tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-53770727694689161652024-02-08T09:29:55.733-08:00Grammar Goes Down by Brittanie Brown!Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12853727081268287610noreply@blogger.comBlogger8125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5377072769468916165.post-18614281029820181622012-10-21T12:53:00.004-07:002012-10-21T12:53:46.878-07:00<br />
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<span style="color: #c00000; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">Passive Voice/
Transitive Verbs<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #7030a0; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">Abstract Subjects<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #0070c0; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">Linking Verbs<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">Part of an old paper I wrote for
multicultural lit…<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="color: #7030a0; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">The concept of </span><span style="color: black; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">otherness
has been a </span><span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">huge theme throughout the second half of the semester<span style="color: #7030a0;">. </span><span style="color: black;">The actual
dictionary.com definition for “otherness” is the state or fact of being
different or distinct. These characters feel like the other, because they are
comparing themselves to other people and feel that if they are of a different
race, gender, class, religion, ethnic group or sexuality then they are very
different and distinct in that social environment. </span><span style="color: #0070c0;">If being different is based on this, then everyone must
be considered an “other”, it just depends on where you go</span><span style="color: black;">. </span><span style="color: #c00000;">Specifically, in the
text that we have read in this half of the semester, race and culture seem to
be the prominent traits of otherness</span><span style="color: black;">.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Blue</i>st
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Eye, </i></span><span style="color: #7030a0;">for
example</span><span style="color: black;">, the little African American girls
wanted to be blonde haired and blue eyed so they could<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> </i>finally call themselves beautiful. In Sherman Alexie’s short
stories, he was treated differently by the white people because he was Native
American, and in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Woman Warrior, </i>the
main characters were treated differently in America because of their Chinese
culture. </span><span style="color: #7030a0;">These people were regarded as </span><span style="color: black;">“other” because they had a different skin color or come
from a different culture than white Americans. The characters from the short
stories, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Woman Warrior, </i>and the<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> Bluest Eye </i>were mainly treated with
disrespect and not treated like everyone else mostly because of things out of
their control.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">………<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="color: black; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">In the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Woman Warrior </i>Chinese culture is
explained, and Chinese American culture is exemplified. When the main
character’s aunt gets pregnant out of wedlock, she gets persecuted and
definitely treated like the other, buy the people in her Chinese village</span><span style="color: #c00000; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">.
When they finally move to America, I think that the Chinese Americans actually
treat the white people as others, and seclude them from their lives.</span><span style="color: black; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">
Even though the main character is educated, she feels like she’s not good
enough, and feels like an “other” in that scenario also.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="color: black; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span><span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">In
conclusion, all of these stories exemplify the definition of otherness<span style="color: black;">, by being different.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span></span><span style="color: #7030a0;">I think that our society in general,
treat “others” like an untouchable creature that they’re scared of, but in all
actuality they are the same as everyone else</span><span style="color: black;">.
In our society, most people want to be individualistic and different, so then why
do we treat someone who is that way so harshly, and judge them so severely? The
way our country constructs the other is not in a positive light, and I think
that creates barriers between different cultures, because no one is open to
anything different. All in all I think that our country is a melting pot for
different cultures, it’s just an underestimated, impervious pot.</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><span style="color: black;"></span></span></span> </div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: small;">
</span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">“Otherness” has been a
reoccurring theme in the novels that we read for the second half of the
semester. The characters feel like others because they compare themselves to other
people and find that they are different. In the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Bluest Eye, </i>Sherman Alexie’s short stories, and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Woman Warrior, </i>race and culture were
the reason the characters were regarded as “other”. These characters were
treated with disrespect because of their race and culture—things that they
couldn’t control.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: small;">
</span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">In the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Woman Warrior </i>Chinese culture is
explained, and Chinese American culture is exemplified. The Chinese culture is
very strict, and when a woman gets pregnant out of wedlock, she was
disrespected and persecuted by the people in her village. The Chinese Americans
treated the Caucasians as others. The main character is educated, but feels
like she’s not good enough—so she’s an “other” also.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: small;">
</span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">These stories
exemplify “otherness” by being different. Society epitomizes individuality, but
when someone different comes along, they are judged harshly. American society constructs
the “other” in a negative light, which creates barriers between different
cultures. Our country is a melting pot for different cultures; it’s just an
underestimated, impervious pot.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">
<o:p></o:p></span></span><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">446 words to 193!</span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12853727081268287610noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5377072769468916165.post-49286772842556134162012-10-13T18:38:00.003-07:002012-10-13T18:38:48.216-07:00
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This is a couple paragraphs of a
paper I wrote for my Multicultural Literature class at a college I previously
attended. The topic of my paper is postmodernism. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="color: #f79646; mso-themecolor: accent6;">Participle<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #4bacc6; mso-themecolor: accent5;">Absolute<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #8064a2; mso-themecolor: accent4;">Appositive<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #9bbb59; mso-themecolor: accent3;">Adjectives <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #c0504d; mso-themecolor: accent2;">Active Voice<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #1f497d; mso-themecolor: text2;">Passive Voice<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #1f497d; mso-themecolor: text2;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #1f497d; mso-themecolor: text2;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span>Death
was a very prevalent theme in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">White Noise.
