Split Infinitives - To Teach or Not to Teach?

I vote "Teach" despite the fact it is not always wrong to split an infinitive.

Infinitives are an important part of English grammar. In fact, they are included in the common core standards for 8th grade Language, so although most grammarians nowadays will say to go ahead and split the infinitive, students should still understand the concept and decide when to split and when not to split (see what I did there?)

First, a refresher: the infinitive is the word "to" plus the verb.  For example, "to love." Splitting the infinitive means to put a modifier between "to" and the verb "love." For example: "to only love" instead of "only to love" or "to love only."

I recently heard a famous forensic linguist (I missed my calling in life!) say that the root of the rule for not splitting infinitives is illogical: In Latin, infinitives cannot be split because they are one word, so it followed that English infinitives should also not be split. He said, then, go ahead and ignore the rule because it makes no sense and we split infinitives all the time and are clearly understood.

He is correct on the second point (the first point - the origin of the rule - is in dispute), but I would say the rule must not be ignored, but understood and then applied or not according to the situation.

Most infinitives can be split and sound perfectly natural; in fact, sometimes it is necessary to avoid awkwardness or changing the meaning of the sentence.

For example, in the sentence "The farmer expects her crop to almost triple next season," the split is necessary because the modifier "almost" can't go anywhere else in the sentence and make sense or not sound awkward.

In addition, take our previous example of the infinitive "to love" and the modifier "only." Moving the word "only" around changes the meaning of the sentence:

Claire wants to only love you.

Claire wants only to love you.

Claire wants to love you only.

The three sentences have different meanings depending on the shade Claire's intentions, and the first requires a split infinitive.

So that leaves the question of whether we should teach students to avoid splitting infinitives when the meaning of the sentence is not affected.

For example:

Split:  "The coach expected us to quickly learn the drill."

Not split:  "The coach expected us to learn the drill quickly."

I make my students aware of the rule and call it a "best practice," as it sounds better "to the educated ear," as some grammarians put it, but I do not generally correct or mark a split infinitive if it's working well in the sentence. If there is a problem with a split infinitive, it is far easier to explain if they know the grammar and reasoning behind it.

Although you can avoid correcting split infinitives in students' work when it does not affect clarity, it is worth teaching what it is and how to make a conscious choice about its use to avoid a misplaced modifier or an awkward sentence.

In addition, on a purely practical level, if you are teaching for common core assessments on verbals, it is helpful for students who are asked to identify an infinitive to understand that it can be separated with modifiers.

Out with the Comma? Joining Independent Clauses

It's seemingly one of the simple punctuation rules: When you join two independent clauses with a coordinating conjunction (aka FANBOYS), you need to separate them with a comma. Here is an example. The independent clauses are in blue. 

English has many grammar and punctuation rules, but there are many exceptions to those rules. 

This is what I've always taught in my classes, no exceptions. Now, however, I can't ignore the exception to this rule because it's becoming more common in publications, and my students notice. 

If the two independent clauses are short, closely related, and if the comma is omitted, there is no misunderstanding. For example: 

He completed the assignment but it was late.

It's not new; it's in the Chicago Manual of Style and the MLA Style Guide, among others, but it's been largely ignored and doesn't come up in most shorter official grammar guides.  

The trend is definitely toward minimal punctuation, so I'm getting on board teaching the exception, but only so my students will understand when they see it in print. I will, however,  require my students to continue to use the comma in their formal writing assignments so I'm sure they understand the rule, and it's not a purposeful omission. I explain that you can't go wrong with the comma. My students know my mantra: Learn the rules (and demonstrate your understanding) before you break them. 

Grammar Game for Secondary Students

This game is a hit every time I use it in class. There are few ways to teach grammar and have it really stick. This is one of them. The example here is for active and passive voice, but you can adapt it for parts of speech, sentence structure (have categories for fragments, complete sentences, and run-ons), or correct/incorrect usage of punctuation marks.

