Adverbs and Ajectives

Grammar Rx presentation here I come

Adverbs modify verbs; while adjectives modify nouns. 

I really really hope that is right or else I've been getting this wrong for many years of my life.  But I thought there was not much more to know about adjectives and adverbs.  Apparently I am wrong.

Anderson first discusses are adjective strings, or placing many adjective in a sentence to "beef-up" a sentence when in reality the line of adjectives make the sentence look clunky and lose the flow.  He proposes the idea of the "Human Sentence" and if I were constructing an Rx for Adjectives I would attempt to incorporate that into my lesson.  It gives a visual image to paint with, see how a sentence can be manipulated to breath, grow, and change.  As for the adjective clause, I am not sure I understand it 100 percent but I think the idea is to keep the phrase to the left of the noun, an adjective and not another noun. 

Okay now to Adverbs, this is the material I am presenting in my Rx.  

"An Adverb tells when, how, where and to what extent an action or verb is done."  140  Usually adverbs end in ly but there are exceptions to everywhere rule.  Today, I mowed the lawn.  I think would be an exception.  Also -- "Conjunctive adverbs show addition, comparison, contrast example, summary, and time sequence by linking sentences and paragraphs."140.

In his lesson Anderson he puts a small part of dialogue on the board and adds different adverbs to modify the phrase so whoever reads it speaks in a different tone. 

"Adverb clauses tell why, how, when and under what condition things are or were done.  Adverb clauses begin with subordinating conjunctions such as after, although as, when, while, until, because, before, if and since (AAAWWUBBIS)" 138

It could not get away from me.  Okay off the top of my head I do not know what a subordinating conjunction is.  And what is kicker is I know I am supposed to know because we studied them.

From what I gain as my understanding so far is that the adverb describes the aforementioned and the clause part is triggered by one of the AAAWWUBBIS words.  I am thinking right now for my Rx I could give each one a word and then they would have to go around and obtain other examples from one another.  Maybe. or just share. 

March 27

This week I started with the Anderson readings.  I guess this week's theme is going to be verbs.
in the first lesson 4.1 he discusses subject verb agreement.  Personally, I do not know how large the problem is with high schoolers and this topic, but I do not really recall having a problem.  But then again I could make this mistake and then not know I made it either.  The second part of this lesson dealt with correct tenses.  Again, I felt that was a little bit of a no brainer. 

Actually as I started to page through these lessons, many of the lessons seem logical-- when writing.  But Anderson specifically notes, this is what kids 'say'.  Which makes me wonder if the kids are writing the same way.  Same way with texting I guess.  But my dad will say "Imma be right back" but if he were to write down the phrase it would be "I will be right back." or some of my residents will say "That party be off the hook last night man!" but I would hope they would write out, "The party last night was crazy!"

This small tangent brings me to the question:  should we as teachers be correcting our kids speech? Is there a danger for students to start writing as they speak. 

The shifting tenses section 4.4 I am ashamed to say that I missed the error... this has to be my weak spot in my writing.  The only thing is the mini lesson Anderson suggested would not have helped me.  I would have asked for clarification, I do not like vague.  But he's suggesting I do that to my student to help foster their own. 

I'm beginning to realize I am the annoying little student... dang it and I am sorry.

Okay now for chapter 3 of Noden The Artist's Rhythms

okay now for parallel structure, a term I have never heard before, Noden defines as identical grammatical structures that add rhythm and balance to images.  Kinda like writing things down in a series.  Or at least that is my understanding so far.  It could be a whole bunch of symilar words in a line or a phrase repeated over the course of a paragraph but it helps create a flow and mesmerizing quality to writing. 

Noden notes that while these phrases/paragraphs/sentences are beautiful crafted and read they are also very powerful spoken.  This is a funny contrast to the point I made above. 

March 20

Noden Chapter 9,

Before I start I want to ask a question.  After spending hours of precious sleeping time pouring over quotations and secondary sources, second guessing your thesis, waging war in your head over word choices; how many essays has anyone in class written that you actually liked?  An essay you were proud of?  One that you were interested in reading?

I can only think of one.  I wrote freshman year in my English 101 class at IUP about a coming of age story on Che Guevara and a motorcycle trip he took which changed his perspective for life.