</i>I’ve also come to the conclusion that death is a major, maybe even the
major, theme in postmodernity. In <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">White
Noise,</i> Jack and Babette were so afraid to die that they would do almost
anything to suppress the fear, or stay as far away from death as possible. <span style="color: #c0504d; mso-themecolor: accent2;">Babette took Dylar</span>, an
experimental drug barely tested on humans, just to try and suppress her fear of
death. Even though it is highly ironic that she is risking her life, <span style="color: #f79646; mso-themecolor: accent6;">sleeping with a strange man for
the pills and taking a highly experimental drug to suppress her fear of dying</span>,
death seems to be an idea, <span style="color: #9bbb59; mso-themecolor: accent3;">awful
and terrifying</span>, <span style="color: #4bacc6; mso-themecolor: accent5;">lingering
over Jack and Babette’s heads like a dark cloud that never leaves</span>. They
often had conversations about who would die first, even though both of them are
afraid of the correct answer. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Death was also a strong theme in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Fight Club. </i>The novel more focused on
the idea of living in the moment and doing things that you wouldn’t regret
before you die. The scene with the mechanic still sticks in my head; t<span style="color: #1f497d; mso-themecolor: text2;">he car was driven by the mechanic</span>,
head on into traffic about to kill all the other passengers. The narrator was
afraid that he was going to get killed at first, but then decided he wanted to
die. He realized that everything that was a part of his life wasn’t important
at all--his Ikea furniture, all of the other the things he owned. He
apprehended that material items don’t mean anything at all when a person dies.
Is it the exhaustion of progress when everyone just gives up?<o:p></o:p></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12853727081268287610noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5377072769468916165.post-2391877604267410242012-10-07T11:59:00.000-07:002012-10-07T11:59:01.358-07:00
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<span style="color: #8064a2; mso-themecolor: accent4;">Participles<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #f79646; mso-themecolor: accent6;">Absolutes<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #4bacc6; mso-themecolor: accent5;">Appositives</span><o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
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<span style="color: #00b050;">Adjectives<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #00b050;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span><span style="color: #8064a2; mso-themecolor: accent4;">Sitting in a chair, staring at the
standard Microsoft Word template</span>, I wonder what I should write about
this week for my grammar blog.<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Every week
it gets harder for me to write this blog, because I’m running out of things to
write about. <span style="color: #f79646; mso-themecolor: accent6;">The clock
ticking, anxiety overtaking</span>, the time is speeding up faster and faster,
as I’m trying to write this blog on schedule. I’m only a few sentences in, and
I have twenty minutes to do this blog and post it on time. As I’m writing this,
I still haven’t decided on a topic for my blog. The clock, <span style="color: #4bacc6; mso-themecolor: accent5;">a ticking time bomb</span>, keeps
speeding forward, the second hand going faster than I thought possible. I try
to read my other classmates blogs to get inspired. Their blogs, <span style="color: #00b050;">great and interesting</span>, are too good to snag a
topic from – I could never do them justice.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I am back
to the drawing board. Somehow, I got all four patterns of the week in my first
paragraph. At least that’s something I can check off the list, but I should
probably get another paragraph or two in my blog. I know I shouldn’t
procrastinate so much, but it is a habit I’ve been struggling with for my whole
schooling career. I remember waiting to study for spelling tests until the
night before in second grade. Yes, I’ve definitely had the procrastination
problem for a while now. I usually post my blog an hour or so before its due;
but unfortunately, this is the one day my body decides it wants to sleep in. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Even though
I like to procrastinate, I know I need to get my work done—which, I always do.
