1.+Grammar+Usage+and+Mechanics

__** Section Outline **__ Chapter 1 Parts of the Sentence Chapter 2 Using Phrases Chapter 3 Using Clauses Chapter 4 Using Verbs Chapter 5 Subject-Verb Agreement Chapter 6 Using Pronouns Chapter 7 Using Modifiers Chapter 8 Capitalization Chapter 9 End Marks and Commas Chapter 10 Other Punctuation

This specific section of the book focused a lot on the Current Traditional style of teaching, because it was very regimented and focused on the structure of writing rather than the content. This chapter discussed the parts of sentences and general grammar usages. The book had each chapter set up by starting with a diagnostic test which was seemingly used to test the students on how well they knew the material that was going to be covered in the chapter. After the students take the test the next part of the chapter was used to define the different kinds of grammar that was specific to that chapter (example different clauses independent clauses, subordinate clauses etc.). After that it discusses why that part of grammar matters in writing and how to properly use it. Then the book gives an exercise for the student to do so they can apply what they just learned in the lesson. We thought that although this part of the book is important to writing we found that it would benefit students in 11th grade very little because of how basic the chapters in this section were. We did however see a disagreement in this chapter with what Rose was talking about in his essay "The language of exclusion" He said that "Memorizing rules of grammar and usage have no effect on the quality of student writing." (Rose, pg 589) Also he states that the assumption "good writing is correct writing and that correctness has to do with pronoun choice, verb forms and the like." (Rose, pg 590) could be considered questionable. This section of the book was all about how important grammar and how to properly go about using it will impact the quality of your writing. We agree with Rose to a certain extent, that focusing so much on grammar is not going to change the quality of the student’s ability to write, but we do believe that a certain amount of grammar should be taught in the classroom.

__** Strengths and Weaknesses **__

The strengths we saw in this chapter were that it was very detailed and it was laid out in a format that is very student and teacher friendly. It gives a lot of good information about grammar and how to correctly use it in writing. It lays the ground work for further student writing by educating them on the staples of writing. We liked the fact that they have tests at the start of the chapters because if a student did well on them they could just bypass that chapter and wouldn't have to focus as much as their time in that section.

The weaknesses we saw in this chapter were that they emphasized this section of the book too much. Going back to what Rose said that grammar does not define quality student writing, we felt that this book felt that it was the most important thing in developing a good writer which is something we disagreed with. Also a weakness would be that for this level of English we felt that the book could have had a lot more challenging and engaging activities and concepts for students to do. We felt that the information that the book displayed was not for an 11th grade English class.

__** Activities/Exercises **__ The main activity at the start of most of the chapters of this section was a diagnostic test that the students were told to take before they started the chapter. This test asked the students simple questions pertaining to the information in the upcoming chapter; this test was to see whether or not they actually needed to read the chapter or if they already had the knowledge of the information without reading the chapter. Other activities that they had students do were they were given a set a problems that related to the specific item being talked about and they had to define what part of speech it was. These activities occurred toward the end of those chapters and were sort of like a post test to test what they had learned.