This chapter connects fairly well with Kiel in the way that it involves real world style classroom and its examples, and talks about actual work with students and the observations made in those situations. It “draw[s] on many years’ experience in the classroom writing with children…” (Weaver 39). Both of these authors use personal experiences to come up with their ideas and teaching methods, and both find creative ways to express that to new teachers as with Kiel, he talks about his classroom in simple enough terms to not intimidate the reader, and keeps it clear that he was never a stickler for grammar in the first place, connecting to the general public. With Cordeiro, she “discusses how children grow in developing conventional endmarking and in defining “sentence-ness” ( Weaver 39). Her use of words like “sentence-ness” gives the reader a sense of ease that this reading won’t be too complicated and full of technical terms as with Constance Weaver’s writing so far. You can also assume from the fact that Cordeiro’s whole chapter is essentially all a fictional story, about Dora, that what you are reading is opinion, and can be taken into consideration, but does not claim to be fact, something missing from Weaver’s writing so far-as she describes child development in technical cases that may or may not be proven yet.
All of the comma descriptions in this chapter are interesting to me; I highlighted almost all of them for future reference. I especially appreciate the fact that they are real world terms as well, not just dictionary-like descriptions on how to use them. Along with that, I was not present for Jennifer’s mini-lesson but I did see many references to fragments in this chapter such as the “what older writers do” section were the development of writing starts to bring new errors to the table such as fragments and this is what it says
“As these two learnings come together, (writing experience and awareness of the
nature of a written sentence) children begin to produce a different kind of error. They first begin to isolate whole parts of sentences. These phrase structure separations are classifiable in the basis of syntactic and semantic considerations, and represent overt demarcated grammatical awareness. Referred to as fragments, they are commonly treated as being all of the same nature” (Weaver 51).
It’s all a little, hard-core technical, but informative as well, mixing the scientific with the experience and showing how a child’s development physical and in their writing changed the mistakes that they will and are beginning to make.
Monday, September 22, 2008
Sunday, September 14, 2008
Lessons that were shared
“Lessons to Share on Teaching Grammar in Context” is an interesting book. The information that I have received from it so far though, is very much along the same lines as every other child development/psychology book. The fact that all the information is about children’s language development makes me feel like I am reading all of the same books over and over again. I am sure that farther into the book it will break more out of development into teaching grammar specifically. And I can’t wait for that.
So far the two authors we have read don’t really meet up in their writing at least, at all. In the first book, he immediately dug into why he is different from most grammar teachers, from my grammar authors. He outlines his classroom and the different teaching styles he uses to get his class motivated and involved with their studies. This book begins by outlining where she got het information and her basis for study. This book is much more detailed about the research she bases everything on, citing Chomsky, Wells, Miller and Ervin, Kiel, and Nagy and Herman. She outlines childhood language development and spends time talking about each stage while the other author immediately dove into his specific classroom and what he expects from his students.
Weaver’s in-depth discussion of what we do and don’t know about students as they begin learning is very helpful in getting to know what you can’t expect from each individual student and the overall classroom.
It is interesting to me to see how language develops in a more specific sense, and even more interesting to really look back and realize that language is so ingrained in a child’s mind before they even begin to understand it in print, and way before they begin to understand the conventions and inner-workings of language and how to use it.
I really cannot wait to read farther into this book and learn more about language development and this persons teaching style ideas and guidelines. Woo hoo!
So far the two authors we have read don’t really meet up in their writing at least, at all. In the first book, he immediately dug into why he is different from most grammar teachers, from my grammar authors. He outlines his classroom and the different teaching styles he uses to get his class motivated and involved with their studies. This book begins by outlining where she got het information and her basis for study. This book is much more detailed about the research she bases everything on, citing Chomsky, Wells, Miller and Ervin, Kiel, and Nagy and Herman. She outlines childhood language development and spends time talking about each stage while the other author immediately dove into his specific classroom and what he expects from his students.
Weaver’s in-depth discussion of what we do and don’t know about students as they begin learning is very helpful in getting to know what you can’t expect from each individual student and the overall classroom.
It is interesting to me to see how language develops in a more specific sense, and even more interesting to really look back and realize that language is so ingrained in a child’s mind before they even begin to understand it in print, and way before they begin to understand the conventions and inner-workings of language and how to use it.
I really cannot wait to read farther into this book and learn more about language development and this persons teaching style ideas and guidelines. Woo hoo!
