Mechanically Inclined
"The first place I look
to teach kids about writing
is on the bookshelves."(Anderson, 54)
Title: Mechanically Inclined
Author: Jeff Anderson
Bibliographic Info: Anderson, Jeff. Mechanically Inclined. Portland, Maine: Stenhouse Publishing, 2005.
Summary: In this text, Anderson shares his methods for teaching grammar to his middle school students. He has a light-hearted approach that tries to instill fun into each lesson. He uses mentor texts to teach the art of using (or not using) grammatical conventions to make writing come alive. The students learn from the mentor texts and apply what they learn to their own pieces. The focus is not on finding what is wrong in student writing, but what is right and celebrating those achievements. Anderson’s walls are covered with examples of student sentences. From his accounts, his middle school writers love it.
Don't miss the forward by Vicki Spandel, known to us through her "In Defense of Rubrics" article.
Memorable Quotations:
"Kids have a reason for doing what they do, even if it is flawed. I have found that, by understanding their pseudo-concepts in all realms, I can better teach them grammar and mechanics" (4).
"We will save ourselves a lot of frustration if we shift our notion of teaching punctuation and grammar to one of teaching principles instead of teaching rules" (4).
"I have to guide students by building an environment that supports writers in becoming their own critics, kids who look to punctuation and grammar to make their messages clear and interesting" (10).
"When students share, I always try to model pointing to something specific they did in their writing - a clear image, dialogue, humor, sentence fluency" (33).
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Mechanically Inclined: Related Links
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