents; relative pronouns have antecedents. Examples: What did you say? I said our car, which is old, still runs.

6^th Grade L.1.b. The addition inserts “all pronouns” and “correctly” in “Use all pronouns, including intensive pronouns (e.g., myself, ourselves), correctly.”

For upper elementary, middle school, and high school teachers looking at a stand-alone grammar, mechanics, and spelling curriculum that is aligned to the language strand of Common Core State Standards, please check out the author’s Teaching Grammar and Mechanics. Throw away the ineffective D.O.L. or D.L.R. “openers” and get 64 no-prep, interactive Sentence Lifting lessons-each designed with basic and advanced skills. Each of the 64 lessons has Teacher Tips and Hints for the grammatically-challenged, simple sentence diagrams, sentence modeling, grammar cartoons, and dictations. Also get 72 Grammar and Mechanics Worksheets to differentiate instruction, according to the results of the Grammar and Mechanics Diagnostic Assessments.

Also, check out the The Pennington Manual of Style, which includes a download of the 438 writing, grammar, mechanics, and spelling comments teachers use most often. Placed in the Autocorrects function of Microsoft Word® 2003, 2007, and 2010 (XP, Vista, and Windows 7), teachers can access each comment with a simple mouse click to insert into online student essays or print/e-mail for paper submissions. And best of all… the 47-page style manual and e-comments bank costs only a nickel.

Grammar/Mechanics, Spelling/Vocabulary, Writing Common Core Grammar Standards, Common Core Language Standards, Common Core Standards, Common Core State ELA Standards, Common Core State English Standards, Common Core State Standards, Common Core State Writing Standards

As an author of both a spelling series and a grammar and mechanics curriculum, I am constantly deluged with questions regarding the language strand of the new Common Core State Standards. Teachers are naturally concerned with such a monumental change away from district and state standards to national standards. And don’t let ‘em fool you: These are national standards with minimal variations from state to state. Irrespective of how the standards came about (the Common Core State Standards Initiative folk are adamant that this was a state-driven effort), the current status as of this writing is that 43 of the states have adopted this national set of standards.

Here are the questions teachers are asking about the language strand of the Common Core State Standards. I’ll answer with specific reference to the document itself and then follow with a quick analysis.

• Teachers know the standards dictate what they are to teach, but teachers also want to know if the standards dictate how they are to teach.
• Teachers want to know the philosophical stance with respect to these conventions of language, for example how grammatical instruction is linked to writing instruction.
• Teachers have heard that the Common Core dumbs-down the standards from Massachusetts and California, but significantly increases expectations for the rest of the states, and so they ask just how rigorous are the language standards.
• Some past state standards have been intentionally vague; others have been much more detailed. Teachers want to know how general or specific the language standards get.
• Teachers want to know about the pacing of the K-12 instructional scope and sequence: what new stuff to they have to teach?
• Teachers want to know what’s de-emphasized in the language standards: what stuff do they not have to teach?
• How much, if any, review is built into the language strand?

Teachers want to know if the standards dictate how they are to teach.

“The Standards are not a curriculum. They are a clear set of shared goals and expectations for what knowledge and skills will help our students succeed. Local teachers, principals, superintendents and others will decide how the standards are to be met. Teachers will continue to devise lesson plans and tailor instruction to the individual needs of the students in their classrooms.” http://www.corestandards.org

To me, the most interesting sentence above is “Teachers will continue to devise lesson plans and tailor instruction to the individual needs of the students in their classrooms.” A tacit acknowledgement that the teacher needs to have the autonomy to differentiate instruction according to needs of her students.

Teachers want to know how want to know how grammatical instruction is linked to writing instruction.

“To build a foundation for college and career readiness in language, students must gain control over many conventions of standard English grammar, usage, and mechanics as well as learn other ways to use language to convey meaning effectively… The inclusion of Language standards in their own strand should not be taken as an indication that skills related to conventions, effective language use, and vocabulary are unimportant to reading, writing, speaking, and listening; indeed, they are inseparable from such contexts.” http://www.corestandards.org

I find a nice balance between focusing on the correctness of usage and application to writing. The standards go out of their way to assert that grammar, mechanics, and spelling are best taught within the context of reading, writing, speaking, and listening. However, it is noteworthy that language does have its own strand, apart from writing and the standards do emphasize the necessity of mastering “standard English grammar, usage, and mechanics…”

Examples of Language Standards Emphasizing Correctness

• Ensure that pronouns are in the proper case (subjective, objective, possessive). L.6.1.
• Recognize and correct inappropriate shifts in verb voice and mood. L.8.1.