Wednesday, September 3, 2008
Ch3-4 on the inclination towards mechanics
In these chapters of Mechanically Inclined, the author talks mostly about different workshops that he works with his students in and different tactics to get them to remember what they are learning. He begins by talking about how editing marks are the writing killer for many students and it is like “X’s over their souls, their desires” and also how by the time students reach middle school “they hate writing” (27). He goes into detail about pre-writing and then delves right into “Writers Notebooks” (29). The pro of a writer notebook is that it is a “place where writing won’t get marked up anyone except, perhaps, themselves. Everything in a writers notebook is in process all the time. It is a place to return-to mine and refine, polish and relish, reread and rewrite” (29). I found the writers notebook really interesting, I think that if I had had an outlet like a writers notebook when I was developing my writing, I would have learned to like writing more than just reading. Reading was easy, all you have to do is understand, something I feel like I have been able to do easily do at any time. I highlighted a lot more in these chapters, I agree with much of what the author has to say about his teaching style. The only thing that has come to really bother me about his style, or what he talks about is the same thing BJ said, he alludes to teaching in “inner-city” schools and how much success he has, like he is teaching the at-risk kids and making a Mr. Holland’s Opus impact on their lives, bringing them out of their unwanted, unneeded, never-can-learn outlook on life to a new view on learning, they just magically respond perfectly to everything he teaches them and asks them. Besides that though, I really do agree with what he has to say about getting students involved in their own writing.
I particularly liked the list of “The Writers Eye (I): Lists of Things I Can Write About” (35). It seems to be a very helpful list you could give to students to get them thinking about what they can write. One thing I did find slightly obnoxious also though, was the AAAWWUBBIS because it reminds me of middle school when we had to memorize all of the conjunctions, or the different “be am are is was were, being been, have has had, do did does, may might must..etc.” I have them memorized, but I can not for the life of me remember what they are, or why I memorized them.
The next chapter and his explanation of mechanics is also very helpful, his explanation that it is a “visual skill” and how they are “meant to serve the writer in meaning-making” (51), really helped me in beginning my thinking of what I want to teach my future students. Mainly I got the idea that I need to make sure I ask questions of my students of what they are learning, and to make sure they and I list dialogue conventions to refer back to later, another skill I would have liked to have learned earlier on in my life.
I particularly liked the list of “The Writers Eye (I): Lists of Things I Can Write About” (35). It seems to be a very helpful list you could give to students to get them thinking about what they can write. One thing I did find slightly obnoxious also though, was the AAAWWUBBIS because it reminds me of middle school when we had to memorize all of the conjunctions, or the different “be am are is was were, being been, have has had, do did does, may might must..etc.” I have them memorized, but I can not for the life of me remember what they are, or why I memorized them.
The next chapter and his explanation of mechanics is also very helpful, his explanation that it is a “visual skill” and how they are “meant to serve the writer in meaning-making” (51), really helped me in beginning my thinking of what I want to teach my future students. Mainly I got the idea that I need to make sure I ask questions of my students of what they are learning, and to make sure they and I list dialogue conventions to refer back to later, another skill I would have liked to have learned earlier on in my life.
Tuesday, September 2, 2008
That's all. Folks!
I went through and found some old papers, unfortunately, after looking over those old papers, I noticed that the teacher hadn't really been grading for those kinds of problems, most 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 apostrophes, (an example of a word I had a hard time deciding if there was an apostrophe in or not) 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 doesn’t make sense or shouldn't be there.
Nitty Gritty Grammer says this about each:
On apostrophes pp. 30-32, “Use apostrophes: to replace missing letters in contradictions or surnames.” Examples of apostrophe work, do+not=don’t or O’Donell where the O is of for ‘of Donell’ (they also) replace missing numerals or letters as in ‘Class of ‘05’ of ‘Class of 2005’ They show possession, ‘the teacher’s view of her students’. (Or) to form plurals.”
On commas pp. 54-55, 99; Ironically- “Signals a pause, as if taking a breath. Put one space after a comma. (Use Commas) to separate an introductory word or phrase from the rest of the sentence, to indicate direct address, when someone is speaking to someone else, to signal a change of subject or action, to separate two independent clauses joined by a conjunction, to separate spoken words from the rest of the sentence, to separate two adjectives that modify the same noun, to separate words that signal that an example is coming, and to separate items in a series with serial commas.” A good example is in the previous quotation and this one! Don’t forget comma splices too, which is “where a period or a semicolon is needed…(you) accidentally (use) commas to splice two complete sentences together.” I am positive this is what makes my sentences awkward most of the time.
On fragments pp. 100 “Putting a capital at the beginning and a period at the end of a string of words doesn’t always create a complete sentence. Fragments are incomplete sentences, such as stranded dependant clauses.”
