Playing with words aka: Grammar Lessons
In which we bring joy and imagination to the homeschool room
Grammar lessons in the homeschool seem to take on one of two forms: either they are applied as a worksheet or are nonexistent. The first robs the subject of its beauty the second robs the dignity of the child to have command of language.
I’ve fallen into the camp of passing my children a grammar worksheet and contenting myself that somehow, they’ve learned grammar.
They did not learn anything from the worksheet.
Today, I’m presenting a third way to teach grammar that not only honors the child’s dignity as a person, one made in God’s image who reflects Him through the use of language but brings a joyful engagement to the day that can breathe life into the homeschool day. We want our lessons to enrich our time and our lives. If we feel like we’re swallowing a pill when teaching our children, that’s a clue that something’s off.
Grammar lessons get a bad rap because there are many ways to teach it badly, and most of us are not comfortable enough with the subject to feel confidence teaching it. But, we must remember that homeschooling is the education of two generations. We often learn with our children the things that we did not learn at all. Each new lesson brings us to new relationships with new ideas. If we didn’t learn grammar ourselves we don’t have a relationship with it - and yet here we are wanting to introduce this stranger to our children. We need to engage with the ideas ourselves so that we can pass the sparkling light of this new grammar knowledge to each one in turn.
Grammar in practice is the art of speaking or writing a language with propriety or correctness, according to established usage. In short, grammar is like lettuce in a salad. It’s the foundational ingredient that holds everything else together. If we want our children to be effective communicators, then they need to have a basic understanding of how language works and what power they can wield with it. One of the ways we reflect God’s image is through the written and spoken word. James 3 reminds us that our words can bring blessing and cursing. We have power in our words, and we want to be able to use that power well to honor God and be an encouragement to others. It’s difficult to do that if our words are confusing and unclear. And so, grammar is a tool to (joyfully) help us here. Grammar lessons ought to by lifegiving by cultivating the imagination through teaching the parts of speech and playing with words not only teaching reason and rules.
Somewhere along the way the eight parts of speech were lost to common knowledge. You likely know them, but for fun I’ll include them here. They are nouns, pronouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, prepositions, conjunctions, and interjections. Finding and playing with the parts of speech in a sentence or nursery rhyme is foundational to our knowledge of grammar. But let’s not just be boring and talk about definitions. Why not jump to playing with words and using them for spiritual and moral formation while we are at it? Ok?
Here’s our first sentence:
Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall.
What did Humpty Dumpty do?
He sat!
That’s the verb! Now let’s change what he did so we can change the image in our minds eye.
Humpty Dumpty ran on a wall. Humpty Dumpty jumped on a wall. Humpty Dumpty walked on a wall. Humpty Dumpty stood on a wall.
Notice how each time we changed the verb the image in our minds of Mr. Dumpty changed what he was DOING? That’s the magic of a verb.
Now let’s change our noun. We will start with our original sentence. Who sat on the wall?
Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall.
Change the subject or proper noun of this sentence.
Winston Churchill sat on a wall. Cinderella sat on a wall. Harry Potter sat on a wall. Gandalf the Grey sat on a wall.
Now we are having some fun. Notice how the image in your mind’s eye changes with each new person in turn sitting on the wall.
We can continue the exercises and change up the prepositional phrase at the end of the sentence as well. We could rewrite the entire nursery rhyme with a new subject and new verbs to create a new story.
Cinderella rode in a carriage.
Cinderella had a good marriage.
All of creation and all things so fair
Were placed under her watchful, loving care.
This little game with words is called copia. Copia is the art of changing and playing with words to show the flexibility and range of language. In grammar we use it to teach how to embellish, amplify, and give variety to speech and writing and through these exercises are able to teach the parts of speech. The practice was developed by Erasmus in 1512 in his book called Copia: Foundations of the Abundant Style.
We can use it now to revitalize a love of words and to help our students see the flexibility and variety we have available to us through language. One problem most students face is a rigidity with their writing. A child writes a sentence and feel as if it is set in stone. He doesn’t want to change anything about what he wrote because that requires him to think and most of us would rather not be bothered. But, as teachers, we need to wake up the minds of our scholars to the power they have with language to show them that they can say Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall in many different ways:
Humpty Dumpty parked on a barrier. Humpty Dumpty perched on a barricade. Humpty Dumpty relaxed on a partition.
We are playing with words and words are fun. After doing this for a year with my students, I now find myself searching for a fit word by listing synonyms on scrap paper. Work that at one time would never occur to me, I see as a game to hunt for the perfect word to express an idea.
Here’s a short lesson plan to get you started using copia with your students:
Materials needed:
Paper and pencil (or whiteboards and markers) for all students
Copia Lesson:
Goal: To show that language can be varied and engaging
Parts of speech introduced: noun, verb, preposition
Begin with “Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall” on a whiteboard.
Label each word in the sentence: noun/subject, verb, preposition, article, object of the preposition
Ask class to change the subject of the sentence. Do this exercise orally.
Ask class to change what Humpty Dumpty is DOING on the wall. i.e. Change the verb in the sentence. Do this exercise orally.
Give students a few minutes to write on their papers or whiteboards two or three Humpty Dumpty sentences using the same structure of the sentence but swapping out the noun, verb, preposition as desired.
Assignment: When writing narrations this week, include one sentence with the “Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall” format with each narration. Underline each one. (Students will likely need to be reminded with their narration prompts for the week to include the Humpty Dumpty sentence.
My Nature Study Hacking guides can be found here: https://naturestudyhacking.com/