It’s a New Year with its New Grammatically-minded Beginnings

What better way to end 2016 and start 2017 than with some grammar fun? As a team of writing coaches and educators, we’re always game for helping you teach grammar in your classroom. Once you combine grammar with Writing with Design’s proven method for teaching writing, you’ve got young writers who are adept and confident. And that makes for a new year full of positive, grammatically-correct teaching opportunities.

Our brief grammar lesson today is super simple, but one that often trips up even adults. It’s the difference between “it’s” and “its.” Of course, it’s is the contraction of “it is,” while “its” is the possessive form of “it.” But confusingly to many young writers, the apostrophe is used a bit differently than in other situations How can they tell which to use in their own essay writing?

“Its” is possessive and can possess everything but its apostrophe, since “it’s” borrowed the punctuation mark, because it is a grammatical oddity.

Happy Grammatically-minded New Year, everybody!

Your friends at Writing with Design

“And that makes for a new year full of positive, grammatically-correct teaching opportunities.”

Know a teacher who could use Writing with Design in the new year? Let them know about us!