The Beginning of Mechanically Inclined

So far in my readings for Mechanically Inclined, I have decided that I really like the author’s style and approach to this book. The fact that he is not a “grammarian” or a “punctilious” or even a stickler, really gives me hope that it will be easy to learn from this book, feeling the same way about grammar. (At this point I spelled grammar wrong and actually laughed out loud at myself) I will have to say that if it weren’t for smart computers these days, I would be in some serious trouble with my writing, but I am learning. Anyway, I digress; I made a few notes to myself in the margins of the book as I read. They were mostly to simplify a sentence so I could remember it better later such as; on page five where the author defines grammar and mechanics I wrote, in short, grammar= the function of words and mechanics= punctuation or conventions. I noticed this mostly because we had already discussed this in class, and it was nice to have that reinforced in the reading. I also really liked the table on page 7 that lists the “20 most common errors in order of frequency” because I realized that those are the things that I notice the most in my own writing and in my friends writing. Even more than (or is it then?) the first figure, I like the second figure and it’s broken down concepts that are most often misused.
Later in the reading, I highlighted the sentence, “context is about meaning” as a marker to remind myself the points I always forget. I liked the sentence pattern approach the author uses, and the fact that he uses workshops with his students instead of worksheets and grammar books, which hammer in the details, but mostly leave out the content and contexts. Helping students to focus on their individual problems that plague them most, and working on the little things later seems to be a very good way to make sure students are actually learning what they need to do, not just memorizing. Interesting, and noted.

Self-assessments assessing

The draft for my self-assessment essay has been tugging at my mind since the assignment was given. I went through and foudn some old papers, unfortunatly, after looking over those old papers, I noticed that the teacher hadn't really been grading for those kinds of problems, nust for content, so I had to go through other avenues to find what was wrong with my writing. I found that my biggest problem is apostrophe’s, since I am never really sure where they go depending on the word. Good thing that's what my mini-lesson is on right? :-) I also have a problem with fragments, I like to make short and sweet sentence, or, well, they aren't really sentences since they are fragments! My other problem is commas, of course! I am one of those people that followed the "when you pause" rule, and I over-use them all the time. Many, many times teachers have pointed out that my comma use doesnt make sense or shouldn't be there. I'm not really sure if this counts as my blog entry, so there will be another one, but I just thought I would put my thoughts out there and see if anyone agrees? Common problems or am I just crazy? :-)