41 Patty McGee: literacy consultant

Patty McGee is a nationally recognized literacy consultant, speaker, and educator with a passion for transforming classrooms into spaces where language and learning come alive. 

With decades of experience as a teacher, coach, and advocate for delightful literacy practices, Patty has worked alongside educators across the country, partnering to unlock the full potential of their students through innovative and practical teaching strategies. 

 Not Your Granny’s Grammar is her third book. Connect with Patty at www.pattymcgee.org.

Kathie’s note: Patty sent me an email out of the blue! What a delightful note it was, and I said absolutely yes to inviting her on the podcast. My mom was a teacher, so I've always had a soft spot in my heart for them. Yay for teachers.

Writers Rotation intro/outro recorded at Dynamix Productions in Lexington, Kentucky.

Transcript

Patty [00:00:00]:
I'm Patty McGee. I'm a grammar rebel with a clause. Writing is messy, human, and yours.

INTRO [00:00:05]:
Hi, welcome to the Writers Rotation podcast. I'm your host, Kathie Stamps. I love words and writing and people and talking. So I'm talking to people who write all kinds of things in different professions. It's a Writers rotation. 

Kathie [00:00:25] 
Patty, hello. How are you and where are you?

Patty [00:00:27]:
I am well, and I am in New Jersey, right outside New York City.

Kathie [00:00:33]:
And you make a living with grammar?

Patty [00:00:35]:
I do.

Kathie [00:00:37]:
I am so, I'm totes jelly. How did you get to that point, or did you just start off there?

Patty [00:00:44]:
Oh, wow. I did not start off there. I've been an educator for 31 years and something that I was always good at was literacy, as a student. It was extra hard to teach because I didn't know how to work through challenges. And I just kept reading and learning more and more and more about the teaching of literacy. And everything seemed to be growing and really impactful until we got to grammar. The grammar instruction was the same that I received as a student, and funny enough, I was working in the school that I went to, so I know it was well-intended, yet I just couldn't figure out another way.

Patty [00:01:35]:
So really, it's been like a 30-year journey of trying to figure out an approach to grammar instruction that really thinks of grammar as a tool, like a paintbrush to a painter. And we can think of grammar as the same, not necessarily following the rules, but learning the rules just the way Picasso was a fine artist, and then he went all Picasso on us. That's what I believe we can do with grammar in our writing.

Kathie [00:02:04]:
I think we need to know the rules before we break the rules, right?

Patty [00:02:09]:
Even when you think about it, it's because of the antiquated practices of identification and just being corrected. Like, that's not learning. We learn things…

Kathie [00:02:27]:
Rote. 

Patty [00:02:27]:
Yeah. And rarely is it applicable to writing. It's just a very separated thing.

Kathie [00:02:31]:
Some of it is, I'm not going to use the word intuitive because that's, that's not the correct word, but for example, one of my pet peeves, ooh, I hope you have your own list. One of mine is “They handed it to Patty and I.” Would you really hand it to I?

Patty [00:02:51]:
Right. Yeah.

Kathie [00:02:52]:
No. So that's, that's not intuitive, but that is definitely to the ear. You would say, give it to me.

Patty [00:02:59]:
Yeah.

Kathie [00:03:00]:
And so those, you know, a couple of rules going on there. And it doesn't matter how many other people you add to the equation. How published authors and editors are letting them get away with that today, I don't understand.

Patty [00:03:12]:
Yeah. Grammar is ever-evolving. And the more we misuse, the more it becomes okay. I did a little deep dive into grammar across the centuries, and something that was grammatically allowable back in, say, the 16th century was capitalizing the words that were most important to you, that you wanted to emphasize. That was an acceptable rule. And since then, it has obviously evolved into proper nouns. We are also thinking about just being able to see how spoken grammar influences, like book grammar, and that influences written grammar or grammar rules. There is an ebb and flow from there.

Kathie [00:04:02]:
I tried when ChatGPT came out, I want to say it was Christmas of '22, I stumped it right away. I said, write the shortest or a short, the shortest sentence possible using all eight parts of speech.

Patty [00:04:18]:
Oh, that's a fun.

Kathie [00:04:20]:
Couldn't do it. I need to do it now and see if it has learned better. So when you're asked what you do, you meet someone new, what answer do you give them?

Patty [00:04:31]:
I tell them that I'm a traveling teacher. Basically what I do now is I visit schools, I work with schools, and I teach in schools to demo different practices that I really refined in my own instructional toolbox. K-12. I overheard a second grade student walking out of a school with her grandpa and she said about me, “Grandpa, she's not a stranger. She's a traveling teacher, which means she goes to schools to make teachers' jobs just a little bit easier, and sometimes she teaches us.”

