Grammar Camp, An End-of-Year Tradition

Why would an English classroom have photos of very odd, very exotic animals hanging from the ceiling? Why would students in a seventh or eighth grade English class chant, "We love grammar! We love Grammar Camp!" even when others are listening?

The answer is simple - Grammar Camp.

At the end of the school-year, when books have been returned, boxes are being packed by the teachers who need to move rooms, and the students are ready to check out, Grammar Camp brings them back in.  Grammar Camp is a series of competitions between "cabins" in grammar-related activities. There is movement. There is noise. There is chaos - organized, of course. And there is fun.

Enter the Rubber Chickens gives the details of setting up this week-long schedule of activities. I will give a brief overview here, so that you might have an idea of how grammar camp works. In truth, Grammar Camp is being prepared about two or three weeks before the first competition.

The first of my preparations involves choosing camp cabin mascots. I make a list of unusual and exotic animals. Students vote for one animal from the list. The top five scoring animals become the mascots for the year's camp cabins. Below are some of the animals that have been selected by classes as our camp cabin mascots.

platypus

lemur

tamarin

Capybara

kiwi

I print photos like these and mount them on card stock. Then, I suspend them from the classroom ceiling with string. I place groups of student desks beneath them, making the cabins. Then, I create groups of students to populate five cabins in each of my classes. This past year, my classes worked very well together. So, I allowed them to create their own five cabins. It worked beautifully. Other years, I have asked for requests - two people with whom you would like to work and one person with whom you are unable to work - and honored them as well as I could.

Once these preparations are in place, I distribute a Grammar Camp brochure to each student. This alerts them of what is to come. It promises an all-fun, all-grammar experience! It makes the parents laugh.

Ideally, the brochure is given to students on a Friday, and Grammar Camp begins on a Monday. This allows a full week of activities to occur. There are more than enough activities in Enter the Rubber Chickens to fill a week. I typically limit camp to a week because it takes a lot of planning, and sometimes requires the assistance of other staff members. There is a lot to organize.

Here is a list of possible Grammar Camp activities.

• Grammar Camp Idol (a song competition)
• Punctuation Super-hero Skits (some even have costumes)
• Grammar Relay (using boxes and packages from household products)
• Initial Sentences (pretty easy)
• Part of Speech Concentration (complete with rhythmic snapping and clapping)
• Correct Punctuation Races (for accuracy and speed)
• Grammar Grab (an unusual card game)
• Grammar Scavenger Hunt (to be held throughout the school building)

Students, assigned to a cabin, compete in each of the planned activities. Scores are recorded on chart paper as well as a score sheet online. They are similar to scores for relay races in swimming or track. 

1st = 7 points

2nd = 5 points

3rd = 3 points

4th = 1 point

5th = 0 points

Scores accumulate during the week. On some days, there may be one score added. On other days, there may be more.

By the end of the week, there is a winning cabin in each of my classes. All participants receive a sticker bearing our slogan, "We love grammar! We love Grammar Camp!" All participants receive a s'more-type treat, granola bars, s'mores trail mix, or actual s'mores. The winners are the only ones to receive tiny rubber chickens. These are a big deal.

Grammar Camp is an active, competitive, fun way to end a year and keep kids focused when they really want to check out.

We love grammar.

We love Grammar Camp!

There are songs and games.

The chickens are fun. No question about it. However, this magic in teaching grammar has more to it than simply playing with colorful fowl. There are games. There are songs. There is Grammar Camp! (I will write about this another day.)

Today, I ask you to indulge me. You probably know, with no doubt, that learning songs solidifies concepts. Many of us revert to the ABC song to put things in alphabetical order. I used the seven continents song when taking geography quizzes. I taught my daughters our address in song form. It really just makes sense. The rhyme, the rhythm, the repetition, the fact that you feel like moving -- it all works to get things in our brains and keep them there.

So, why not grammar songs? "Schoolhouse Rock" did it when I was a kid.

