ABSTRACT
High schoolers are at an age when they begin to see the world around them and consider their place in it. High school English standards tend to be broad and designed with the assumption that students have mastered many of the foundational conventions prior to walking in the door of our English classroom. The key to making grammar stick is to break its instruction down into manageable chunks, allowing the concepts to grow deep roots. Standards ask students to apply skills in their own writing, not to label or diagram a sentence or complete a fill-in-the-blank or multiple-choice worksheet. Students may lack control of specific conventions, and they may have developed bad habits, but they are not in a place where starting from the very beginning will engage them. The academic conversations that are threaded through the process are particularly supportive.
