This week seems to have been, for many of us in the class, a whirlwind of new terms and rules. AWWUBBIS, or the subordinating conjunctions, confused me at first, simply because there seem to be so many that don’t fall into the acronym. I think, though, that as I get better at recognizing them and whether or not they are used and correctly, I’ll feel more comfortable with them. I was glad to have the chance to practice identifying the subordinating conjunctions in my own blog. It is very helpful for me to practice the specific skills we learn each week on my blogs in workshop. It’s interesting to see which elements of sentence structure and punctuation I am already using correctly and which I need to improve upon.
While working on my grammar scrapbook and helping fellow classmates with theirs, I’m realizing how difficult it can be to explain what exactly is wrong in a grammatical error. It’s one thing to be able to point out a mistake, but it’s quite another to describe in grammar rules and terms what makes it incorrect. It becomes even more complicated to think how one might go about fixing the error. Working on the scrapbook has really made me more aware, and possibly critical of, others’ writing as well as my own. And as an added bonus, I get to laugh at some of the more ridiculous typos and errors in print in alleged professional publications.
I think one reason people seem to be having so much trouble with finding errors in print to include in their scrapbooks is the fact that we are not conditioned to notice errors. This is a good thing, because it means that we as readers focus on the content of a piece of writing rather than its conventions. I usually find myself mentally editing the word choice, organization, and strength of argument of a newspaper or magazine article before I can pick out its syntactical errors or weaknesses. It is necessary, however, to start noticing mistakes in writing so that we can help our students become more fluent writers and be conscious of their own work.
Question: When looking for errors in print, do you notice any specific type of error or problem that jumps out at you? If so, do you think it is because this is an error you have had trouble with in the past, or continue to have trouble with?
Friday, October 9, 2009
Sunday, October 4, 2009
Splice and Dice
Commas can be tricky. I know that I’ve been guilty in the past of overusing commas, omitting commas, and creating comma splices. As we’ve seen from examples in class, an omission or error in punctuation can drastically change the meaning of a sentence, or confuse the reader. Too much punctuation can also distract the reader and create a choppy rhythm in writing. This is why thorough understanding and constant practice of punctuation is so important.
The Socratic seminar this week about students who don’t punctuate their work was very eye-opening. I wasn’t aware of the fact that some students don’t punctuate their work at all on their own, whether I didn’t ever witness this in elementary school or just don’t remember it. I think if a student is allowed to move through school without being made aware of the mistakes he or she is making, the teacher is the one at fault. However, I also think that at some point a student needs to take responsibility for his or her own learning and be more conscious of whether or not he or she is writing correctly.
As far as I know, I have always punctuated my writing. My mother has a copy of a letter I wrote to an uncle when I was five. Even though some of the periods are in the wrong place, I punctuated even then. In elementary school I even delighted in punctuating my work because I turned periods into hearts and question marks into little swirls (I was quite the romantic child). I think that learning to write from an early age, and enjoying writing, helped to make me more conscious and particular about the way I wrote words and marks on a page.
As a college student and future English teacher, I am very conscious of how I write. I try and write purposefully and meaningfully. I think this is reflected even in something as seemingly insignificant as punctuation. I punctuate my work as I go, even in pre-writing exercises and early drafts. It seems counter-productive to leave punctuation as the final marker in the writing process, because it influences so much about what the words are actually saying. I hope to pass the understanding of the importance of punctuation on to my future students by modeling my excellent punctuation skills at every stage of the writing process.
Question: If you, as future teachers, come across a student who is not punctuating his or her work, or is punctuating incorrectly, how and when would you go about pointing this out to the student and giving further help?
Question NUMBER TWO! (because curiosity doesn’t really kill the Kat): Do you ever see an error in punctuation such as these in your own or your friends’ writing:
Drinking screwdrivers all night, puts you in a bad position.
Washington taxi drivers, should not crash into guard rails.
Yes, these are actual Myspace picture captions. Why do you think some people add commas like this?
The Socratic seminar this week about students who don’t punctuate their work was very eye-opening. I wasn’t aware of the fact that some students don’t punctuate their work at all on their own, whether I didn’t ever witness this in elementary school or just don’t remember it. I think if a student is allowed to move through school without being made aware of the mistakes he or she is making, the teacher is the one at fault. However, I also think that at some point a student needs to take responsibility for his or her own learning and be more conscious of whether or not he or she is writing correctly.
As far as I know, I have always punctuated my writing. My mother has a copy of a letter I wrote to an uncle when I was five. Even though some of the periods are in the wrong place, I punctuated even then. In elementary school I even delighted in punctuating my work because I turned periods into hearts and question marks into little swirls (I was quite the romantic child). I think that learning to write from an early age, and enjoying writing, helped to make me more conscious and particular about the way I wrote words and marks on a page.
As a college student and future English teacher, I am very conscious of how I write. I try and write purposefully and meaningfully. I think this is reflected even in something as seemingly insignificant as punctuation. I punctuate my work as I go, even in pre-writing exercises and early drafts. It seems counter-productive to leave punctuation as the final marker in the writing process, because it influences so much about what the words are actually saying. I hope to pass the understanding of the importance of punctuation on to my future students by modeling my excellent punctuation skills at every stage of the writing process.
Question: If you, as future teachers, come across a student who is not punctuating his or her work, or is punctuating incorrectly, how and when would you go about pointing this out to the student and giving further help?
Question NUMBER TWO! (because curiosity doesn’t really kill the Kat): Do you ever see an error in punctuation such as these in your own or your friends’ writing:
Drinking screwdrivers all night, puts you in a bad position.
Washington taxi drivers, should not crash into guard rails.
Yes, these are actual Myspace picture captions. Why do you think some people add commas like this?
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