Well, at least consider the comment of a student I was working with after school today. He's never really concentrated on parts of speech before in his life, and he has been quite confused so far this year.

However, a few light bulbs have gone off--and he even made the connection between "object of the preposition" and the "objective case pronouns" today. He also laughed when I told him that on the test I would try to trap kids by calling proper nouns a part of speech in a multiple choice listing of various incorrect and one correct listing. He's coming along so well that I got tears in my eyes right after he left me today. There is no high higher in my life than seeing a student begin to understand. It is the best thing I know.

I asked him to name the parts of speech (one of many practices) and he said,

"Noun...pronoun...verb....adjective....adverb....suburb....conjunction....and ejaculation."

And I promise you I am telling God's truth. I can hold my laughter almost always, but when he said that final part of speech I burst out laughing and laughed and laughed and laughed. I laughed so hard that he began laughing with me, all the while asking, "What's so funny, Ms. E? What's so funny?"