Grammar Girl is a witty way to get the down and dirty grammar tips our students need.
Community Review for Grammar Girl: Quick and Dirty Tips
My Take
Grammar Girl has many unique topics that are relevant to students' lives. For example, Grammar Girl had an article about whether or not it was OK to use abbreviations and when they are appropriate. I like how Grammar Girl's topics are relevant to what students most commonly confuse or need help distinguishing. However, since the age range is 9th-12th grade, I did try and use it with younger students (middle school), and at times, I felt that it may be a little dry for some of the kids to fully be engaged. Besides the Grammar Girl audio and articles on the site, I did not see any other resources to further a class discussion or teaching of topic (but I could be overlooking something, too).
How I Use It
I have used Grammar Girl to focus on a key topic that may have come up in class, or that I was noticing in my students' writing to emphasize a specific writing skill. This would be especially good with advanced learners that may have a question pop up and want more information...a teacher could direct them to look it up on Grammar Girl or share with the whole class. What didn't work as well was getting the audio working on my computer. I could read the articles, but I had a hard time figuring out where to go to hear the audio too.