The problem is, my work usually gets done at two in the morning. My logic is
that if I have free time, let’s say two days before, I will think “well it’s
due in two days, I don’t have to worry about it” so I’ll usually read instead.
Even though it’s my logic, I know that I shouldn’t be procrastinating so much.
It’s definitely easier to talk the talk, then to walk the walk, but I’m going
to challenge myself this week not to procrastinate so much. We’ll see how that
goes!<o:p></o:p></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12853727081268287610noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5377072769468916165.post-57164802989855918642012-09-30T11:12:00.001-07:002012-09-30T11:12:17.366-07:00
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SINCE I’m not very creative, I’ll
just write about school. I missed classes Wednesday through Friday last week
because I came down with the despicable stomach flu. It’s probably the nerd in
me but I absolutely hate missing school. I usually can’t figure out what is
going on in the assignments, let alone this blog. IF IT WASN’T FOR MY SAVING
GRACE, GOOGLE, I wouldn’t even know what an appositive was. WHOMEVER CAN SKIP
CLASS ON A REGULAR BASIS I envy. I’M THE TYPE OF PERSON WHO NEEDS TO LISTEN,
LEARN, AND COMPREHEND MATERIAL IN CLASS OR IN A LECTURE (is that parallelism
correct?). I can’t just read a book and be prepared for the tests without going
to class, like some can. <o:p></o:p></div>
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ALTHOUGH I am not really sure if I’m
using parallelism, relative clauses, and appositives correctly in this blog; I
KNOW HOW TO USE ONE THING CORRECTLY: AAAWWUBBIS. IT SEEMS—TO ME—LIKE THIS CLASS
(ENGL 326) was one of the hardest to miss. It is one of my favorite classes and
one of the most fun. WHOEVER says anything different is wrong! Because of my
love for this class, I was so sad to miss it. I had hoped I wouldn’t miss any
large concepts, but I guess I was wrong. Hopefully I can get a handle on
appositives, relative clauses and parallelism very soon.<o:p></o:p></div>
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I’m not sure I did the patterns of
the week correctly, so if you see any mistakes, please correct me! I feel sort
of confident that I got most of my appositives right, but for all I know I have
faulty parallelism. So if you find issues, tell me! I need help! <o:p></o:p></div>
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To end on a random thought-</div>
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As I was writing this blog, I
realized how intentional our sentence structure is for our blogs- it almost
has to be. I’ve never really thought about how to structure my sentences when
writing anything; I just wanted to get my point across. Now I just find how more
aware I am of syntax and grammar when I read or write anything.</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12853727081268287610noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5377072769468916165.post-24378010673741466222012-09-23T10:46:00.003-07:002012-09-23T10:46:46.135-07:00
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Grammar
class was very interesting this week. On Tuesday we made ten S-V-O, S-Vi and
S-Lv-Sc sentences on a magnet board. ALTHOUGH this seems like an easy task, we
had to make sentences with only words that were given to us. I thought this
activity was really fun, AND I was finally starting to understand how to
pinpoint all three types of sentences. WHEN we did this activity it was very
helpful, FOR I was having a lot of difficulties with these intransitive,
transitive and linking verb sentences. <o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
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UNTIL we starting going over
everybody’s sentences on Thursday, I thought I was finally getting this grammar
thing. I was wrong. The transitive, intransitive and linking verb sentences
just unclicked from my mind, BUT as I started to read through “More
Nitty-Gritty Grammar” it started to make more sense. <o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
What I discovered is the transitive
verbs and intransitive verbs are the opposite of each other. An intransitive
verb doesn’t have a direct object, SO a transitive verb does. WHILE these two
verbs seem to be simple, the linking verbs are a little more complicated, YET
these verbs are still easy to master. There are three different kinds of
linking verbs. The first includes a verb that means “to be”. To make a linking
verb “to be” sentence, one of these must be used: is, are, am, was, OR were
(When using “or” in this context, is it still a FANBOYS?). The second kind is a
verb that has something to do with the senses: to touch, hear, see, taste, and
smell. The last kind of linking verb is in a miscellaneous group. The verbs
like appear, believe, grow, remain, prove, and become are linking verbs.<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I can’t
believe I finally understand these sentences! I don’t think that our teacher,
