MCT, Grammar, Confusion!

[Country Girl]

I recently posted about my uncertainty of continuing with MCT for grammar and I’m still wavering on my plans for next year. DS will be starting The Magic Lens 1 this year if we continue, and I spent the morning looking through it a little more closely and was wondering if you all could help me think through some things. Don’t let the numbered points fool you….. there really is no organization or logic to my thoughts. I just numbered them to make them seem that way :tongue_smilie: .

1. How do we transfer the knowledge from MCT (or any grammar program) to his writing? Do we add in proofreading exercises? Writing exercises based on imitating or creating particular grammatical constructs? If so, how?
    
   
2. Where does MCT go from here? Do Magic Lens 2 and 3 cover more information or more advanced concepts? Or are they more review of the same? If they do add more, is the additional information “necessary†for the average person or only for those who have a passion and interest in grammar and writing? I guess I’m looking at this a little from the angle of Analytical Grammar which says that once you complete their program, you will know all the grammar you will ever need to know. Or even a program like Hake, where once you complete level 8, you are done. When do you hit that point in MCT?
    
   
3. I love the quick and simple format of analyzing a sentence a day in MCT and calling grammar done. However, for my son, I’m starting to see this as a pointless exercise in labeling a sentence. I’m not seeing any other reason for it, other than to be able to label the parts of speech, sentence, etc. How do I take the sentence analysis to the next level? Do I have him do the “verbisection†process for each sentence? How about identifying the types of conjunctions and pronouns in each sentence? I see that stuff is covered in the text of the book, but then it is dropped in the practice sentences. My thinking is that having a better understanding of these types of things will be where I start to see fruits in his own writing. For example, if a sentence doesn’t sound correct, he could dissect the verb and see if the tense or person or whatever, agrees with the other verbs in the sentence or with his nouns. Identifying the type of conjunction will help him know how to properly punctuate a sentence. It is in these types of concepts that I’m not seeing connections being made between the MCT sentence analysis and everyday writing.
   

If you made it through my ramblings, thanks! And I’m looking forward to any thoughts, suggestions, or feedback you may have on how to make MCT work for us or a program that make work better for our situation. I’ll admit, I’m ready to be done with grammar and part of this thought process is an attempt to get ds to a point where I feel we have covered what we need to cover, where ds can apply that material, and where we can call it quits with “grammar†as a subject.

[NittanyJen]

Have you continued to sit and discuss the practice sentences with him, or does he just check them himself?

 

I think the discussion part remains really key during the logic stage. When we do this, I will ask, "How would this sentence sound if the author didn't bother to use the appositive? What if that information had to be stuck into the next sentence?" "Why might the author have begun the sentence with that phrase, instead of with the subject? How would it sound if we reworded it in a more straightforward sentence? Do we gain power or lose power in this case?" "What happens if we lose half the adverbs from this sentence? Do we improve it or do we lose something?"

 

Sometimes, we agree with the author; sometimes we find we can improve the clarity of a sentence (now we do not have the surrounding context, and I point this out from time to time).

 

After enough of doing that, when we are ready to revise his work, we can look at a sentence that isn't working, and we can discuss, intelligently, whether a varied sentence opener (he has also done IEW) would improve things or cloud things. Should he look for a few well-chosen adverbs or adjectives, and then use those to eliminate superfluous subsequent sentences? What about an appositive? Will that add or subtract?

 

You don't mention how many years in a row you have done truly solid grammar work. We have completed two very solid years of grammar, and I have decided that next year, we will take a break. We'll do a sentence practice book (in our case, DS12 has only done Magic Lens, so I'll give him the Voyage practice book) and we will spend our extra time on writing-- we plan to use Bravewriter and continue IEW. Bravewriter reinforces punctuation and other mechanics, another aspect of grammar that MCT doesn't spend as much time on. We'll head back to MCT after this year, and I think we'll be just fine from a grammar standpoint, with the practice book to keep the ideas fresh.