Like BJ, I feel I use fragments usually to create emphasis. I separate a few words by periods to make them stand out from everything else that I have said. I use commas splices to make awkward sentences, and I make words and phrases plural or possessive that aren’t by adding apostrophes where they don’t belong.
In class, as we talked about working on one thing at a time with students instead of bombarding them with information and trying to teach them everything at once, I realized that I’m pretty sure no teacher ever told me to stop making sentence fragments, or explained what a sentence fragment was. Weird huh? Since I have so much writing in my past such as the short stories and so forth without ever getting that correction may have lead to my fragmenting. It may even be that I like to write poetry, a medium in which knowing grammar isn’t required and following the rules is so not cool. For the love of everything holy, if I knew I was messing up myself so much with my poetry I think…oh wait, no I would have kept on writing it. J
An example of some of my writing goes as follows:
“The male dominated story has more of a calculating, gruesome lunacy; while the female dominated story has more feeling to it and less planning but more hysteria, which fits well with the times and the belief that women were always hysterical because of their female organs, i.e. the fact that women have hysterectomies. There isn’t much difference between the two characters, besides their gender and slightly their time period. Both these texts are also from different genres.”
It sounds kind of gruesome out of context, but my use of commas is fun, specifically because I can remember going back and adding those commas to eradicate the awkward fragments my grammar checker kept underlining. The last sentence was marked awkward by my professor, but grammar checker said it was ok, so now I begin to worry. Hopefully with grammar checker tracking my every move, I can work harder on keeping my commas to a minimum, my fragments non-existent, and my apostrophes where they belong.
Nitty Gritty Grammer says this about each:
On apostrophes pp. 30-32, “Use apostrophes: to replace missing letters in contradictions or surnames.” Examples of apostrophe work, do+not=don’t or O’Donell where the O is of for ‘of Donell’ (they also) replace missing numerals or letters as in ‘Class of ‘05’ of ‘Class of 2005’ They show possession, ‘the teacher’s view of her students’. (Or) to form plurals.”
On commas pp. 54-55, 99; Ironically- “Signals a pause, as if taking a breath. Put one space after a comma. (Use Commas) to separate an introductory word or phrase from the rest of the sentence, to indicate direct address, when someone is speaking to someone else, to signal a change of subject or action, to separate two independent clauses joined by a conjunction, to separate spoken words from the rest of the sentence, to separate two adjectives that modify the same noun, to separate words that signal that an example is coming, and to separate items in a series with serial commas.” A good example is in the previous quotation and this one! Don’t forget comma splices too, which is “where a period or a semicolon is needed…(you) accidentally (use) commas to splice two complete sentences together.” I am positive this is what makes my sentences awkward most of the time.
On fragments pp. 100 “Putting a capital at the beginning and a period at the end of a string of words doesn’t always create a complete sentence. Fragments are incomplete sentences, such as stranded dependant clauses.”
Like BJ, I feel I use fragments usually to create emphasis. I separate a few words by periods to make them stand out from everything else that I have said. I use commas splices to make awkward sentences, and I make words and phrases plural or possessive that aren’t by adding apostrophes where they don’t belong.
In class, as we talked about working on one thing at a time with students instead of bombarding them with information and trying to teach them everything at once, I realized that I’m pretty sure no teacher ever told me to stop making sentence fragments, or explained what a sentence fragment was. Weird huh? Since I have so much writing in my past such as the short stories and so forth without ever getting that correction may have lead to my fragmenting. It may even be that I like to write poetry, a medium in which knowing grammar isn’t required and following the rules is so not cool. For the love of everything holy, if I knew I was messing up myself so much with my poetry I think…oh wait, no I would have kept on writing it. J
An example of some of my writing goes as follows:
“The male dominated story has more of a calculating, gruesome lunacy; while the female dominated story has more feeling to it and less planning but more hysteria, which fits well with the times and the belief that women were always hysterical because of their female organs, i.e. the fact that women have hysterectomies. There isn’t much difference between the two characters, besides their gender and slightly their time period. Both these texts are also from different genres.”
It sounds kind of gruesome out of context, but my use of commas is fun, specifically because I can remember going back and adding those commas to eradicate the awkward fragments my grammar checker kept underlining. The last sentence was marked awkward by my professor, but grammar checker said it was ok, so now I begin to worry. Hopefully with grammar checker tracking my every move, I can work harder on keeping my commas to a minimum, my fragments non-existent, and my apostrophes where they belong.
Saturday, August 30, 2008
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.
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.
Friday, August 29, 2008
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? :-)
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