When a Dash forces You Down a Rabbit Hole
By: Sarah Stratton If you know me well, you know that I proclaim to be the DASH QUEEN. I absolutely love the dash. It fits my writing personality perfectly. When Jason Campbell (Ruth Doyle) invited me to teach his 5th grade students the dash, I obviously jumped at the opportunity. (for more reasons than loving the dash–I love co-teaching with Jason Campbell too!) He started out the lesson teaching his students the Ed opener. They already had learned the LY opener, double adjective opener, clause opener and the ING opener–the beauty of knowing all of these–those 5th graders were able to specialize and pick their favorite openers to contribute to their writing voice. Another perk–they understood the function and logistics of the openers already–thus teaching a new one was much easier! It didn’t take his students long to figure out how to “do” the ED opener–both with a single ED word and with an ED phrase. It was quick. They immediately saw what the ED opener could do to their...