We usually begin the year with a look at complete sentences, just because we can --just because we need to. There is a song for that in Enter the Rubber Chickens.  We sing it, and sing it, and sing it. Usually, at some point in the day, the math teacher who shares a wall with me is heard humming the tune in the hallways. Most definitely, the students have the tune stuck in their heads for a good amount of time. Then, we revisit the song the next day, and the next. You get the idea.

Once the possibility of singing it any more is exhausted, we move to playing. Imagine your students as the pieces of a sentence -- literally. What if each student had a word or a punctuation mark from a rather complex sentence attached to him. Then what if these students were asked to put themselves in order, to make the sentence make sense.

These cards are worn like necklaces by the students. They are color-coded so that the sentences do not get mixed together.

The act of ordering themselves does so much for me as a teacher. I see the true leaders emerge. I hear the comments and disagreements, finding out  if there is understanding or just hopeful guessing going on. (Is this a formative assessment?) I can address these things right then, right there. I ask questions. Why did you put the commas there? What do you call this part of the sentence? What part of speech are all the words in this list? So, this activity allows us to create a good, complex sentence. Then I am afforded the opportunity to ask why it is correct. Then, we might even use it as a mentor text. Imagine the benefit of touching it, saying it, and writing it.

And the whole time, we are up, out of our seats, moving. We might interact with someone new. We might get into a colorful conversation with someone as the activity progresses. We might find ourselves next to someone with whom we never share space. We might actually speak, even though we usually don't. It works for so many reasons.

This singing and playing can occur for every convention, every part of speech. There is always the possibility of moving around, of getting up, of mingling, of working things out, and of arguing. I look for the arguing. Passion and intensity are often remembered. If this passion finds itself in the midst of a grammar experience, well go us!

There are songs for comma rules, adjectives, adverbs, verbs, nouns, dialogue, and writing an extended response. There are more songs in the works. I simply need to write them down.


Side note -- I live in the same community as many of my students. So, on Halloween, I see quite a few of them trick-or-treating at my house. On multiple occasions, trick-or-treaters have come to my door singing about commas or complete sentences or verbs . . . for candy. Really! Groups of middle schoolers have been spotted walking down the neighborhood streets singing grammar songs at the tops of their lungs! And they didn't even mind being seen and heard.
                           

Not a student.

                                                    
                                                   

As for the games, anything is a possibility. You may wish to use an existing game like Scattergories or Password or Catch Phrase. You might go to the old stand-by, a race. You might wish to select teams, and keep score for each correct idea/complete sentence/correct use of commas/etc. I have quite a few planned grammar games in my arsenal, in Enter the Rubber Chickens. Some are not really scored. Some don't even have winners. All allow for motion and laughter, two key components in making ideas stick.

Next time -- Grammar Camp!

Then what?

The chickens have become a part of my class. There is a coop. It sits in front, center, and under the table in my classroom. Certain students are attached to certain chickens - perhaps due to their color. I don't really know why.

Our grammar lessons are fun if we use rubber chickens. We get to throw and roll and play. We get to be loud and a little unruly. We get to laugh a lot. That is good for memory. However, these lessons are ineffective if writing does not occur. So, during each grammar mini-lesson, some real writing needs to happen. I don't think it matters if the writing is done individually or as a group effort. We do a bit of both.

If the chickens are there for adjectives, we use color, texture, size, and appearance words to describe them in complete sentences. We also sing. If the chickens are there for adverbs, we might throw them, finding the where and when and how of their journeys. Again, we may sing. Then we write what we see -- or even imagine. We play, realizing that prepositional phrases behave as adjectives and adverbs. That is always a big deal. Then we add a few of those to what we have already.

This idea of playing with grammar is good for memory. When we play, we have fun. When we have fun, we remember. Even though I know not every student will remember every rule and use of the parts of speech in English, I believe that quite a few students will remember something. That is better that what I have seen when I used traditional methods of grammar instruction. My real goal is to have students write well. If I can get them closer to good clear communication, I feel as though I have accomplished something. Somehow, the chickens do just that. They make the students communicate.

