Danielle McLeod is a highly qualified secondary English Language Arts Instructor who brings a diverse educational background to her classroom. With degrees in science, English, and literacy, she has worked to create cross-curricular materials to bridge learning gaps and help students focus on effective writing and speech techniques. Currently working as a dual credit technical writing instructor at a Career and Technical Education Center, her curriculum development surrounds student focus on effective communication for future career choices.
“Or” is a versatile word that provides an audience with a choice between multiple ideas, actions, or items. It can be used before an independent clause or introduce a subordinate clause. It also can be used to list items. When using “or” in a sentence, you may have seen it …
Inversions are a grammatical tool you can use to change the emphasis of your sentences. The technique swaps a normal word order into something that helps draw attention to specific words and phrases. Many native English speakers do this in their speech without being aware of actual inversion rules. But …
Propositions are parts of speech that you use every day in English grammar to build your sentence structure into something that is understandable. But, when I ask a class to name a preposition, they struggle to provide an answer despite their adept use of them. Most teachers assume prepositions are …
The English language is defined by various parts of speech that help you make messages clear to your audience. The details you add to your speech and writing are especially important to ensure you are understood. When describing things, you need to follow a specific order of detail. Adjectives are …
When naming off items in a list, many people choose to include the abbreviation, etc., to help avoid creating long, rambling sentences. It quickly allows the reader to understand that other items in the list are related to one another and are not important to the overall understanding of the …
We all use “please” to add a degree of politeness to our speech, but do you know how to punctuate it? Some people use it with a comma, and some do not, but which way is correct? Actually, both depend on how you use it and what emphasis you want …
When I teach students how to quote blend, they often need help making a quote work with their writing. Integrating a quote into a sentence in a way that flows can be challenging, but did you know that you can change the tense and add words to make this easier? …
Nobody likes to read bland or boring sentences, but luckily there are multiple ways to add details to your material for reader enjoyment. One of the most popular techniques is the inclusion of parenthetical elements, additional information that allows you to share details with your reader without breaking the flow …
The phrases “there is” and “there are” indicate that something exists. However, where it is placed in a sentence can create confusion about which form to use. The trick to knowing how to use them correctly lies in the noun that follows it and whether it is singular or plural. …
When I talk about contractions in class, I’m often met with blank stares. But what my students don’t realize is that they use them all the time! Popular in informal speech and writing, contractions are part of our everyday speech; we just don’t name them as such. Contractions are simply …