Caught'ya! Grammar with a Giggle for Middle School: Giggles in the Middle (Maupin House)

I think that this is a very clever way to teach ELA. However, it did not really work for my 7th grade classes because we have so many other things to do each day - and this would take the main focus.

ELA teachers juggle a lot in their curriculum: reading, writing, revision, critical thinking, public speaking, rhetoric, spelling, vocabulary...managing it all can be challenging. I've found grammar particularly tricky. I try to make time for it, but often can only do so in fits and starts. We'll work on some concepts, switch to some other area of the curriculum, and then loop back, only to find that some of the skills or knowledge has been lost and needs review. The dilemma: how do you give your kids the consistent practice they need, without resorting to the standard, drool-inducing drill and kill textbook exercises, which often don't even provide enough material for true mastery?Giggles in the Middle provided a solution. Each day the class gets a new bit of the story and tries to catch and correct all the errors in the text, which is rife with them. The story's cute; a group of friends tries to solve the bizarre mystery of Horribly Hard Middle School (HHMS). I won't give away the plot, but it's a bit like the Wayside School meets The Terminator, with a G rating.The Caught Ya's work well as a warm up; you can work through an entry in under 10 minutes. My kids genuinely seem to enjoy the work, and after students are comfortable with the format, you can hand over the reins and have them lead the correction and review at the board. Grading is quick and easy; you can finish an entire set during a typical period while students work on something else. Other pluses include some short writing prompts, a handy grammar reference, and lots and lots of new vocabulary, from "odious" to "bibliophile".You can also tailor the story to your liking. If you want to tweak it to target homophones, or apostrophes, or compound sentences for example, and hit them until the cows come home, have at it. I like to toss in errors based on trends I find in my students' writing.I've noticed an improvement in my students' proofreading skills, and what really sold me was when they started using dialogue in their writing, correctly punctuated, no less. They also became much better at paragraphing. The daily workout keeps me on my toes as well; I've often had to double check my own corrections alongside the kids.Overall, Giggles in the Middle makes a solid addition to a teacher's toolbox.

Best practices in teaching say that we should teach grammar in context so that kids understand how it fits into the bigger picture. This is the only grammar program I have seen that actually does that. There are three stories in this book: one for sixth grade, one for seventh and one for eighth. The story is broken up into small chunks (enough for each school day of the year), and students are asked to proofread and correct the errors. After they are done, the teacher goes over the errors with students and teaches minilessons on topics such as capitalizing proper nouns, appositives etc...Each day also has a variety of vocabulary words that could be used for old-fashioned spelling tests if desired. I post them on my word wall, and students earn extra credit for using them in speech and writings in the classroom.The stories, themselves, are such that a middle school student could relate to. They poke fun humorously at teachers and imply that they are robots (what middle school student wouldn't love that?) The characters (middle school students) deal with the same things my students do: teasing, laziness, nerdiness, etc... and appear very real.If the day's work is too challenging for your student, you can decrease the challenge by editing the passage because everything comes on a CD that comes with the book. Kiester also includes a grammar guide to help you with the minilessons.The book is easy and quick to read; it took me only a couple of days. Most of the text is actually the stories and corrections which is why the book is so fat. However, in the little bit of reading there is to do, Kiester shows you how she grades the grammar lessons and gives examples of what to expect.After using this book for a few weeks, I have not heard any complaints about grammar from my students,(In fact, they are begging for the end of the story!) and I have been able to talk intelligently about what we are learning when I review their own original writings.

I was compelled to write this review because I am in awe. I have been using this book with my eighth grade, lower-level writing group. I have been amazed at the knowledge they have gained in such a short amount of time. These are reluctant writers and are really reluctant to do anything related to writing, to say the least, but they are NOT complaining about doing these every day! They are picking up on the concepts used and discussed and actually using them in their own writing. I can safely say that over 80% of the class used correction punctuation and quotation on their last assignment! I taught all last year and didn't get that percent! Granted, I think we take a little more time than we should with explanations right now, but it is worth it if they are grasping the concepts and applying them. They are beginning to explain why they are making the corrections they are making. I am blown away! Thank you for making such an awesome product!

This was recommended to me for my middle school kid, so I grabbed a copy - just be aware, this is not a workbook you can give to a kid, this is a curriculum you have to teach. If that is what you want, it looks fairly good - but I am not in a position to run a grammar class for my daughter, I wanted a workbook I could give her to keep her in shape over the summer. I will be passing this along to a homeschooling parent.

I have the original Caught'ya! Grammar with a Giggle, which my students love, but I teach most of my students two years in a row, so I wanted some new material and bought this. I was really disappointed. Although the stories were good, each days work was WAY too long and took up too much time. It was a real struggle for my slower learners. Not all students are three times faster at working than students a year before them. I used this for Grade 5 for about a week. Now it sits on my shelf collecting dust.