I have to admit, I am not too thrilled with this chapter.  I did not expect to be reading about non fiction writing in a grammar book.

I did enjoy the rejection of the 5 paragraph essay.  I have always tried to push the creative boundaries of my non-fiction writing.  The release of my bondage to the 5 paragraph essay was a momentous occasion.  I remember even in high school when my senior English class was writing our literary criticisms we were instructed to write sections as we would a 5 paragraph essay.  Turning towards this new model, one can see different elements of Introduction, exposition narration quotation, description and conclusion into a beautiful, intertwining piece of art.

I like the idea a lot.  But, I struggle with the concepts.  I read the ideas and they make sense.  Many of the types of introductions can be pared with the lessons we learned last class about painting with stronger verbs and adjectives.  But stringing all of these together effectively?  I doubt my own skill.  Reading theory in a book is nothing compared to practice


Noden Chapter 10- Revising, my second favorite part of writing....

Young Harvey sums up my own perspective, "How do I proofread for errors?  I don't know when I'm making an error.  If I knew what an dangling participle was, I wouldn't have dangled it in the first place" (231) -- I laughed so hard at this quote.  Personally I struggle with active/passive voice, comma splice, along with a few other spelling mechanical errors.

Every time I write these blogs I feel like a downer.  So please excuse me ahead of the next few paragraphs.  I am frustrated because even if these books do present good ideas I am skeptical.  I may want the outcome to work.  I just do not know how I can accomplish what teachers with years of experience have accomplished.

Noden suggests there are four sections when it comes to revision:  form, content, style and conventions.  For each of these sections he presents little ideas and checklists for each section of revision.

First he talks about style.  Style, I was always previously taught, was the hardest to bring out in a paper.  Content was always held above form.  He suggests returning to the idea of brush strokes we learned earlier to help stylize.  My worry comes in because I do not remember any of the brush strokes.  And if I do not how will my students effectively learn them and apply them to this revision.

For the use of Conventions he suggests having a checklist to go over when revising.  I actually like this idea because then it gives me a specific type of grammar to focus on at a time while editing a paper.  The form checklist refers to the ideas of the last chapter.  Noden emphasis that each genre will have different requirements that we much meet as writers.  The checklist helps us make sure we covered everything we need to cover.

Content, the usual focal point of most teachers and students when writing a paper.  The checklist for this section focuses on Unity, Development, Coherence and Clarity.  Sound familiar?  Oh yes.

Practice, Practice

I cannot fully express the shock I felt in the moment after I opened up to page 64 in Anderson and saw the word "Fragment" written across the top.  Words cannot describe what I thought was never going to happened and in all honesty, after the shock wore off I was disappointed.  These readings in the past have discussed the use of skill and drill and its ineffectiveness.  Why are these parts of grammar being thrown in our faces? 

In this particular section Anderson discusses the uses of fragments, run-on sentences, dangling modifiers, wrong or missing predispositions, the double negative, and the absolute.  Obviously since I have already discussed my biased feelings on this particular subject matter I took the reading with a grain of salt.  In a way it was a nice refresher to see the rules laid out again.  To help see what children would have problems with.  But at the same time I did not always agree with the rules.  Does that make me a bad writer? 

For example with fragments, Anderson explained how she would always discuss with the class the two questions needed for identifying a sentence.  "Who or what did or is something" and "What did they do or what are they"  These questions identify the subject and the verb; the two basic components for a simple sentence.  Yes I agree, and I think it is important that our students understand that but then again I've seen and entire paragraph entered as one word.

Yes.

simple and powerful, usually answering a question proposed in the previous paragraph.  When is it okay to use that liberty then?  Never?  I'm afraid these mini lessons leave me with more questions. 

Yet Anderson uses a technique that I did find very interesting; "I want the kids to practice visualizing sentences. 'Close your eyes and picture a dog approaching you.'"  Seeing the action of the sentence taking place in your head- seems like the simplest "duh" statement anyone could think of, but in my own writing my head is moving so fast with thoughts I don't usually take the time to step back and look if my message is conveyed correctly.  I don't read the sentence word for word picturing the action in my head.  When I really should.

