There are very few middle school students who love grammar. I understand. Using correct grammar comes pretty naturally to me, but even I have to double-check sometimes. We began working on clauses a few weeks ago, and everyone was doing okay. They understood which parts of speech are needed in a clause and could even identify whether clauses were being used as adjectives or adverbs.
Well, we began looking at noun clauses (definitely not my favorite) this week. When the students realized that there was more than one way to use a noun clause in a sentence, you would have thought I was asking them to read in a foreign language! There were groans, eye rolls, and sighs aplenty. Some couldn’t believe that I was asking them to identify the phrase AND explain how it was being used! Wait? What? We have to think?
These interactions inspired a limerick in the spirit of St. Patrick’s Day.
There once was a subject called grammar.
It caused all the students to clamour.
How are the words used?
Kids seem so confused!
They’ve started to call me a scammer!
Wait until they find out they have to use noun clauses in their writing!! 🙂
Rita DiCarne 
Hahaha… I totally connect with your limerick. We wrote limericks today. At first they were not very interested, but by the second cooperatively written one, they were laughing and coming up with their own variations. It was good to have lots of laughs, the kind where no one can understand what is being said. They asked to continue writing limericks tomorrow.
As for teaching grammar, I separate parts of speech and sentence elements/functions. They are two different ways to label a word, phrase, or clause. The 19th century grammar books support this division and use it to analyze words and sentences. Our current grammar textbooks do not do this. Since I’ve been using this approach, I have experienced much more clarity in my teaching and students better and more quickly understand. When students grasp the basics concepts of grammar and the meaning of terms, we can more profitably use grammar to craft our writing. Reach out if you would like to dialogue more about this approach.
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Thanks for the advice. Since I teach in a K-8 school, I know what they have been taught in previous years, and I think they all have grammar amnesia! 🙂
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