Preaching to the choir. I really enjoy reading M&M because of the way it seems to be echoing my thoughts, or is it my thoughts are echoing their ideas. Either way, I'm on board with this book. While I would normally try and create a coherent, connected, and creative piece of writing...I can't this week. You see its not only the 4th of July weekend, it's also my birthday weekend, and SummerFest, and most of all SUMMER. So, I jotted down some thoughts while I was reading (all 6 chapters that I'm supposed to teach on Monday) and I'm going to share them with you.
1. I loved Chapter 6s Ideas about composition. However, I have had problems in the past with having kids revise and edit. My students HATE rewriting, even refuse to rewrite. They are stuck in the I finished it, I'm not redoing it mindset. Then anything that I would suggest they edit is simply thrown back with a "I spell checked it, its good." When I tried to have them write papers long-hand, pen and paper, style and then type them-forcing a revision stage-they then refused to hand write it the next time or thrown in the disclaimer that if they wrote it out they wouldn't type it because they aren't doing anything twice. I have not yet mastered how to motivate for and demonstrate the beauty of a second draft. (Even as I write that I know I'm going to hit spell check and not go back to revise this blog- I'm one of them).
2. As it said in the grammar section, teaching grammar is complicated. I tried to teach grammar as a DOL or daily activity last year and it didn't seem effective for the first quarter. After that, I kept a running list in my lesson plan book of errors that I commonly saw in my student's writing and heard in their speech. It was awesome to do mini-lessons, often random, and using their own work to demonstrate a part of grammar. I always prefaced it with, "you can use that speech and writing in emails or with with friends, but when you interview, are at work, or any other professional situation, including English class, make sure to use the proper way so that you sound 'educated.'" I straight-up explained that professional people love proper grammar and will hold it against you if you can't use it. They agreed, accepted, and even tried to change their language. Anyway, it seemed effective even though I'm sure I'll be teaching the same things next year.
3. I must confess that as a native English speaker and English major that I didn't understand English (grammatically) until I moved to another country. Learning a 2nd language made me understand English better. And teaching English to non-native English speakers REALLY taught me a lot about our own language. I think this experience should be required for Masters of English (much more so than a Summer School field).
4. It didn't mention it in these sections (that I saw) but I really appreciate the standard v. slang/urban translations. In my classroom the kids really enjoy taking rap songs and creating a 'pretty' poem or discussion. I think it teaches grammar, audience, spelling, syntax, diction, etc. You all should sign up for UrbanDictionary.com's word of the day emails. My first one was 'skeet' and the kids loved it.
Now, questions/requests.
Try using the sentence "Buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo" to explain grammar.
Has anyone seen the sentence where if you add punctuation you can change the meaning of the sentence from a sexist comment against men to against women? I would love to have it but can't find it.
Has anyone also seen the sentence where you can change the meaning of it by using different sounds for the letters based on the sounds they make in different words?
I would love more fun and hilariously irritating ways to demonstrate the ambiguity of Standard English Grammar rules.
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First of all - I don't get the buffalo thing. Am I missing something? Little slow here...
ReplyDeleteAlso, I am definitely one of those people who HATE to revise. I don't mind editing - checking for grammar, spelling or punctuation mistakes - but I can't stand the idea of going back and actually rewriting or reworking entire paragraphs, pages, or even papers. I would rather rub sand into my eyes than start completely over on an entire paper. So how can I possibly expect students to be open to the idea? I'm totally with you on that, Leigh.
I guess the only thing I can think of would be to find ways to make stages of the writing and revising process very distinct from each other - so that you're not doing the same "reread and rewrite" thing over and over again. Does anyone have ideas for how to do this? Maybe reading papers out loud in small groups to their peers, or just having classmates read them, or even "taking a break" from the assignment to do something else for a couple days before you return to that paper. I dunno...I'm totally making this stuff up on the spot and have no idea if it would work.
If it were me in the class, I guess I would have to be given some other kind of external motivation to revise and rewrite, at least initially - like, whether I turn in multiple, revised drafts will affect my grade. Once I accept this horrible fact (haha), then I would be more open to actual lessons or mini-lessons dedicated to revising papers. I also don't think that as a teacher you can just say, "Make sure you do 3 drafts," without giving explicit direction for how to change each draft. For example, one of my favorite professors in undergrad made us replace all "to be" verbs with more specific verbs - boy was this hard, but I feel like it made my papers AWESOME.
Another thing an 8th-grade teacher of mine did was make us write down (in a table form with columns) all of the first 2 words of every sentence in our papers. Then, we had to revise them so that we didn't have any sentences starting with the same word (or words) in the same paragraph. This also really helped my writing, and because we did it in class, I was actually willing to do the revisions.