Grammar with rhythm: in honor of National Poetry Month, three lyrical language lessons you'll love to teach.

Have your students ever suffered from Grammar Aphasia--the common ailment characterized by kids forgetting everything you've taught them, from prepositions to predicates?

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Avoid this dreaded illness by engaging your students in language activities that stimulate their imaginations, have relevance to their lives, and provide an opportunity for positive feedback. And why not tip your hat to April's National Poetry Month at the same time? Give these three poetry-based lessons a try and watch your kids turn into grammar gurus!

Participles for Lively Writing

PURPOSE: Kids will recognize present and past participles in their reading, understand their function, and incorporate them into their writing.

WHAT YOU NEED: Sports articles collected from newspapers and magazines.

HERE'S HOW: Begin by explaining that although a participle looks like a verb, it's not one because it has to be partnered with another word in order to function as a predicate in a sentence. For example: "The coaching genius knows how quickly his reputation can be tarnished." Show students how the present participle coaching describes genius, and the past participle tarnished describes reputation.

Next, share examples of shaped, or concrete, poems (try "The Sidewalk Racer" by Lillian Morrison, "Alone in the Nets" by Arnold Adoff, or "Constantly Risking Absurdity" by Lawrence Ferlinghetti). Typically, these poems capture and graphically reflect a pattern of motion or activity. Thus, many sports lend themselves to shaped poetry. The poet relies on both the format and on participles to help him or her convey the drama and movement of the sport.

Get hands-on: Invite students to browse through sports articles and find examples of participles in action. Then, ask kids to create their own shaped sports poems. Remind them to use participles and participial phrases.

Painless Parts of Speech

PURPOSE: Students will understand the function of specific parts of speech and of the sentence (really!), and learn how to create a cool poetic form.

WHAT YOU NEED: Transparency of model poem (below).

HERE'S HOW: First, share the model poem with students:</p> <pre> Friend Close, Dependable Caring, Trusting, Loving Someone, I thought, to be there for me Lying, Betraying, Hurting Resentful, Hateful Enemy </pre> <p>Explain that this structured, seven-line poem is named after its shape: It's called a diamond, or diamante.

Read the poem aloud and have the students focus on the first and last words (they're opposites). Next, draw their attention to the second and sixth lines--what do they have in common? (They both contain two adjectives, the second line describes "friend" and the sixth "enemy.") The third and fifth lines each have three present participles, tied to the first and last lines, respectively. Finally, the fourth line: It's a phrase or a clause that says something about a friend, while also turning the poem around, into one about an enemy.

Now it's time for kids to write their own poems. Invite them to brainstorm pairs of opposing nouns (romantic and realist, slavery and freedom, etc.). Then have them create the remainder of their diamond poems using the appropriate grammatical elements. Host a reading so that everyone can share their work with one another.

Cultivating Clause Control

PURPOSE: Students will understand the structure, function, and use of independent and dependent clauses.

WHAT YOU NEED: Transparency of model poem (below).

HERE'S HOW: To start, review with students that an independent clause is simply a complete sentence; it has a subject, a predicate, and can stand alone. A dependent clause also has a subject and predicate but cannot stand alone.

Next, introduce the concept of "found poems" to students. Explain that found poetry allows a poet to write about almost anything and to use other writers' words and phrases--legally! Found poetry reshapes original poems' language, can be found anywhere, and can rhyme or not rhyme. Present this model of a found poem written by Sam Sack, a 13-year-old student. Sack selected some of his words from the preface to a Latin textbook:</p> <pre> LEARNING A LANGUAGE The future of Latin in the United States Relies on this book Enlightened upper grades in our elemen-

tary school have All rights reserved @1969 Longman Even those who recognize the wisdom Of justification Our own experience in school Was bad So we want to make it As bad for you Here in the most difficult To understand Latin Book Ever written Have FUN And remember Modern Languages don't mean anything. LATIN IS LIFE. </pre> <p>Have students identify the independent and dependent clauses in the poem. Point out that this is a free-verse poem, and the writer chose not to punctuate the clauses as he would if he had been writing prose. Ask students where they would have placed periods and commas to make the dependent and independent clauses easier to recognize.

Now it's time for your students to start their own creative work. Brainstorm possible sources together: computer game directions, instructions for puppy care, camping expedition preparations, magazine articles. Once all students have chosen a piece of writing to work from, have them copy several words, phrases, and clauses that seem most important to the subject of the piece or that express a particularly interesting concept.

Next, have them arrange these words into new forms, altering word tenses and switching singular and plural endings. They can repeat lines and change punctuation to help the reader understand the meaning. Also, remind them to include the source of words for their found poem by citing the information in a reference note. Encourage revision. They may wish to enhance their work with original illustrations.

Celebrate their success by displaying the poems in your classroom and creating a bound collection of the pieces.

ADAPTED FROM GRAMMAR LESSONS YOU'LL LOVE TO TEACH, BY RUTH TOWNSEND STORY AND CATHLEEN F. GREENWOOD. TO ORDER, CALL 1-800-SCHOLASTIC.

RELATED ARTICLE: funniest grammar bloopers

We love this "world history according to student bloopers," originally published in Richard Lederer's book Anguished English.

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"The inhabitants of ancient Egypt were called mummies. They lived in the
Sarah Dessert and traveled by Camelot."

"In midevil times most of the people were alliterate. The greatest
writer of the time was Chaucer, who wrote many poems and verses and also
literature."

"One of the causes of the Revolutionary War was the English put tacks in
the tea. Also, the colonists would send parcels through the post without
stamps ... Finally, the colonists won the War and no longer had to pay
for taxis."