7th Grade Grammar

Seventh grade grammar is an amalgam of everything that students have learned in language arts thus far. This is the grade level when most students combine everything they have learned and they begin to concentrate on the full picture of grammar, not just the individual rules.

Grammar Goals for 7th Grade

By the seventh grade a student will understand parts of speech, pronouns, clauses, and punctuation and will be actively using them in their communication - in class and social discussions as well as in written assignments such as book reports, learning logs, journals, and reports.

Seventh grade grammar goal should focus on the correct use of what the student has already learned.

Know How to Use Parts of Speech

Seventh grade grammar tends to be more about using grammar than learning it, and knowing your parts of speech enables you to talk about writing selections. Grammar becomes another weapon in the critical thinking arsenal.

Examples

• Gore Vidal's lack of pronouns is a sneaky way to hide the gender of his protagonist long enough to shock his reader.
• Ernest Hemingway's sparse use of adjectives empowers his readers by enlisting them as co-creators of the worlds within his novels.
• Stephanie Meyers's prose, pickled with more adverbs than a sixth grade poem, has the uncanny ability to reduce intriguing subject matter to not much more than prolix, uneventful tripe, utterly boring to anyone who esteems themselves literate.
• James Ellroy might write one-sentence paragraphs devoid of comfortable prepositional or adverbial clauses, but his strong verbs just might be enough to get most readers through one of his immensely long and grim crime stories.

Knowing the purposes and locations of different parts of speech lends validity to opinions about literature. Your sister might tell you she likes a movie, and you might value her opinion based on what you know about her; but by critically thinking about and presenting your own opinions, you can strengthen their validity irrespective to personal relationships. You wouldn't trust a stranger's position on a painting if they failed to display any knowledge of painting or composition—the same goes for parts of speech when talking about literature.

Understand the Different Types of Speech

In addition to learning how to appropriately support opinions, one must also learn what types of speech to use in different situations. For example:

• How one speaks online in IM fields isn't the same as when one's trying to get work done as a group.
• A seventh grader doesn't speak with his mother the same way he speaks with his friends
• He won't speak with his group members the same he does to a ski-lift operator.

Wise adults know that different grammar is expected in different situations. You wouldn't use the same grammar in in conversations with friends and family as you might in a meeting or at a dinner party.

In group work, the language should begin to resemble that of the business meeting - speaking in a way that is both assertive and respectful, that creates an inclusive unit while maintaining individual identities.

Consider the difference between these examples:

• “No” versus “I'm not sure that's our best course of action.”
• “Yes” versus “That sounds good to me.”
• “I don't know” versus “I'll have to check.”

Knowing how to express yourself in various situations is a key learning goal for seventh graders.

Practice Subject Verb Agreement

Singular subjects go with singular verbs and plural subjects go with plural verbs. That's the rule. Most verbs get an “s” tacked onto their ends when conjugated for third person singular subjects.

Examples

I/you/they/we abnegate my/your/their/our fourth amendment right.

He/she/it abnegates his/her/its fourth amendment right.

It doesn't take much for a sentence to get extremely long. In a long sentence you can easily have quite a few words between the verb and subject. When verbs don't agree with their subjects, it's a sure sign that the author didn't pay enough attention when he or she proofread.