Develop your English grammar skills and take your writing and speaking to the next level of excellence in this course. This course explores the eight parts of speech, punctuation and mechanics, and foundational sentence construction. You will learn about phrases, clauses, problem words, common grammar mistakes, and much more through practical, hands-on exercises. You will also learn through short videos, examples, and even fun games. Take your writing and speaking to the next level of excellence!
Curt Simmons, B.A., M.Ed, is a best-selling author, trainer, and multi-media expert. He holds degrees in English and communication studies and has more than 10 years of experience teaching English and writing in the classroom. Additionally, Simmons has authored numerous books on a wide variety of technology topics and has been a technical editor for numerous other titles.
The instructional materials required for this course are included in enrollment and will be available online.
Hide Syllabus
Lesson 1
Which Is Which? - In this first lesson, you'll start by meeting your instructor and getting comfortable in your new online classroom. Then you'll learn about some tricky words that sound alike yet often get confused in writing. You'll begin to spot mix-ups such as have/of, lie/lay, and there/their. This will pave the way to learning which is the right word for the sentence you want to write.
Lesson 2
Its or It's? - In this lesson, you'll master the mighty apostrophe, a tiny punctuation mark that has a big job to do. We'll look at how it's used to combine words and express ownership. Building on what you know about mix-ups, you'll find out when and where the apostrophe belongs and why it sometimes doesn't.
Lesson 3
I Am and You Are - You might have heard that every sentence needs a subject and a predicate, but do you have any idea what those two things are? In this lesson, you'll reacquaint yourself with parts of speech. (What is an adverb, anyway?) Then you'll learn what's required to organize a bunch of words into a complete sentence.
Lesson 4
As You Were Saying - In this lesson, you'll see how bits and pieces can masquerade as a whole. You'll learn to recognize when a collection of words doesn't quite measure up to a real sentence. Then you'll be able to attach those words to their missing part or find a way to rewrite them so they can stand up on their own.
Lesson 5
On and On and On - Some of us just like to keep going and going and going. In this lesson, you'll learn how to stop. You'll learn a variety of ways to keep one sentence from running into another and give your readers or listeners a chance to catch their breath.
Lesson 6
They Write, Not Writes, Right? - It's time to make sure you're the boss of your verbs. You'll see how the concepts of yesterday, today, and tomorrow can change a verb. Once you know your past, present, and future, you'll take a look at some other things that shape verbs, like voice and mood.
Lesson 7
You Are You - They're small in size but large in number. Get ready to put you and me and he and she and this and that (and lots more) under a microscope. You'll learn about the different kinds of pronouns and how some of them change depending on what they're doing in a sentence.
Lesson 8
Let's Agree - It's time to take the argument out of your grammar. In this lesson, you'll apply what you've learned about subjects, verbs, and pronouns and find out how to make them all agree with one another. Only then can you create grammatical harmony.
Lesson 9
Along the Same Lines - In this lesson, you'll learn how to stay on the straight and narrow grammatical path. You'll begin to recognize inconsistencies. You'll learn how to create a steady narrative system by choosing a person, time, and method to organize your words.
Lesson 10
Say What You Mean - Everything you've learned in this course has been leading to this lesson. Now you're going to ensure that your writing comes out the way you want it to. You'll learn how to express yourself in the appropriate language, with no wasted words. You'll use logical thinking to inspire your own good grammar.
Lesson 11
Why Stop at a Period? - Every work, great or small, needs its i's dotted. At last, the colon will be distinguished from the semicolon, parentheses from dashes, and the often-misnamed backslash from the forward slash. You'll also spend some time refreshing your memory on those long-forgotten rules of capitalization.
Lesson 12
To Err Is Human - We won't say goodbye until we've done a sweeping review of the previous lessons. Then, we'll go over a checklist and do some editing practices. You'll take one more step toward grammatical empowerment by learning independent proofreading and self-checking methods.
Hide Syllabus