Writing might be as simple as a sentence about the which, what kind of, or how many of the chickens. Writing might be more involved - a tiny piece of fiction including the chicken as a hero saving someone or something from near disaster, using boatloads of adverbs and adjectives along the way. This, of course, is acted out for the class. In all cases, this sort of writing is quick and accessible to everyone in the classroom. It is always shared with the class. That usually provides more laughter, thus more memory.

The process is not simple. It often involves the use of good writing from other writers (mentor texts) and ideas from other people (the class).  Typically this is done with no threat of points or grade. This is simply thinking out loud. It is somewhat amazing! We might look at a sentence from Suzanne Collins or Veronica Roth or Edgar Allan Poe or Mark Twain. Then, the challenge might be to write a sentence about the chosen chicken following the same pattern.

"Eggnog frolicked daintily among the wildflowers," one group might write.
"Suzanne looked on smugly as the rest of the chickens misbehaved," another group may offer.
"Wings became nervous, wondering what all the other chickens were doing, and wondering if his ideas were as good," could come from another group.
"Nugget is, and that is fine with him," from a cerebral group.

Examples of interesting sentences are endless. There is something about these odd-looking multi-colored chickens that makes writing happen.

The writing that occurred becomes the next work at hand. It is actually quite fun as a teacher in the classroom. I never have the same quiz or test two times in a row. The current students create the current assessments. They are added to a document of some sort. Then, they are used as an assessment.

Some of the proposed sentences (perhaps ten) appear on the next quiz. They are written correctly. Students are not asked to look for errors. Instead, the assessment lies in telling what questions certain words might be used to answer, or what punctuation marks might be doing. It is heartening to see the delight in students' faces when their sentences are used. It is encouraging to hear from other students that they "will be on the next quiz." And they likely will be.

However, this is not the end of it. The ideas spiral. They keep coming back. Hopefully, at some point, they stick. Then, students use them and show themselves as good communicators.

Somehow, in all of this, the chickens become a part of the classroom. Students are found holding the chickens, playing with them, asking if we can "do grammar" so that they can be a part of things. If I stand outside my classroom door, holding a chicken, students, as they enter, become visibly happy (They will be working with grammar). That is magic. I cannot explain it. I just enjoy it and smile.

Enter the Rubber Chickens

For the past eight years or so, rubber chickens have been a part of my middle school English/Language Arts classroom in Barrington, Illinois. These six rubber chickens are a true part of the class. They have names; those names change yearly. They live in a coop. They sit front and center, facing everyone. They are an attraction. Other students stop in just to see them. I cannot imagine my classroom without them. Here is their story.

While teaching an ineffective "name that part of speech" grammar lesson on direct objects about eight years ago, I became frustrated. I read a well-crafted, mind-blowing sentence like, "Joe ate a sandwich." Then, I asked for a volunteer from among the nearly sleeping seventh graders, to tell me what the direct object in that sentence might be. These were the answers:

"Huh?"

"Direct what?"

"Ate?"

"Joe?"

Notice the question marks. No one actually knew. They were hoping that the issue would go away -- that I would go away. It didn't. I didn't. I persevered. I did what any well-seasoned teacher of middle school students would do; I dug in my drawer of weird stuff. I found a small rubber chicken. I threw it across the room at Adam. He caught it. The entire class stared at me, hoping for an explanation.

"What just happened?" I asked.

"You threw the rubber chicken!" Adam said.

"What did I throw?"

"The rubber chicken."

"So," I continued, "what did I throw?"

"The rubber chicken?" Katie nearly whispered.

"YES!" I came unglued.

They all looked at me, mouths open.

"That means rubber chicken is the . . . "

Silence.

"Direct object?" wondered a small voice from the other side of the room.

I cheered!

What followed was a game of toss the chicken, roll the chicken, pass the chicken, bounce (unsuccessfully) the chicken, and catch the chicken. In every situation, the chicken received the action, so the chicken was the direct object. It worked! But it did so much more. A process began. I started using that sad little chicken for all sorts of things. I bought more chickens. We formed small groups with chickens. 

Chickens helped my students identify prepositional phrases, adverbs, adjectives, verbs, direct and indirect objects, and complete sentences. But we needed more. Identifying parts of speech was clearly not enough. We needed to write about the chickens to make things stick.