The reading for Noden was, ...interesting?  I do not know the correct word I am looking for in this very moment.  I never entertained the idea of an original sentence.  Yes a sentence that I write is mine but there has to be another sentence out there some where that is like any sentence I write down.  Does that involve plagiarism?  No, not at all, I am not intentionally stealing their words for my benefit.  Yet Noden takes the approach of modeling sentences.  Such as taking these mentor texts that we have been collecting and creating them anew.  One models after the sentence structure rather copying the content. 

At this very moment I am not sure how I feel about the idea.  When looking at grammar I am sure it is a fantastic example of how to use a certain piece of grammar in a context to bring your point across. 

What I really did like was his examples using the different types of logs, or using the imitated sentences and creating them as your own.  I think students will have a chance to play with language and see how it and form and create meaning by what they add where. 

February 21st

Weaver chapter 4 begins with a comparison between a minilesson from a teacher who attempted to combine grammar and writing into one lesson to a classroom taught by Amanda and Carroll who successfully combine the two concepts.  I am relieved to see this because, as much as I am enjoying this idea of inter-grading grammar with writing, I draw a blank when I think about the how.  Grammar is not my strong point... at all.  I cannot pick out grammar in a sentence so when.  In Connie's classroom she points out the sentence, "I felt the wing going through the tress like ice cream melting in the summer."  To me this is a students attempt at a metaphor, not a type of grammatical error.  If my fear of teaching grammar is not highlighted in the previous sentences I do not know how to further express it.

In a way I guess this is why I am connecting with the idea of teaching grammar in the context of writing.  While reading Amanda's analogy with driving speaks the loudest.  "What helped us to improve, our car manuals, or hours of driving practice?"  Who actually read the car manual?  I read it once to figure out what this little green button does underneath my gear shifter.  Not by any means does this mean I am an expert on cars.  Same goes with grammar, I probably know more than I think.  I just do not know the proper name for the mechanics.  How have I learned?  I cannot say for sure.  But practice does make perfect... or close to it.

The last couple pages of this chapter deal with different methods to incorporate grammar into the writing process.  Thus calming my irrational fears.  Weaver goes on to make this following point, "More important, we teachers need to learn to keep our hands off students' writing, lest their piece become our piece."  I think this is a great perspective to take, and we touched on it the first day of class.  If we, as teachers, take that red pen to all of our students' writing and constantly correct what is wrong I would safely say the piece is not theirs anymore.  We have defiled the paper with red ink to make it what we, the teacher, believe it should be.  So when Weaver discusses student conferencing as a way to incorporate students learning grammar I kept that in mind along with the red pen.  You want to give students ideas not demean their writing.  With that concept I also liked the idea of demonstrating grammar with use of your own writing.  Gives the students a chance to reverse the roles on you without you actually giving them free reign.

Now I come to chapter 3 in the Anderson text.  I cannot express the amount of joy I felt in my heart when the idea of a writing journal was posed.  This is something that I was thinking about in my head and I wanted students to model when they got into class.  I can think of no better way to safely give students a zone to write without my thoughts being imposed on them; for their ideas to flow freely and unrestricted by nothing more than their imagination.  A smile composition book that their class would keep in the classroom even.  Kind of like in Freedom Writers.  What better practice and repetition can a writer have?  It is a good way to foster creativity and a renewed passion for writing.  The journal then also becomes a resource for kids to go back and improve their writing and can be a source of a grammatical lessons through examples.     

"Simply force yourself to write without stopping for ten minutes"  -- when I came across this sentence I had to laugh.  My mentor professor for my IA position does this without fail.  He says, "to just keep your pen moving even if you have to draw squiggly lines until your brain catches up."

Finally I am learning how to apply these theories and I am so glad to have that position because I get to see what we are talking about teaching, being taught to those I'd like to teach! 

I did not realize until after I had already composed much of my thought that I did not read the second part of the pedology for this week.  I feel so utterly in concomitant right now.  I am not one for making excuses because as busy as I ever could have been during one day I could have done the work before hand.  Which leads me to my discussion at 2:33am.