Kathie [00:05:11]:
I love it.

Patty [00:05:12]:
Precious. And like, you have this love for words, which I feel like is what like cosmically connected us. And kid words are my favorite. Like the way they make meaning before they actually know the words or The way that they, Kathryn Boehmer calls it not how you say it, but they say it. And it's like, that is perfection.

Patty [00:05:40]:
Especially it's happening when kids are growing and just really acquiring language in all grade levels, but especially the younger ones, the way they use words. It's a little time capsule. It's so wonderful.

Kathie [00:05:53]:
Yes, especially those, the fun ones.

Patty [00:05:56]:
Yes, I'm thinking of somebody I used to work with. And she had a 2-year-old who couldn't, like, was looking at their foot and they're like, what are these foot fingers?

Kathie [00:06:07]:
Foot fingers! Yes, absolutely.

Patty [00:06:10]:
Right. Things like that. Or like when my son was young and he had a sore throat, he'd say, I have a thrope. You know, I didn't, those sorts of things. It's just language that is I think only young people have the talent to use in that way.

Kathie [00:06:30]:
I love it. Do you have like a half-day program, a semester-long program? Yeah. What do you do?

Patty [00:06:36]:
Yeah. So basically schools reach out to me, districts, and are looking for some instructional, I don't like the word support because I feel like teachers are already rocking it, but let's say some like evolution.

Kathie [00:06:51]:
Partnership.

Patty [00:06:52]:
Partnership. I like that. Yes. And we talk about what that could look like. Then we just set up a certain number of days depending on what their budget is. And then we start our work together and that work can look like lots of things. I keynote at workshops. I can do just, you know, after-school workshops and parent workshops.

Patty [00:07:13]:
And, but then there's also, I like to have learning plans, professional learning plans, and have goals within that. So if it was something like grammar, it would first be like a first cycle would be re-envisioning what grammar instruction could look like because my approach is very different, thus the name of my book, Not Your Granny's Grammar. And then like a second cycle might be creating some materials together. And I have not mentioned him, my co-author, Tim Donahue, he knows more about grammar than anyone I've ever met in my life. He's an educator as well, and I wouldn't have written this book without him. He has taught me a lot. And so it's most often my work is in schools with teachers, but really it's, it's very varied and it makes me happy that I have so many different kinds of experiences.

Kathie [00:08:04]:
Very cool. A tidbit you would share for any given audience or for kids? Like the difference between maybe a 1st grade and 11th grade, something like that.

Patty [00:08:14]:
Mm-hmm. Yes. So maybe something that's not that different. I have found that the use of punctuation in every grade level and up until, up and through adulthood feels optional.

Kathie [00:08:31]:
Yes. And William Faulkner did it.

Patty [00:08:35]:
Right.

Kathie [00:08:36]:
Or didn't do it, rather.

Patty [00:08:37]:
Exactly. Exactly. And I really. I would like to see a crystal ball to see how that's going to impact our quote unquote rules and grammar standards that we have. It's making many people like bristle and yet—

Kathie [00:08:53]:
And pronunciations with W-E-'-R-E, W-E-R-E, two different pronunciations.

Patty [00:09:01]:
Yes, absolutely. And just how much we are watching on the front lines, writers and teachers the evolution of grammar is looking like it's grammar distorted. It's us watching in real time how grammar evolves.

Kathie [00:09:19]:
Hmm. Okay. I can see that. Yes. I appreciate that. I do miss the past participle. She gone.

Patty [00:09:26]:
Yeah.

Kathie [00:09:27]:
When people say they had went and I'm like, what? No.

Patty [00:09:33]:
Yes. That one. My favorite is the dangling modifier I think that's funny when there's a misplaced modifier and the sorts of things that it really is saying when it's not what they mean.

Kathie [00:09:47]:
Yes. Coming up with sample sentences is hard, actually. I had a Facebook page. I mean, it's still active. Facebook.com/GrammarTips. I poured some research into that. And I did come up with some of those, yeah, dangling modifiers. What did you want to be when you were a little kid?

Patty [00:10:09]:
Oh, that's so funny. I've always wanted to be an educator and I admired my teachers so much, especially when I was young. My first job out of college as a teacher was with my first grade teacher who was my principal and She actually had a photo of me from when I was in her class, and she was very progressive in the '70s. She had a classroom library and a couch. She has a picture of me reading on that couch, and I just adored her and everything about her and wanted to be her, and then was lucky enough to have her be my, my first principal, my guiding light all these years. Betty Johnson.

