Grammar and Vocabulary Resources for Middle School ELA Teachers

from here. 

In the last month, I have been asked by several middle school ELA teachers for professional text recommendations that they can read in order to strengthen their knowledge of vocabulary and grammar.  Below are books and articles that I have found most helpful.Curious what you think and what additions you might add.


Articles - Grammar

Anderson, Jeff. (2006). Zooming in and zooming out: Putting grammar in context into context. English Journal, 95(5), 28-34. 

Ehrenworth, Mary. (2003). Grammar--comma--a beginning. English Journal, (1), 90-96.

Fearn, Leif & Nancy Farnan. (2007). When is a verb? Using functional grammar to teach writing. Journal of Basic Writing, 26(1), 63-87.

Graham, S., Capizzi, A., Harris, K. R., Hebert, M., & Murphy, P. (2014). Teaching writing to middle school students- A national survey. Reading & Writing- An Interdisciplinary Journal, 27, 1015–1042.

Nunan, Susan Losee. (2005). Forgiving Ourselves and Forging Ahead: Teaching Grammar in a New Millennium. English Journal, 94(4), 70-75.

Saddler, Bruce. (2006). Improving sentences via sentence combining instruction. The Language and Literacy Spectrum, 16, 27-32.

Smagorinsky,Peter,  Wilson, Amy Alexandra and Cynthia Moore. (2011). Teaching grammar and writing: A Beginning teacher's dilemma. English Education, 43(3), 262-292

Weaver, Constance, Carol McNally & Sharon Moerman. (2001). To grammar or not to grammar: That is NOT the question! Voices in the Middle, 8(2), 17-33

Books & Chapters
Grammar

Crovitz, Darren & Michelle D. Devereaux. (2017). Grammar To Get Things Done: A Practical Guide for Teachers Anchored in Real-World Usage. Urbana IL: NCTE & NY: Routledge.

Noden, Harry. (2011). Image grammar: Teaching grammar as part of t e writing process, 2nd ed. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

Pinker, Steven. (2014).  "Telling Right from Wrong: How to Make Sense of the Rules of Correct Grammar, Word Choice, and Punctuation." from The Sense of Style. New York: Penguin.

Sadler, Bruce & Kristie Asaro-Sadler. (2010). Writing better sentences: Sentence-Combining instruction in the classroom. Preventing School Failure, 54(3), 159–163.

Strunk, William, Jr. (1999). The Elements of Style, 4th ed. Pearson. (free ebook)

Weaver,  Constance. (1996). Teaching grammar in context. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

Weaver, Constance. (2008). Grammar to enrich & enhance writing. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

Williams, James D. (2005). The Teacher's Grammar Book, 2nd Ed.  Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. (pdf of book)

Zinsser, William. (2016) On Writing Well: The Classic Guide to Writing Nonfiction. New York: Harpers. 


Vocabulary Articles

Baumann, James F. & Michael Graves. (2010). What is academic vocabulary? Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 54(1), 4-12.

Blachowicz, Camille L.Z., Fisher, Peter J.L., and Donna Ogle. (2006). Vocabulary: Questions from the classroom. Reading Research Quarterly, (41)4, 524-539.

Bromley, Karen. (2007). Nine things every teacher should know about words and vocabulary instruction. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 50(7), 528-537.

Fang, Zhihui. (2007). The language demands of science reading in middle school. International Journal of Science Education, 28(5). 491-520. 

Flanigan, Kevin & Scott Greenwood.(2007). Effective content vocabulary instruction in the middle: Matching students, purposes, words, and strategies.Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 51(3), 226-238

Flanigan, Kevin, Templeton, Shane & Latisha Hayes. (2012). What's in a word? Using content vocabulary to generate growth in general academic vocabulary knowledge. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 56(2), 132-140. 

Kieffer, Michael & Noinie K. Lesaux. (2007). Breaking Down Words to Build

Meaning: Morphology, Vocabulary, and Reading Comprehension in the Urban Classroom. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 61(2), 134-144. 

Lesaux, Nonie K., Kieffer, Michael J. & S. Elisabeth Faller. (2010). The Effectiveness and Ease of Implementation of an Academic Vocabulary Intervention for Linguistically Diverse Students in Urban Middle Schools. Reading Research Quarterly, 45(2), 196–228.

Nagy, William & Dianna. Townsend. (2012). Words as tools: Learning academic vocabulary as language acquisition. Reading Research Quarterly, 47(1), 91-108.

Snow, C., Lawrence, J.F., & White, C. (2009). Generating knowledge of academic language among urban middle school students. Journal of Research on Educational Effectiveness, 2(4), 325-344.

Swanson, Elizabeth, Jeanne Wanzek, Lisa McCulley, Stephanie Stillman-Spisak,

Sharon Vaughn, Deborah Simmons, Melissa Fogarty & Angela Hairrell. (2015). Literacy and Text Reading in Middle and High School Social Studies and English Language Arts Classrooms.  Reading & Writing Quarterly: Overcoming Learning Difficulties, 1-24.

Vocabulary Books

Rasinski, Tim, Padak, Nancy, Newton, Rick M. and Evangeline Newton. (2008). Greek and Latin Roots: Keys to Building Vocabulary. Huntington Beach, CA: Shell Education

Robb, Laura. (2014).  Vocabulary is Comprehension: Getting to the Root of Text Complexity. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Literacy.