When it comes to learning and using correct grammar, I think the Fix It! Grammar series provides a wonderful and unique way to practice the necessary skills. We've used the earlier Fix It! Grammar books, and were glad to have the opportunity to try out and review Book 6: Sir Gawain and the Green Knight from Institute for Excellence in Writing (IEW).
Institute for Excellence in Writing (IEW) has earned a stellar reputation among homeschoolers for their Structure and Style writing method and many other wonderful resources for writing and language arts. IEW materials are meant to be easy to use, enjoyable, and flexible. Fix It! Grammar is a series of six books that teach grammar skills and knowledge by having students find and correct errors in short daily passages that tell a story. Students are applying and practicing grammar knowledge in context, which makes it easier for them to understand and use the skills in their own writing. Each book in the series tells a different story, and each builds on the skills taught in previous books, so it's generally recommended that students work through them in order no matter what their grade level. There is a placement test, however, if you're coming into the program with a student that is more advanced.
How did we use it? We have used Fix It! Grammar before, and Kennady is a high school senior, so we chose to go all the way to Sir Gawain and the Green Knight: Student Book 6. We received both the Student book and the Teacher's Manual Book 6. The lessons are laid out in four-day weeks. Each day's lesson consists of a couple sentences of the story that the student parses and corrects. There are vocabulary words to learn or review. Once the corrections have been marked, the student rewrites the corrected sentences into their notebook. When the workbook is complete, the student will have the entire story written correctly in their own book. Book 6 is a prose translation of a poem from the fourteenth century. The story follows the knight Gawain of King Arthur's court as he deals with temptation, honor, and honesty - and with a beautiful lady!
I love the idea of doing this four days a week, because each day's lesson should take only about fifteen minutes or so. However, our schedule is really full and we knew we wouldn't be able to stick it every day, so we've been working on it two or three days a week. If we have time, we do more than just one day's lesson though. Although it would take longer to finish the entire book, this seems to be working just fine, but I wouldn't suggest letting too many days go by between lessons.
As you can see (I hope) in the photo above, the first step each day is to mark various parts of speech in the passage and make corrections to the grammar and punctuation as needed. In the back of the book (or included in the download, if you get that version) is a set of grammar cards. The cards can be used as reference while the student labels and corrects.
By working through the story a couple sentences at a time, the student learns to identify parts of speech such as prepositional phrases, main clauses and dependent clauses, appositives, active and passive voice, and verbals. She also learns how to use punctuation correctly. As we worked through it, I allowed Kennady to skip identifying the different types of sentence openers, but other than that, we tried to stick to the book.
Sometimes it's okay to skip getting the teacher key, but for this curriculum, the Teacher's Manual is absolutely essential. It contains the full text of the Student Book with all the corrections and labels shown. It's also full of Teacher's notes, grammar notations, and explanations about the various corrections needed; and has a copy of what the student's rewrite should look like.
Identifying the various parts of speech and the errors presented a good challenge for Kennady in some areas (correcting dangling modifiers, making sure of subject-verb agreement, for example) and simpler reminders of concepts she'd already learned (using commas correctly, preferring active voice). So far, we've skipped identifying the different types of sentence openers, and we don't write out the definitions of the vocabulary words, but other than that, I think we are following the course layout pretty closely. Kennady quite enjoys writing the story into her notebook, and having it in her own hand.
What we liked best:
- a very enjoyable way to learn and study grammar - just a few sentences in a few minutes per day, and in a story format
- relaxed approach to learning that's not really intended to be graded. Less pressure! Although there are some quizzes in Book 6 (starting in Week 16), they are low key as well, simply giving the student a chance to test their recall of grammar rules.
- Socratic method is encouraged - asking questions to help students figure out for themselves what they missed or what needs to be corrected
What I need to mention:
- although it's possible for a student to work independently on this, it's really designed to be done with a parent or teacher, so I had to coordinate to be present with Kennady when she could work on this.
Our bottom line: I really like the easy conversational method of teaching grammar using Fix It! Grammar and lessons that could be completed in short chunks of time are pretty valuable in our hectic schedule. It doesn't feel like a boring grammar drill when we can talk through the corrections and the vocabulary, and follow an interesting story as we do it. For an easily adaptable grammar program for a wide age range, Fix It! Grammar is a great choice that should keep the attention of students and teachers alike.
Would you like to fix up grammar skills in your homeschool? Here's what you need to know:
Visit the website: IEW.com
Find out more about the Fix It! Grammar books: IEW.com/FIX
Pricing: Fix It! Grammar: Sir Gawain and the Green Knight [Teacher's Manual Book 6] is available for $19. This includes the downloadable Student Book. You may also purchase the spiral bound version of the Sir Gawain and the Green Knight [Student Book 6] for $15.
Age Recommendations: This book is best for students Grades 9-12.
Read our previous reviews of Institute for Excellence in Writing products: High School Essay Intensive , Poetry Memorization with Institute for Excellence in Writing, Student Writing Intensive Level C and Fix-It! Grammar and Student Writing Intensive Level B
Visit the Homeschool Review Crew blog for more information and to read other reviews. Crew members reviewed all six levels of Fix It! Grammar.
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