1. Divide a whiteboard, chalkboard, or bulletin board into two halves. Label one side “Active” and one side “Passive.”

2.  Pass out one or two sentences to each student. Tell the students that they have three rounds to get all the words in the correct category. (I offer a small treat, prize, or bonus points to the whole class if they can accomplish this.)

3. Have the students come up to the board and place each sentence where they think it belongs.

4. When all the sentences are in place, tell the students how many are incorrect.

5. Allow the students to study the board and discuss which are incorrect. Any student can move any of the sentences from one category to the other, as long as he or she offers an explanation. As they try to sort it out, this is where the learning comes in. It's also a learning experience for me When they are satisfied, tell them how many are incorrect, and give them one more round to work it out.  The hardest part will be for you to keep a poker face!

6. You may have to set a time limit for the rounds or give a few hints, but I find it usually works out well if the students are left to their own devices.  Go over the answers at the end, and discuss any that gave them trouble.

Holiday Sentence Game

What can you do when it's just before the holidays, your students can't concentrate, and you've depleted your bag of tricks? This hilarious sentence game is productive, easy, and will engage even the most squirrelly students. All you need is paper, pens, and a pair of scissors.

The instructions and pre-printed forms are available for free in my store. Click here to download. Or, follow these instructions:

1. Cut two paper strips for each student. Ask students to label one strip "If" and one strip "then."

2. Ask the students to write the first part of a sentence on the “If” paper, such as: “If I go ice skating over break,” and finish the sentence on the “then” paper, “then I will want to bring my mittens.” You can direct them to a topic, such as the holidays, or leave it open-ended.

    

3. When everyone has written a sentence, collect the “If” papers in one basket, and all the “then” papers in another basket.

4. Mix up the papers in each basket and have each student draw a piece of paper from the “If” basket and the “then” basket.

5. Go around the room and have each student read his or her new sentence out loud. 

Descriptive Writing Prompts 2 - FREE

Descriptive writing prompts are a great way to get a writing sample at the beginning of the year. They are also a good warm-up for a narrative essay, which I usually assign as a first essay in a basic composition class. The key is getting the students to write concrete, or sensory, detail instead of abstractions. Download this freebie for a short lesson plan and three of my new descriptive writing prompts appropriate for middle school and above:

Idiom Posters and Matching Game

According to the common core standards, students learn idioms in second through fifth grade. I created these two products with those grades in mind, but I used more mature artwork and added some more sophisticated idioms into the mix so that teachers can use them for older, or even adult, ESL students. Idioms are hard to master for ESL students because they don't make literal sense, and are often cultural references. These posters and matching cards will hopefully help a broad range of students, and make learning fun.

Artwork by Image Boutique

Trading Cards in the Classroom

 
 My students have mentioned that the posters and Power Point I use with visual clues and examples are a great way to help them remember figurative language terms. When I noticed them making flash cards to study, I thought, why not shrink the graphics to flash card size to help out my students? When I made the cards, I sized them to fit inside a trading card protector, and realized that what I had created were trading cards. Of course they can be used as flash cards, but I have found many other uses for trading cards in the classroom.

 Concentration: For younger students, a simple matching game will breed familiarity with the terms and examples. For older students, you could create cards with examples and cards with the terms, and ask students to match the examples with terms. For the cards I made here, I'm going to create cards without the terms at the top, and matching term cards for the game.

Rewards: You could pass out the trading cards as rewards for quiz scores or answering questions in class etc... Even my older students secretly get excited about this.

Reference: If the cards are laminated and put on a ring, they could be permanent fixtures in the classroom as a study/reference tool.

Interactive notebooks: Printed out on paper instead of card stock, these could be glued into a notebook for reference with activities for that particular term.

 The possibilities are endless! If you want to create your own cards, there are numerous templates available for free online. The standard size is 2 1/2" x 3 1/2", but if you are going to use them primarily for matching games, it wouldn't hurt to go larger. There is also a fun trading card app from the International Reading Association found here.

If you want these figurative language trading cards, they are found in my store here for only $2.00. They are inexpensive because I had already made the posters (found here) so it was just a matter of shrinking them to size.