English Grammar

There is no prerequisite requirement for this class.

If you've looked at my course list, you've seen how much I love English.  I love the interesting way that words came about and how they go together. I love it when an author cobbles together the right words that help me to see their point of view.  I love the ability to communicate and share my own ideas intelligently.  

That's the thing about learning Grammar, if you only see that you are learning RULES...it becomes a drudge.  But when you look at Grammar from the stand-point of connection, our connection with other human beings, in a world where miscommunication and disconnection is the norm, it's easier to see the joy in it.  Look, I'm not saying that Grammar is going to bring about world peace, but it will help your student to understand what is being said, and to intelligently express their own thoughts and ideas in an ever more text-driven world. 

In this 15-week course, we will explore the rules behind the written English language.  How do the words fit together?  What are parts of speech and what do they do?  We will meet for 45 minutes each week and I will provide homework and digital tests for a week’s worth of lessons.  Please expect your student to work from 30-45 minutes per day, 4 days per week on the materials outside of class.

Each week will follow a similar structure.  The materials will be available by 12 am on the morning of class.  The materials will be sent as a .pdf Binder for the week that includes reference pages needed for the week, 1 classroom practice that we will need for class that day, and 4 student practice worksheets for their weekly assignments.  A digital test will be posted to the classroom at 12 am on the morning of the day before class.

While interaction is completely optional on the part of your student here is one suggestion for how your student’s Grammar lessons might layout.

Weekly Grammar Day 1:
Your student would print out their Grammar Materials Binder before class and then attend class.

Weekly Grammar Days 2-4:
Your student would work through their student practice pages in their Grammar Materials Binder for the week.  This should take between 20-45 minutes depending on the student.

Weekly Grammar Day 5
Your student would finish their student practice pages in their Grammar Materials Binder for the week.  When all the student practice pages are finished, your student would submit their materials onto the Outschool Classroom page, put away their materials, and click the link to take the weekly test.  This test should take approximately 10-15 minutes depending on the student.

While this is one option for these lessons, how you structure these materials is completely up to you.  This is not a traditionally graded class as my student families interact in different ways with the material.  However, I do offer a personal Google Doc for your student so that you can see what materials I’ve assigned, received, and graded.  A completion certificate is available upon request.

A full syllabus will be available on the first day of class for enrolled students.  So you are able to see the breadth of our semester I will include approximate dates and project plans for the semester. Please, make sure to reference the Outschool Classroom Page for final assignments.

Week 1	Intro and the Basics of Things (Capitalization/Punctuation)
Week 2	Sentence 101 (The basic elements and structure of a sentence
Week 3	Description Words (Adverbs and Adjectives)
Week 4	Common and Proper/Simple and Complete (Nouns, Subjects, and Predicates)
Week 5	Where? When? How? (Prepositions, Prepositional, and Adverbial Phrases
Week 6	The Handshake (How Subjects and Predicates come together)
Week 7	Me, We, She, He, They…Who? (Pronouns)
Week 8	Far more Compound (Conjunctions and Compound Sentences)
Week 9	Help me out (Helping Verbs, Voice Type)
Week 10	Hey!  GRAMMAR IS GREAT! (Interjections)
Week 11	Those Weird Words (Homonyms and Contractions)
Week 12	When Your Sentence has an Object (Direct Object)
Week 13	Verbs Gone Wild (Regular and Irregular Verbs)
Week 14	It's Not Always the Object (Indirect Object)
Week 15	Review of all the Things