NOR anyone else could help me. This was a difficulty that I had to figure out
and learn for myself, and I can say that I understand transitive, intransitive
and linking verbs. I think that these were so hard for me to understand because
most everything else in this class was a nice review. These verbs were some
that I had never heard of, and it was the first really big concept that was new
to me in this class.<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>We also
talked about FANBOYS and AAAWWUBBIS clauses. I remember FANBOYS from years ago,
but I really don’t think I was using them correctly. Thinking back I don’t
think I always put a comma before “and” and now I know why it is needed. This week
has been a good one, and I definitely learned a lot. Even though I didn’t know
how to quite identify the transitive, intransitive, and linking verb sentences OR
how to correctly punctuate the FANBOYS before this week, I do now and I am very
glad for that!<o:p></o:p></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12853727081268287610noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5377072769468916165.post-15311370334142578322012-09-16T10:38:00.002-07:002012-09-16T10:38:48.202-07:00
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I have
learned a lot in our grammar class so far. Last week, I learned how to use
possessive pronouns, namely: ITS, WHOSE, YOURS and THEIRS. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I think that I already understood most of
those, but I have always been hesitant to use them. Actually, I’ve always
hesitated when using grammar I’m unsure about. I often take extra time while
writing a paper and restructure the whole sentence, just to avoid being uneasy
about my grammar. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I have
also learned a lot this week, while we are starting to really crack down on
grammar. I, MYSELF, don’t use the F- word that often, but I now know it’s
grammatically correct to use it any way I please! This week has also been a
real refresher for me. I haven’t been in a class that had anything to do with
grammar for roughly six years, so it was nice to see where the subject, the
noun, the verb, and the adjective went in the sentence. Even though I knew the
basics, I was still a little hazy on them. After the newspaper exercises, it
was nice to have the affirmation that I really knew what each word represented
in the sentence. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">The prepositions were nice to touch
on also. I remember learning, “The squirrel ran blank the log” and we had to
fill in the blank with the word we thought was a preposition, and if it worked,
it was. BETWEEN YOU AND ME, through school I always used the squirrel trick,
and as an adult, I still do. When I was younger, I used to be so good at spotting
prepositional phrases, and now I don’t know what happened! For some reason I
thought that the words that came after a preposition near the end of a sentence
was always a prepositional phrase. It was cleared up, though, that a
prepositional phrase cannot contain both a subject and a verb. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">It was really nice to re-learn what
I’ve forgotten about grammar and to be more confident now that I remember what
I’m doing (somewhat). This week has been very helpful, overall, and I’m glad
that we’re really starting to get into sentence structures. If there is any
error you can find in this blog post, let me know. I’m always up for some
constructive criticism, and am ready to learn from my mistakes!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12853727081268287610noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5377072769468916165.post-54986444355427639572012-09-09T11:23:00.001-07:002012-09-09T11:32:32.029-07:00<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-family: Arial;">I have learned a lot so far in this
grammar class. The article, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Dora Learns
to Write, </i>was very helpful. It gave me a good sense in what teaching
methods I should use and how I could implement them in my teaching. It really
convinced me that marking up a paper with red corrections, and just handing it
back to the student without any other feedback is not helpful at all to the
child. They would probably just repeat the same mistakes again in another
paper. The article also shows that one of ITS main focus’ is not using
worksheets. Worksheets are very structured and it’s proven that children would
learn better using correct grammar in their own writing, as opposed to
sentences that they will probably never write. Another thing that really stood
out to me in the article was how the teacher taught and interacted with Dora. Even
though the teacher was guiding Dora along the way, she really let Dora figure
it out for herself. I think Dora was more fulfilled, and got more out of the
experience than she would’ve if the teacher just told her what she needed to do
and how to fix her writing. Another thing that really stood out to me was when
Dora brought one of her writings to the teacher and she used the period in the
