Grammar without Grammar: Just Playing Around, Writing

Bored and discouraged by workbook style grammar instruction, Dean took example from the past and implemented sentence imitation in her classroom. In this article, she explains how she uses passages from literature for grammatical patterns and allows her students to apply their creativity in writing sentences imitating the same form. The method has many benefits, says Dean. Students get to practice grammatical structure without being weighed down by grammatical terminology, and they gain an understanding of how to look at what they read as a model for what they want to say.