Self-Paced Class: Building Better Writers (Grammar & Style)

 Run-ons and more! If your student tends to use a lot of “and”s in one sentence or doesn’t understand where to stop, we will use this class to hone in on the WHY of sentence construction. What makes a sentence a sentence? When is a sentence not a sentence? When is a sentence way, way, way too long? We’ll explore subjects, predicates, and conjunctions… in a fun way. We’ll also uncover what teachers mean when they rail on about comma splices. 

 To comma or not to comma, that is the question. No, commas are not optional. Yes, there are certain instances where you have to use a comma (including the Oxford comma in this class). But knowing when to use a comma -- and when to leave it out -- can be tricky. But by constructing sentences whose meanings change completely with commas, we will learn the basics. In other words, we’ll be writing “Let’s eat, Grandpa!” instead of “Let’s eat Grandpa!” In this class, we’ll 

 Sentence openers. We’ll recall knowledge from Class 1 as we work on adding style to our writing. But to do so, we’ll have to identify clauses and phrases, as well as adverbs and prepositions. We’ll cover prepositional openers, adverb openers, dependent clauses, and lots of other stress-inducing grammatical terms that will help us become better writers (and besides, those are just fancy names… they’re really pretty easy!). 

 Time to dress up our writing! Figurative language isn’t just for poets. Good writers use alliteration, metaphors, similes, and plenty of other devices as behind-the-scenes tricks to enhance the musicality of words. We’ll study and practice numerous devices, and in class students will create their own narrative writing and poem based on an image.