Kathie [00:10:56]:
That's amazing. Have you written up that essay?

Patty [00:11:00]:
Yeah, I have not, but I'm still in touch with her and I send her things when I have spoken about her. I'll send her those things.

Kathie [00:11:10]:
What have you taught? I mean, has it always been word-oriented? Has it always been English?

Patty [00:11:14]:
It's always been word-oriented. I've taught 4th grade. I've taught 6th grade. But then I've also been an instructional coach, K-12 school librarian. So still word-focused. That was some of my favorite years.

Kathie [00:11:30]:
Did you learn the Dewey Decimal System?

Patty [00:11:32]:
I did. I did learn the Dewey Decimal System so much so a friend of mine said that she wanted to go and find some fairy tales and I was instantly like 398.1.

Kathie [00:11:45]:
That's awesome. You have written more than one book?

Patty [00:11:49]:
Yes, I've written three books. And also materials for classrooms on writing and grammar instruction.

Kathie [00:11:58]:
Okay, writing process: go.

Patty [00:12:00]:
Yeah, there is no predictability here. I still have the mentality that I did when I was a young person. I was scared of writing. I did everything I could to avoid it, and I still have the same cycle in my head, though I am better at combating it. But it's like I'll sit down to write and all of a sudden, like, the voices in my head are like, you're a one-trick pony. You can't do something new and different. Somebody already did that. You know, reading Big Magic by Liz Gilbert was very helpful for me with that.

Patty [00:12:40]:
Yes, it still happens. So I write, and what I've done again from like Liz Gilbert's guidance is to write for a certain amount of time and stop because she said if you're energetically like binge writing, almost overstepping the energy and the creativity that needs to be in place. So I will write even if it's ends up being, you know, a paragraph that I just I'm going to a race anyway, I just put a certain amount of time, uh, about 45 minutes. Hmm. Um, and I allow myself to work through the voices in my head of like, can't do this in those 45 minutes.

Kathie [00:13:22]:
Good for you.

Patty [00:13:23]:
And then I stop and then I go onto it the next day.

Kathie [00:13:27]:
Good for you. Are you a pantser or a plotter? Wait, that assumes fiction. Are you, you've written nonfiction or fiction?

Patty [00:13:35]:
It's all nonfiction. It's all almost like how-to books for educators. You can find them online at corwin.com. That's my publisher. You can also find them on Barnes and Noble, Amazon, bookshop.org, which is my fave because they work with local sellers. I believe you can find it on there too.

Kathie [00:13:59]:
We have a bookstore in Lexington that's over 40,000 square feet. It used to be a mall.

Patty [00:14:06]:
Oh my gosh.

Kathie [00:14:07]:
It has two floors. It has everything you could possibly want, an entire travel section, the mugs and the things, the Kentucky section, the self-help, just everything. Joseph Beth.

Patty [00:14:19]:
Wow. That makes me want to just go visit Lexington for that reason alone.

Kathie [00:14:23]:
Do it. Joseph Beth Booksellers.

Patty [00:14:26]:
Have you been to The Strand in New York City? 

Kathie [00:14:30]:
No. This is a bookstore?

Patty [00:14:32]:
It is.

Kathie [00:14:32]:
Is it old-old?

Patty [00:14:33]:
It has been around for a long time.

Kathie [00:14:35]:
Okay. And it's big.

Patty [00:14:36]:
It's big and it has mostly used books. It also has new books, but it's massive. Like it is, I think it's a New York City landmark in my opinion.

Kathie [00:14:49]:
I would love to do a tour. I'm sure they have a literary tour at the Algonquin Round Circle and all that. Wouldn't that be fun?

Patty [00:14:59]:
Oh yeah.

Kathie [00:15:00]:
What are you reading these days?

Patty [00:15:02]:
So I'm currently reading, in fiction, I'm reading Theo of Golden. It's a tiny bit of mystery because I don't quite know why this character's doing what he's doing. And it's also a gentle, warm read. I just feel comforted by it. Most of the time I read audiobooks at the speed that I read paper books, but this one I'm reading at the regular rate because I find it so soothing. It's like the voice of the narrator and the rhythm of the writing. And in nonfiction, I'm actually reading about the circus. In the history of the circus.

Kathie [00:15:49]:
The Ringling Brothers?

