Have you heard of Malcolm Gladwell? He’s written five New York Times bestsellers. I first became aware of him with his 2001 bestseller, The Tipping Point. A few years back, a friend was raving about a Malcolm Gladwell book he had just read and was unsuccessfully...
What is an essay? If you cannot answer that question concretely and competently, you are lost when it comes to fully grasping writing and literature. Understanding essays and essay writing is critical for students, teachers, writers, and readers of all ages. I have a...
Imagine it’s your job to tell the story of what happened in the Super Bowl football game. Naturally, the more you know about the game of football, and the more you know about the players, the better your story will be. Also, you’re going to want to choose the right...
Mind reading is the key to understanding the types of narrators and points of view in narratives. Narrative story is the one way a person can enter the mind of another person. That’s one reason we read stories. I use the term “mind reading” to explain to students how...
As a rule, I use the term narrator for narratives, and the term speaker for most other types of writing, especially academic writing. Although the narrator is always the speaker in a narrative, the speaker is probably not narrating (i.e., telling what happened) in...
Adjective clauses (also called adjectival clauses or relative clauses) function as adjectives, which mean that adjective clauses modify nouns and pronouns. Adjectives are found in two locations: before nouns (attributive adjectives) and as predicate adjectives. » ...
The best time to reinforce essential writing concepts and set expectations is right before students pick up their pencils to write. In short, I train my students to begin a piece of writing with the end in mind. Clearly, I do this review and reinforcement before large...
Are you a vocabulary teacher? Yes, you are! All teachers are vocabulary teachers, whether they know it or not. It’s so because the subject content and the content vocabulary are inherently linked. If teachers want to teach the content, they must also teach the content...
Adverbs are a tricky and strange group of words! And it’s impossible to understand English grammar if you don’t understand adverbs. To become an adverb genius, keep reading! We have three types of adverbials: 1) single-word adverbs, 2) adverbial phrases, and 3)...
It’s amazing! You have just found over 3,300 –ly adverbs! So, what will you do with over 3,300 –ly adverbs? Here’s what you will do! 1. You will improve your vocabulary. 2. You will improve your understanding of adverbs. 3. You will learn to appreciate words. 4. You...
The fastest, most effective way to teach students clear and organized multi-paragraph writing… Guaranteed!