For the first time in my life I was handed The Red Pen last Thursday.  Not just any red pen.  The Red Pen.  The one that English teachers grades 6-12 have used to correct and grade my papers.  I assumed there was to be a tie in with our correcting grammar in our class as the class was also given an article by the article The English Teacher's Red Pen:  History of an Obsession.  On an attempt to begin my relationship with red pens I embarked my reading of the article with a red pen in hand but soon changed my mind and ended up trading in my red pen by the end of the first page.

I split this essay into two different parts.  There was the part I agreed with and the part of which I was not fond.  The very next thing I would like to say is this:  I am the daughter of a teacher.  My father currently teaches drafting and design technology at Dauphin County Technical School and never has he once, out of 25 years of teaching there, ever missed a softball, basketball, volleyball, or band practice due to extensive amounts of grading.  Yes I realize that my father is not an English teacher.  But he does have to go through countless numbers of daily drawing done by his student and correct them with a red pen. 

So, I will go as far to say is I think Zemelman and Daniels exaggerate a little in their first couple paragraphs.  Their outlook on the current system is very condescending  In their sinister perspective however there is some truth.  I have my doubt when they say, "And what other teachers expect everyone else to feel so sorry for them because of their overwhelming paper load?"  Never in my career as a student and observer have I ever heard these words come out of an English teachers mouth.  My father complains about grading yes but its no more than any general comment made before.  As an English teacher it is part of the job requirement.  I believe instead what they are attempting to convay in radical terms is that the amount of work imposed on English teachers by the nature of their work does not have to be so time consuming and demanding

This point leads into the idea of fostering a love for writing.  I have naturally had this passion for writing and never had a problem with red marks on my English paper.  I understood I was human and made mistakes.  Spelling and grammar were weak points and so I looked to those red marks for guidance.  I understand not everyone is like me though.  Which is why I agree that sometimes this extensive editing process is not needed.  Determined on a case by case basis I believe in the editing/revising process there is need for the corrections to help with the writing process but the article is right, even today, when given a paper back I do not look at the marks on the paper.  I look at my percentage and grade.  Nothing else.  The paper is discarded either right then, or at the end of semester when I clean out my binder. 

That being said I whole-heartily agree with this concept presented with "unmonitored practice with limited feedback" In my own words I call this free writing, or even creative writing.  As a English Major I miss this very concept in school.  I have such a passion and love for writing that I do not get to exercise say for the strict confines of the rubric for a given paper.  The fun and easy going air attached to writing has been scratched out by this red pen.  The constant search for errors does not foster creativity.  I will not go as far to say that content and context is lost to mechanics but I will say the passion in the context is taken out.  If the mind is given space to fly, imagine the heights it could reach.  Technicalities are weights, not keeping us from flying but from exploring new heights. 

Grammar to Enrich

Okay everyone I am still not sure if I get the hang of this whole blog thing, however I think I am starting to like this for class.

Chapter one was a really brief introductory chapter about the purpose of the entire book.  Which, in my opinion, can be found in the title.  Weaver argues, despite previous and/or popular belief, isolating the teaching grammar or centralizing a classroom around the idea of grammar does a student no help turning to the application of grammar to writing.  Instead Weaver suggests educators should shift their perspective to teaching effective grammar skills to help enhance their students writing.  Thus resulting in more clear, coherent, well defined syntax in writing.  My inference from her statement is that grammar should be used as another tool to develop one's own writing skills.  In a way I agree.  At the end of the chapter Weaver lists observations made about grammar and the teaching of it.  In one point she explains that few students will transfer and isolated grammar lesson to their writing.  I especially agreed with this statement because it had applied to me.  When I wrote I never looked at grammar as a tool.  Grammar was a ball and chain pulling down my freedom and eventually my grade. 

Chapter 2 is started after my Yoda Pez dispenser tells me "Pez for you I have" and I cannot help but think speech would be so much easier to understand if we spoke exactly as Yoda.  Actually I do not know if that is true but it still would be cool.  There are two major points that I acquired after reading chapter two.  The first being the already iterated statement:  The old manor of traditional grammar instruction does not increase a child's understanding of grammar.  Only this time they sight sources.  One interesting point they do make is off of a study done where the research was conclusive that the isolated teaching of grammar was bad however the research did not reveal a good alternative.   

