Monday, October 7, 2013

Find the Mistake: Embarrassing But Entertaining Real World Grammar Mistakes


Problem: How do you get students to buy in to the importance of proofreading when it is so deadly dull?
 

Solution: By making proofreading text a hands-on fun competition and real world relevant, students can't resist finding adults' embarrassing errors and gleefully fixing them!
 

Results: I collected photos of real life places and situations (thank you, Internet!) that had text with errors in grammar, usage, spelling, and punctuation and more. After creating a PowerPoint presentation, I divided the class into two teams and gave each team a fly swatter. New ones are nice, but that is entirely up to you! I showed a slide and one student from each team held a flyswatter. The first of the two kids to run up and "swat" the error on the screen and corrects it correctly wins a point. The fly swatters are handed off to two more kids. Show a few slides or dozens depending on time.

Extra-credit: Ask students to find errors on signs, billboards, menus, posters...anywhere out in the real world...and take a digital photo, send it to you, with an explanation of the error and how to fix it.

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