Examples of Language Standards Emphasizing Application to Writing

• Vary sentence patterns for meaning, reader/listener interest, and style. L.6.3.
• Maintain consistency in style and tone. L.6.3.

Teachers ask just how rigorous are the language standards.

Examples of Language Standards Emphasizing Rigor

• Produce and expand complete simple and compound declarative, interrogative, imperative, and exclamatory sentences in response to prompts. L.1.1
• Form and use comparative and superlative adjectives and adverbs, and choose between them depending on what is to be modified. L.3.1.

Examples of Language Standards De-emphasizing Rigor

• Explain the function of phrases and clauses in general and their function in specific sentences. L7.1 (Clauses are not introduced until seventh grade.)
• Explain the function of verbals (gerunds, participles, infinitives) in general and their function in particular sentences. L8.1 (Verbals are not introduced until eighth grade.)
• Parallel structures are not introduced until ninth grade.

Clearly the levels of rigor are hit and miss.

Teachers want to know how general or specific the language standards get.

Examples of Vague or General Language Standards

• Spell correctly L.6.2-L.12.2.
• Use correct capitalization. L.4.2.

Examples of Specific or Detailed Language Standards

• Use a comma to separate coordinate adjectives (e.g., It was a fascinating, enjoyable movie but not He wore an old[,] green shirt). L.7.2.
• Form and use verbs in the indicative, imperative, interrogative, conditional, and subjunctive mood. L.5.2.

Teachers want to know about the pacing of the K-12 instructional scope and sequence.

The http://www.corestandards.org site lays out the language strands by elementary and secondary groupings of both bullet points and scope and sequence charts.

Without getting lost in the specificity, the language strand clearly places the largest burden of grammar, mechanics, and spelling instruction on primary (first, second, and third) grade teachers. At the macro level (after deleting the vocabulary components from the language strand): first, second, and third has three pages of language standards; fourth and fifth has one page; sixth, seventh, and eighth has one page; and ninth, tenth, eleventh, and twelfth has only half of a page.

Teachers want to know what’s de-emphasized in the language standards

Most notably, spelling gets short shrift in the Common Core State Standards language strand.

After third grade, here are the spelling standards:

• Spell grade-appropriate words correctly, consulting references as needed. L.4.2. and L.5.2.
• Spell correctly L.6.2.-L.12.2

It’s great to know that all American school children will require no spelling standards after third grade. Just wave the magic wand, I guess.

How much, if any, review is built into the language strand?

The following skills, marked with an asterisk (*)  are particularly likely to require continued attention in higher grades as they are applied to increasingly sophisticated writing and speaking.

A considerable number of skills are marked with the asterisks throughout the K-12 language strand. To me, this indicates a basic acknowledgement of the cyclical nature of grammar instruction and the necessity for review and differentiated instruction in grammar, mechanics, and spelling.

For upper elementary, middle school, and high school teachers looking at a stand-alone grammar, mechanics, and spelling curriculum that is aligned to the language strand of Common Core State Standards, please check out the author’s Teaching Grammar and Mechanics. Throw away the ineffective D.O.L. or D.L.R. “openers” and get 64 no-prep, interactive Sentence Lifting lessons-each designed with basic and advanced skills. Each of the 64 lessons has Teacher Tips and Hints for the grammatically-challenged, simple sentence diagrams, sentence modeling, grammar cartoons, and dictations. Also get 72 Grammar and Mechanics Worksheets to differentiate instruction, according to the results of the Grammar and Mechanics Diagnostic Assessments.

Also, check out the The Pennington Manual of Style, which includes a download of the 438 writing, grammar, mechanics, and spelling comments teachers use most often. Placed in the Autocorrects function of Microsoft Word® 2003, 2007, and 2010 (XP, Vista, and Windows 7), teachers can access each comment with a simple mouse click to insert into online student essays or print/e-mail for paper submissions. And best of all… the 47-page style manual and e-comments bank costs only a nickel.

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