 

Good luck figuring out what will work for you!

 

Jen

[Trish]

We're using Image Grammar for Middle School by Harry Noden. (it's available on Amazon and other places) It's sort of a "practical application of grammar" thing, i.e., how would you actually USE this fancy grammar knowledge to brighten your writing. I think my kids know enough grammar now that they mostly use correct grammar in their writing, and can understand "why" something is not grammatically correct when I point it out. So for us the drill on grammar is done, there's just occasional brushing up. (and we only made it through Island and Town level before I felt we'd had enough) We thoroughly enjoyed those levels, but it felt like we were getting diminishing returns to spend a lot more time on grammar.

[Matryoshka]

I have them label the type of subject complement (PA/PN) and the type of conjunction (cc/sc) in their MCT sentence analysis.

 

I also have at various times used the Killgallon books, which is great for showing how to use different grammatical structures to change your sentence structure. I own Image Grammar, but haven't used it yet because I went and sent my older two to high school.... (where they're getting pretty much no grammar instruction, at least not anything I didn't do with them by 4th or 5th grade). I will probably have them do some of the first MCT 4Practice book over the summer for a quick review - I do love how efficient those books are.

 

We also do a lot of foreign language here, so things like verb tenses and limiting/descriptive adjectives and different types of pronouns are more extensively covered there - I've honestly never found an English grammar program that does those justice, as they're "easy" in English and it seems to be assumed that they don't need to be taught in any more than an extremely cursory fashion.

[Ali in OR]

We started with Paragraph Town (and the other books) in 5th grade, the Voyage level books in 6th grade, and this last year Dd started with Magic Lens, the 4Practice book, and AAW 1. Magic Lens did seem to be mostly review, and dd has good retention, so I wasn't sure if she really needed it. At some point I let her stop with Magic Lens and just move on to the 4Practice book. So for this this coming year I didn't order Magic Lens 2, but I did get the next 4Practice book and she'll just do the 4-level analysis a couple of times a week.

 

I think the best thing it gives us is a common language for discussing her writing. I am trying to get her writing to sound a bit more academic, so we're talking about using more complex sentences. Or I tell her to use a D,I sentence as her transition sentence when starting a new paragraph--"While Aristotle believed blah blah blah, Galileo felt that blah blah blah". I can talk about an introductory dependent clause and she knows what I mean. But I don't think she needs to read about the grammar anymore for us to work on using it in her writing.

[Chrysalis Academy]

Hmm, hearing that Magic Lense has mostly been review of Town and Voyage, I'm wondering about continuing with it. We've done both Town and Voyage, and dd has had great retention, and we're now doing Kilgallon Grammar for Middle School, which gives her a chance to apply these grammatical constructions to her writing. I'm wondering what we would gain from doing Magic Lense at all, if we've pretty much gotten all the new material from Voyage and are applying it with Kilgallon?

[Alte Veste Academy]

Hmm, hearing that Magic Lense has mostly been review of Town and Voyage, I'm wondering about continuing with it. We've done both Town and Voyage, and dd has had great retention, and we're now doing Kilgallon Grammar for Middle School, which gives her a chance to apply these grammatical constructions to her writing. I'm wondering what we would gain from doing Magic Lense at all, if we've pretty much gotten all the new material from Voyage and are applying it with Kilgallon?

 

Yeah, I'm all ears now. This is a program we love, but I consider it supplemental, not necessarily foundational, and it is pricey, so it edges out other things that look interesting and worthwhile. We will be moving on to Voyage and I have heard that some people are less enthusiastic about the higher levels, so I would be interested in knowing more details about why. I love MCTLA because it is magical, but if it loses its magic, I will lose interest. I think we will probably stick with the vocabulary, but beyond that...I don't know.

 

Anyway, all ears!

[SunnyDays]

Listening in here as well. Kristina's post pretty much summed it up for us... We have LOVED MCT, but if the magic goes, it's a supplement that won't make the cut.