By: Sarah Reiff ’20

Middle School students will move on from traditional textbook grammar and will start using No Red Ink, an online program, to work on grammar work this year. After English teacher Julia Grody piloted the program last year and saw positive results, the English department decided to apply the program throughout the whole Middle School.
No Red Ink allows students create a personal account and select their interests. The sentences are created based on interests, be it sports, movies or anything pop-culture related. English Department Chair Amanda Angle said that the English Department’s decision to use the new program was based on previous issues.
“We had been somewhat frustrated with our grammar program for quite a few years. We were confused on what the best way to teach grammar was. I think overall students didn’t understand… why we needed to learn grammar. It seemed more like … random facts as opposed to trying to apply what they learn in grammar to their own writing,” Angle said.
The goal of No Red Ink is to try and get students more interested in grammar. Ryan Wilson, an eighth and ninth grade English teacher, shares this goal.
“Our main goals were to find a way of both making grammar more interesting for students and also finding more ways to integrate it into their writing. Based on whatever they’re doing online we can ask them ‘Ok so you’ve been doing this skill on No Red Ink. Lets try to transfer that into your essay’,” Wilson said.
Students said that they believe the program will help them retain what they learn.
“I think that it makes the work we’re doing more fun… I think that [No Red Ink] will help me learn more because it uses examples from things that we like which help you remember it more,” Caroline Chechozy ’22 said.