Blog #3

I really did like where Crovitz was coming from when they said that errors these days are looked at as sloppy mistakes when really they are signs of improvement. Something that I really took to heart during this school year is when Beth said that a student could write a grammatically perfect sentence that has no real substance. I feel like students these days are taught to “write between the lines” and are focused so much on making sure that a paper is grammatically perfect that they don’t actually put their heart into what they’re writing about. In another sense, I do believe that grammatical errors should be addressed and instead of just docking points and moving on I believe teachers should try to help adjust the mistakes.

 As for the DOL’s—I really like the idea. I know that growing up I always enjoyed them (in my school they were call “entry tasks”). It’s something that gets the students attention right away, although as an aspiring high school teacher I think that DOL’s work best for younger kids to help get them to focus on English right away when they get into the classroom.

As for high schoolers I think that the entry tasks would have to be more than just fixing an error in a sentence. I really like the idea of creating more interesting sentences out of boring sentences because it will get students brains working, and for high schoolers they can add their own twists to it which will make it a lot more fun for them. My group is going to be using the lesson that I stated above to teach the class and I am hoping that this lesson will spark into their brains while writing (because I know I think of old lessons while I write) and they will be able to add some more pizzazz to their writing.

Well I’m not to 500 words yet so I am going to jump subjects a little here; in the text it was brought up errors like people using words such as porpoise, taken for granite, walla, instead of the words purpose, taken for granted, voila [lists used without the word “and”]. This really stood out to me 1) because it reminded me of a meme I saw on twitter of a girl spelling “all of garden” instead of olive garden, and 2) because after reading that article I noticed that teachers (and clearly the whole world because of the meme) take those sort of mistakes as a joke when really that is just someone going out of their comfort zone to try new things and experiment with new words that they’re clearly not familiar with. One last thing that I noticed about this text was the authors use of brackets, here are some examples of how the author used brackets: “a teacher who would work with [basic writers] might well begin by trying…” and “a readiness to look at [errors] in a way that does not…” It confuses me why the author put the brackets because the sentence would make complete sense if the brackets weren’t there so that really confused me.

Anyway, thank you for reading.

Brandie Roueche

Blog #2

Coming into this class I figured I would be learning the basics of how to use grammar—what I didn’t realize was that there is no “correct” way to write [dash to indicate the quick change in tone]. When it comes to teaching grammar, it’s a whole new process that I had no idea about; you have to keep culture in mind. This concept is not something I had thought of when I thought of becoming an English teacher. In the article by Christianson when he spoke about students making no mistakes because they were holding back in their writing it really spoke to me. In my writing I tend to stick to Standard English just because that is what we are taught is correct. As I think about it though, as the reader, many people enjoy reading books that have a certain voice and tone that writer has created for the story, rather than a text book that is written in Standard English. It is so important to add a voice to your writing, or else everyone all sounds the same. As the article by Christianson and “Grammar Alive!” both covered, it is still important to teach Standard English because in our society they are going to need it. It is basically “adding another language variety to the students' linguistic toolbox” and as Christianson put it, “it’s the language power of this country”. The context behind Christianson’s quote is that her student Fred was struggling with writing; while she helped him find his voice in his writing, she also felt it would be cheating him if she didn’t teach him Standard English as well [run on sentence broken up by a semicolon].

          Something that I really took from Christianson’s article was the lesson where she had all of his students talk to each other about hardships that they each faced. To me, this is very important in writing because without that openness you can’t write from the heart, which is what someday I hope own student will feel comfortable doing. I also think that it will create the class to feel much closer to each other which is also so important in writing because when you’re just learning to write, being comfortable with your audience is a huge key to success.

          Overall, our reading scared me in a way… [ellipsis used for dramtic effect]  As a teacher you aren’t just given a curriculum and told to teach it—it’s so much more than that. America is a “melting pot” and every single person in the world has their own language and their own voice that is still considered English, so as a teacher you are required to learn to teach everyone for their own voice. As a teacher I never want anyone to feel as though they have to change their culture or their background because it causes them to make grammatical errors in Standard English. As a teacher I want to embrace all the different cultures and my main focus to be that my students are writing from the heart about things they’re passionate about without having to hold back.

Brandie Roueche