The second point I found interesting in chapter two was the entire attitude Weaver seemed to be taking with grammar.  They idea of "correct" and "error" were not the ideal way to introduce, or assess whether a student has obtained good skills in grammar (- if that statement is even proper I do not know).  Instead Weaver proposes that we introduce grammar as a trial and error.  as a means to reach a better finished project or paper.


Concluding chapter 2 with a firm statement of change Weave moves to chapter 3 where positive, productive and practical are emphasized... yet again.  In competely honesty I am ten pages away from the end of the reading now and I am really absorbing no different information than I have gained in the previous two chapters.  Nothing with methods or application.  All theories on what is not the best way to teach grammar and how grammar should be taught in connection with reading and writing.

Weaver talks about her point being that students already know a lot of the traditional rules of grammar; they just don't know the proper grammatical name to call a certain phrase, word, or use of both.  I do agree when she does talk about using conventions as grammar in the editing process.  In complete honesty how many of us actually go back and edit our papers?  On the rare occasion that we do, how many of us look for grammatical or mechanical mistakes over coherency or fluidity?  Therefore teaching mechanics during the editing process I think would be a very useful tacit. 

Second post of my first ever blog.  A little late in the evening on Tuesday night.  I'm hoping to learn to be on top of my work in a more efficient manor.  This week I was supposed to read these different articles 3 in total and post about 5 major points that I read.  I apologize in advance if I am not responding correctly.

First major point comes from after reading A Brief History of English.  In all honesty I got only one message the whole way through.  English is a constantly breathing and changing life force much like any living organism.  Since the origins of the Language it has been as diverse as the people who probably spoke it.  Like many Americans today the heritage is a complicated blend of many different nationalities into one.  Appropriate then Americans speak English.

The second essay Good English and Bad, covers the idea of grammar.  More specifically English grammar based on Latin rules.  Therefore the rules of Latin do not always fit the rules of English because the syntax and construction of sentences, words and phrases do not mix.  I understand the point the author is trying to make but the only response I have is, for lack of more professional sounding words, no duh. Latin rules would only work for Latin and because in the aforementioned essay we learned that English is not based solely on Latin why do we not look at grammatical structures of other languages such as French or German to simplify our complicated grammar rules.


Another good point Bill Bryson makes in the essay is the "who says" point.  He notes there are no official guardians allowing certain usages of words.  By this point in my blog I am sure I've made several grammatical errors I just have not caught them yet or maybe its just because I am ignorant to them.  The point however is not their existences but their enforcement.  The rules of proper grammar seem to correlate with whoever the major literary factors are and their opinions at the time rather than a single entity. Which in turn keeps the rules of grammar constantly changing just as the English language does.

"That so cray," or "She cray cray" is the newest term my kids seems to be throwing around (note by kids I mean my residents on my floor.  I call them my kids).  Slang terms are addressed in Paul Dickson's essay "it Ain't No Big Thing.  There is a point made that slang is needed in language and particularly in American language there are over 35,000 words.  Without slang there would be no distinguishes between the proper language and the improper.  At the same time grammatical slicks will fight the use of slang because it is informal and improper.  At the same time it can define a specific culture or region without itself being defined.


For my last point of the night will be addressing Dickson's points about slang today.  Previously slang was born out of conflict, but with today's new age in technology slang travels incredibly fast through technology and especially television.  He points out two different yet simple keys when creating new slang.  One is reaching a number of people and the second key is those people hearing what is being said.  On TV or through social media tools i.e. Facebook, millions of impressionable minds can be reached in seconds.  All someone needs now is a line.  Just one simple line to stick in the heads of millions of people and carried into causal conversation from then out.  May I suggest the example of Charlie Sheen's "Winning" one liner.  


I think by this point I have exhausted more than my fair share of your time so I bid the goodnight and sweet dreams.

First. Post. Ever!

Hello everyone, My name is Kelsey Winton and this is my first ever blog.  This is created for my English 366 class History and Structure of the English Language.  I am actually really excited about this class and about this blog.  I might make another one and keep up with it.