right way; the teacher smiled at Dora when she saw that Dora did something so
well, and didn’t mention the other mistake Dora had in her writing. I think
this made a big impact on Dora, because she was praised for doing something right,
and her self-esteem was raised a little bit, as opposed to being more and more
discouraged every time she realizes she did something wrong. I think this
article was very beneficial to me. It showed me that how I learned grammar was a
lot different than how it should be taught, and how to teach to be more
valuable to the student. The Socratic Seminar was very interesting also. We
discussed what we thought about the article, but more so on Thursday, effective
teaching methods. We were talking about how difficult it would be to sit down
with every student in a class of thirty, and try to help them out with their
specific needs. A good solution would be to take the top three things that the
majority of children were having a problem with and teach that to the whole
class, and then the rest could come get help after class. It was also
interesting to listen to my classmates talking about how they learned and what
was more effective for them in English.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">The article was easy to understand and
I didn’t really have any trouble with that. I also understand more about how to
fix my own grammar, and the poster activity was a large help for that. I cannot
really think of a large concept that I’m having a huge issue with at the moment.
All in All, the past two weeks were very helpful in the class, and it answered a
lot of questions that I had about teaching grammar, and fixing my own. I am learning that AS A STUDENT, I am learning how to teach; AS A TEACHER, I have a lot of work to do.</span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12853727081268287610noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5377072769468916165.post-44603479369331519002012-08-26T11:38:00.000-07:002012-08-26T11:40:21.162-07:00<br />
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"><span style="font-family: Arial;"> </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I have always had a few reoccurring
problems with my grammar that I never really tried to fix. I have always loved
to use Microsoft Word to fulfill all of my spelling and grammatical needs. I
know that I shouldn’t be relying on Word, but seeing a squiggly line to fix is
much easier, faster, maybe more indolent than proofing my own work. I have
though, come to the conclusion that Word is not always right. One of my goals
is to develop the knowledge needed to be able to correct all of my grammatical
mistakes myself, instead of relying on Word to do it for me.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I have
always liked to write how I talk, which brings on many issues within itself.
One of my favorite things to do is to put commas where I would pause if talking
in actual conversation. Number nine from the Conventions and Income quiz is an
example. “When the ship arrives we can begin the journey.” The sentence is
correct on its own, but my first instinct is to put a comma after “arrives”
because I would pause there when saying it out loud. I don’t know how this
habit came to be but that is one of my main grammatical problems. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">My next problem also has to deal with
commas. After the quiz we took, I realized that I do not recognize comma
splices at all. To be honest, I barely knew what a comma splice was. I always
thought it was okay to join two sentences to make a run-on, but now I realize
that that is not the case. For instance, “We packed all of our luggage, then we
were on our way to the airport.” I could not find a problem with that sentence
at all, and I still don’t really see a problem with it, although I know it’s
wrong. I think I am in dire need of a comma intervention! <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Another large problem I have has to
do with quotation marks. I’ve never really learned how to use them, or
punctuate them, properly. I never can tell if they look right or not, and I
usually do my best to avoid them at all costs. I also have trouble quoting an
ongoing conversation properly, and I have actually opened novels before just to
see how conversations are supposed to be properly structured. I think that I
never really learned how to use quotation marks properly, and I am very
uncomfortable using them. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>To be honest, I probably have a few
more problems with my grammar, but I chose the top three. I haven’t really been
in an English class that taught grammar since Seventh Grade, so I’m hoping that
this course will be a nice refresher for me. I can already tell that I am going
to learn a lot, and I’m excited to do so. I somehow want to be an English
teacher, even with my bad grammar habits, but I am ready to improve these bad
habits and conquer grammar!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12853727081268287610noreply@blogger.com1