My son's homeroom teacher shared with me recently that my 7th grader's grammar skills need some strengthening. Said the teacher to me (and I paraphrase): "You write. You went to Catholic school You know how to diagram a sentence. Teach the boy something."

I accepted the challenge, and I've scraped together a little lesson plan. It relies heavily on The Elements of Style, Sister Bernadette's Barking Dog, Jabberwocky, and a few other things too. I also encouraged my son, an avid reader, to find a short story that we could parse and diagram and dissect together. I thought it would be fun! Here’s the first line from the story he selected:

                    Peeple that spel well and have good grammar are mostly freeks.