Thursday, August 20, 2009

The Back to School Grinch

Is it awful for a homeschooling mom and writer to say I'm dreading teaching English this year?

I feel like I have no room to gripe. "If you don't like doing it, then don't do it!" I can just hear people say, or at least think.

Well I'm saying it anyway -- I'm dreading teaching English!

Now don't get me wrong, I'm all about good writing and proper grammar. It's of utmost importance to me that our children learn to write and speak well. Poor English drives me nuts. There's one local publication that I can't read without suffering near-physical pain and agony due to the atrocious writing. Perhaps this sensitivity comes from having had an editor for seven years.

But the idea of learning (or teaching) predicates, subjects, direct objects and the like holds no interest for me. Seriously, do we need these terms? As long as my children learn to write and speak well, do they really need these words in their vocabulary? I know, the argument can be made that in order to learn what a proper sentence is, they need to know that it contains various parts of speech in a particular order, thus requiring a knowledge of those parts. Blah, blah, blah. Sorry, I'm feeling rather Grinchy about this right now.

I think most of the problem lies in the fact that I haven't found a grammar book I like yet. I have a second grade English book from a now defunct elementary school, but it just looks so... boring. Not that learning always has to be fun and exciting, but this is mind-numbing! If I could find a book that actually makes it interesting, perhaps my outlook would change.

I have my eye on a couple to check out next time we're in a town with a Barnes & Noble -- please, please, please be interesting! I really don't remember my own second grade English curriculum. Mom, was it great? I welcome input from anyone who had an elementary English program they loved or loved teaching!

3 comments:

andrea said...

I think you should call yourself the 'Grammar Grinch.' I always did poorly with English in school, but ironically, many people compliment my writing. I could do without grammatical terms though. And part of MY creative writing DOES mean I make up a word, or two, that is not in the dictionary!

Anonymous said...

I'm with you on this one! -- I thought Easy Grammar was good! It has probably changed a bit since I was home schooling, but here's a link: http://www.learningthings.com/items.asp?Cc=EGSPLUS&iTpStatus=0&Tp=&Bc=
Hope you have a wonderful year! :)
Sharon Reimers

Anonymous said...

Kerri, Kerri - don't fret. You don't need a book to teach grammar. Start simple - A sentence starts with a capital letter and end with appropriate punctuation. (At least several lessons right there.) A sentence must also have someone or something that is or does something. If it doesn't, it's not a complete sentence. At some point it will be handy to give those words labels. Read that local paper to Isaac and have him pick out the errors! Don't think your student must learn it all in one year. The books cover this stuff every year for ever & ever, amen. I don't remember how exciting your English text books were, but I'm sure in the second grade we were using Abeka. Don't fret - you can do it!!!
Love you - Mom