Breaking down "The Sentence" in the classroom

The other day in my teaching methods class, we were given a paragraph of informational text and the challenge of "how would you teach this text to your students". Now, this was no normal piece of informational text designed by some Springboard scholars to actually help students comprehend some piece of information or practice a reading skill. This was a paragraph from the abstract of a research paper on some kind of breakthrough marine microorganism.

I was thinking how to teach reading this to 8th graders when I couldn't even get it!

You can see how high level the reading is in the example given to us. However, there is a way to make it simpler, but it requires a firm grasp of English Grammar. You can already see that I started doing that as I was reading. I was eliminating everything but the most crucial parts of the sentence - the Main Subject and Main Verb. To me, the first few sentences read: "The allocation is a complex process. We use analysis to investigate sources..."

Grammar is all about breaking down sentences into their parts and understanding how they interact. Students of mine will definitely not need to know the information in this passage, but they can practice the skill of breaking complex sentences into their components and labeling them. I would engage them in CCSS L.7.3a - Choose language that expresses ideas precisely and concisely, recognizing and eliminating wordiness and redundancy.

To one in the field of studying...whatever this paper is studying, none of this is wordy. Everything is quite precise. However, teaching a student to recognize adjectives and adverbs, adjectival phrases, prepositional phrases, dependent clauses....all the stuff that is necessary to making something precise to a scholar but confusing to a student...and having them eliminate them to get to the point is a skill. They won't even have to know what the words are or mean if they recognize the structural pattern of a sentence!

What concerns me with students in a typical classroom that I expect to be teaching is that many students lack the fundamental grammar basics. Nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, pronouns, prepositions, clauses....all of those things are lost on the student because they don't practice it enough. Traditional reading is not a priority, and the way technology has evolved, more people are concerned with sharing their thoughts via images rather than describing them in words. And even if their "statuses" are posted in words, they are in non SAE form, or internet "meme" slang. I'm sure I need some research to back this claim up, but that's my guess anyways.

I would like to teach a lesson on this topic. I would like to illustrate the lack of understanding of SAE and traditional language use in the classroom by social media and then propose some methods to teach against it (or with it if possible). We are on the prepositions and clauses part of our Grammar unit now, so I will focus on breaking those down in conjunction with my peers.

How words are made

Before I get into studying for my next test, there is something that I have to review when it comes to English Grammar. I have consistently gotten word formation incorrect because I forget what is what, so I will review that here so I won't forget.

Affixation
Not to be confused with choking (asphyxiation), affix is a common way for forming words by adding on a derivational affix. bake > baker


Compounding
This is when you join two or more words to make a new word. skate + board = skateboard (a board like object on which one skates)


Zero Derivation
No change is made to the word. It just changes in context. Buy a comb(noun) from the store to comb(verb) your hair.


Stress Shift
No change is made to the word but when pronouncing it, stress a different syllable. The doctor was able to successfully implant (unstressed/stressed) new hair implants (stressed/unstressed)


Clipping
Shortening of a long word (not to be confused with backformation). Mathematics > Math


Acronym Formation
Making of a word using the initials of what it represents. NASA . National Aeronautics and Space Administration


Blending
Parts of two words are used to make a new word. Breakfast + Lunch = Brunch


Backformation
This is the opposite of Affixation. Instead of adding affixes, you take them away to form a new word. This is different from Clipping in that clipping deals with taking away syllables which probably don't have an actual phonological purpose. Backformation takes away affixes with phonological purpose like removing "ham" from "hamburger".


Branding
The result of powerful marketing, this is when a commercial business brand name becomes popular enough to stand in for the object it represents. Facial Tissue > Kleenex


Onomatopoeia
When a word is created to emulate a sound. "Hiss" "Buzz"


Borrowing
More like taking a word from another language. Sushi Taboo Chic


I got these wrong for the most part on my first exam. Oh well, try again!