In my last post I discussed the first of five lessons I’m sharing this spring from my new book Good Grammar: Joyful and Affirming Language Lessons That Work for More Students (due out this summer). The concept I shared, while simple, has been powerful in my classes: I’ve found students learn language lessons (encompassing grammar, mechanics, usage, and rhetoric) best when they better understand how much language knowledge they already bring to the table and get context for why it is important to learn about language, even if they can already write and communicate in impressive ways. The lessons also establish the approach we will take: One that is grounded in curiosity, joy, affirmation, and celebration.

After a series context-building lessons (Other lessons in this unit include a lesson on how new words enter lexicons, a project where students research different aspects of language, and a discussion where students directly discuss the purpose of learning language lessons when they can already communicate quite well), the next unit is on what I call “The Emphasizers.” A quick and very important note: I’ve written about this before, but I’ve found grammar/language/mechanics lessons go much better when they are organized by what they do for us, not according to how one would classify them. There are three main reasons for this:

• Organizing lessons by what they do allows students to better understand the value of them. They aren’t just learning about colons because they are supposed to learn about colons (and other punctuation) for some reason. Colons are a part of a larger unit on emphasis, and throughout the emphasis unit we also discuss the essential role emphasis tools play in bringing one’s voice and style to the page.
• Learning concepts based on what they do allows students, when they come across these things in everything from class texts to standardized tests, to instantly know why the author is using them.
• Grouping units according to what writing tools do allows students to better use those tools in their own writing. In other words, it facilitates transfer.

The goal of my first emphasizer lesson, which I share here today, is the same as my first lesson in every unit: To make clear what the unit topic is and why it matters. When it comes to emphasizers, they matter because humans are very expressive creatures, and the way we add emphasis is a critical component of our voices. It is also worth noting that emphasis is one of the main ways writers can differentiate their writing from Generative AI writing (think ChatGPT or Google Bard) because those AIs, not fully understanding what they are saying, struggle with emphasis. For those teachers looking to give their students the tools to rise above the crush of mediocre AI writing flooding the world, the different emphasizers are some of the most powerful ones we have to do that.

Further, the emphasizer tools—tools like the em dash I just used or parallel structure or purposeful fragments—are relatively straightforward, and yet they can have a large and often splashy impact.

And lastly, I like to start with emphasis because its value is instantly recognizable to students. Their text chains and verbal patterns are already filled with emphasizer tools—which is exactly where this lesson starts. Here it is:

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1. The lesson begins with telling the students that language is full of emphasis—which is extra attention or energy paid to something. We add emphasis while communicating in person by raising the volume of our voice, gesturing with our hands, and pausing for just the right amount of time. But in writing—which often has to speak without us present—we aren’t there to pause or raise our voice, so we have invented lots of tools to help us add more energy and emphasis to the right moments.
   
2. The next step is maybe odd and ironic for many classrooms, given how often we work to get students away from their phones: I ask students to get their phones out of the caddy and to go to their texts or a social media site they use and make a list of the ways that they add emphasis while communicating in texts or social media. The students then share this list with their tables and then finally with the class, where a class list is compiled. Here are some favorites from last time we did this:
   • All caps
   • !!!!
   • ????
   • “Literally dying”
   • Random letter palm smash
   • OMG, LOL, OML
   • “Aight”
   • Repeating a letter a lot
   • GUYS!/Bro
   • Period. After. Every. Word.
   • Period to end message.
   • Audio scream into text app
   • Switching languages
   • Emphasizer button
   • Spamming the same message over and over
   • Each word a different message
   • Photos/GIFs
3. It doesn’t take long for students to realize that without ever being prompted by an adult, they have adopted or developed dozens of emphasis tools. Next, the students compile a list of tools for emphasis that they have used for school assignments too. Here are some from last time:
   • Exclamation point
   • Italics
   • Bold
   • Underline
   • Font size
   • Dash
   • Color
   • Formatting
4. Lastly, we discuss what the proliferation of these tools means. Some questions I often discuss are the following:
   • Why is emphasis so important that we automatically start using tools in any setting?
   • Are emphasis tools used differently with different people (the answer is generally yes), and if so, why?
   • And why don’t we use a lot of the texting emphasizers in school and should we?

The end of this lesson sees a board full of emphasizers, and to enshrine and celebrate them and the importance of emphasis tools, I make a poster of all the “texting” and “school” emphasizers. This poster serves a double-duty though: It reminds them that they already bring a great deal of linguistic knowledge and it sets up the context that will help them to better learn and understand the lessons on dashes, purposeful fragments, colons, and parallel structure to come.

Thanks for reading, and yours in teaching,

Matt

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