Below is a description of the Grammar Workshops given
at the Learning Assistance Resource Center at San Jose State University.
Sentence Structure - this workshop deals with simple, compound, and complex sentences and the serious errors that can result, such as fragments, run-ons, and comma-splices. Exercises are also given that can be corrected in any number of ways, increasing a student’s sentence base. When a student understands these exercises, he or she will be able to find his or her errors and correct them.
Sentence Combining – this workshop is constructed to overcome a student’s compulsion to write only short, simple sentences in order to be safe. Most scoring guidelines state that for a student to achieve high grades, syntactic (sentences or phrases) variety is necessary. Several exercises are involved to increase the student’s ability to write a wider variety of sentences.
Verbs – this workshop is quite valuable to students who speak languages which contain only one verb tense. The participant is introduced to the twelve tenses and shown a correlation between present, past, and future. Also the difference between regular and irregular verbs is illustrated, along with several exercises and an essay topic.
Subject/Verb Agreement – this workshop introduces students to the ways in which subjects and verbs must agree, which is the verb’s form, person, and number. Participants are also introduced to plural formations, i.e., regular plural formation, noun endings that require different plural forms, and some nouns that become plural by changing the internal spelling. Third person, singular, present tense verbs are also discussed, along with several exercises.
Punctuation – this workshop covers all forms of punctuation from commas, to end punctuation, semicolons, colons, quotation marks, ellipses, dashes, restrictive and nonrestrictive clauses, dashes, parentheses, apostrophes (possessive and contractions). Exercises are also geared toward using all forms mentioned above.
Pronouns – students are introduced to the difference between pronouns and nouns and the fact that pronouns are unique in that they have cases, which are subject, object, possessive, and reflexive. They also are taught how and when to use these cases. Exercises help them to understand the differences.
Prepositions - this workshop acquaints students with prepositions of time, place and direction; the prepositional phrase as an adjective, an adverb, a gerund, or an infinitive; and troublesome prepositions and special uses, including idiomatic uses. Exercises are given at each different introduction to teach the participants how to use each one.
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