Patty [00:15:50]:
Yes. And other places across the world that, you know, big part of entertainment over the years. And both the sadness of some things, but also the way it included people who weren't comfortable in the mainstream. And so there was an acceptance in that community. For many.

Kathie [00:16:14]:
Have you ever tried your hand at fiction?

Patty [00:16:16]:
I have. I have. I'm not— it's hard. It's hard. And I admire, like, that's one of the reasons why when I read a book that the words feel like art to me, like Hamnet, for example, Theo of Golden, for example. There was a memoir that I read by a poet, it'll come to me, I'm sure, as soon as we finish talking. But like when I listen to that type of writing, I'm like, I would hold myself to this standard and I don't have the skill that they have.

Kathie [00:16:53]:
Have you read Melissa Febos? She's mostly a memoirist. When she grew up, she wasn't allowed to watch TV. Ah, so all she could do is read.

Patty [00:17:04]:
Look at that.

Kathie [00:17:05]:
Her writing is just gorgeous. Just gorgeous. So what other subjects do you like in life? Are you more of a science or a math or art?

Patty [00:17:15]:
Definitely more art and like design. Like, I really like to create things in my house and spaces. And I'm especially drawn to my house right now because the year that I had chosen the word “ease” was the year I also had a house fire. And so I'm, you know, just like recreating home for us. So that's, that's what I'm into these days. I'm remembering the name of the author, Natasha Trethewey. It was her memoir that was so beautifully written. She was a poet laureate. And so of course her words are just art and her story is shocking. So that's that one.

Kathie [00:18:02]:
So many good writers out there. So many good, good books.

Patty [00:18:05]:
Yeah.

Kathie [00:18:06]:
What are you working on now? Do you want to write another book? How many do you have in you?

Patty [00:18:10]:
Yeah, that's a great question because the first book I wrote, I was like, I'm never writing another one again. So I think I need to go through like a recovery period after each of them and notice what I'm drawn to. I mean, like I said, Not Your Granny's Grammar was pretty much 30 years in the making of solving a problem of practice that I could not figure out. And so there are other things that I've been, other problems of practice that I have been trying to figure out. And there's a couple bubbling around in my mind, but I'm not yet done with grammar.

Kathie [00:18:43]:
Good for you. I love it. People just have made so much fun of me over the years and just dismissed, and I like grammar. I don't know why. I don't know what else to call it. You know, vocabulary, the definition, the connotation, the sound, the, I don't know. I just, I'm a worder. A wordsmith, a word Jones. Yes. I like words.

Patty [00:19:09]:
Yes. Gosh, I do too. When we are given the experience of playing with words, like true play, like not a game where somebody wins or loses because shame is brought into that, but creation through play, like without there being someone on deck to correct the heck out of you, but instead getting playful. When we can change that, especially with young people, because some of us are already, you know, have that, like I mentioned earlier, that voice in our heads. But when we can create playful experiences with words. It'll be more of us.

Kathie [00:19:48]:
Yes. Do the kids get to have a Q&A with you?

Patty [00:19:51]:
Yeah.

Kathie [00:19:52]:
Are there any questions that they ask all the time? A common one?

Patty [00:19:55]:
Yeah. So part of my reflective practice in grammar is for us to pause and say, what have we learned? And what are we curious about? And I just love what they come up with. Things like, can you have three dependent clauses in one sentence? Or can you have three OR MORE clauses in a sentence? How would you punctuate that? They ask questions like, does a preposition make a complex sentence? You know, they're really very intuitive when we give them the chance to play.

Kathie [00:20:32]:
I love it.

Patty [00:20:32]:
When we give them the chance to be curious, most kids fall right into it. One of my favorite things that I heard, I was in a 7th grade classroom, which if anybody remembers 7th grade classrooms, they're usually the ones that are the most, there's the most angst, teen angst and not even a teenager yet, but I was demoing a couple of lessons that I might do and I told the kids this is a new way. And when I was leaving, one of the boys yells to me, that's so much better than the old way. So, not just questions, but responses as well.

Kathie [00:21:09]:
That's great. Thank you so much for grammarizing with me. Grammar geeking.

Patty [00:21:16]:
My pleasure.

Kathie [00:21:17]:
This was fun.

Patty [00:21:18]:
Thank you.

Kathie [00:21:19]:
See you, Patty.

Patty [00:21:20]:
Thanks. Bye.

OUTRO [00:21:21]:
Thanks for listening to this episode of Writers Rotation. Like and subscribe for more. And remember, writing is a marketable skill. Smiling is a remarkable skill.