As far as my fears and anxieties about grammar go, I’m
just worried that I won’t catch a mistake that I make. I hate when I am reading
over something online (an article or a social media post or anything else) and
I find an obvious error. Someone should have been able to notice that before
they put it online, right? Wrong! It happens all the time. I have been dubbed a
“Grammar Nazi” by my friends and family and although I dislike that term, I
suppose they aren’t incorrect; I have eased back a bit since high school
though, so there’s that at least. I am a bit concerned about how I might teach
grammar. Growing up, all my teachers did basically the same thing to teach
grammar. They would give worksheets and/or they would write a sentence on the
board and have the class dissect and correct it. These methods were effective
but they weren’t much fun. I want to be a fun teacher, but I don’t know how
else to teach something as boring to students as grammar. I’ll just hang out at
the drawing board until I can come up with something neat, I guess.
After reviewing our text, I really like the way that
Anderson views grammar and all the teachings of it. I respect his thinking in
the sense that as long as students are building on what they know, they will
eventually succeed. He also believed that grammar and mechanics should be a
door to exploration and creativity instead of correction and disappointment. He
gave examples how students would put an apostrophe with the possessive “it”
because they are supposed to put an apostrophe with other possessive pronouns. His
scaffolding techniques make sense because now he would know that he needs to
review when to have the apostrophe. I really liked how he never said he thought
the students were dumb just because they made mistakes. He just used the
opportunity to reteach something so that his students can be the best they can
be.
Quotes and discussion:
“Pseudo-concepts are stepping stones along the way to concept development.”
Page 4
I really loved this quote because I felt that it was
true—and some teachers forget about it. In my experience, I find that some
teachers think that if a student does something wrong, then they are just wrong
and don’t understand the concepts at all. All teachers should educate by the
method that some or little understanding doesn’t mean all hope is lost—they
have something to work with now. If students are willing to make connections to
help them succeed, then that should be encouraged.
“No matter how well-intentioned, if I deluge my students with too much of
anything, they will remember nothing—especially rules and exceptions to those
rules.” Page 6
This is so
important! Students are constantly being bombarded with information all day
long and are expected to remember each and every thing. It is even harder in an
English class—we have so many rules to follow…and then so many exceptions to
those rules. It is vital that we, as teachers, pace the information we relay to
our students. As a college student, I feel burnt out. I have so much going on
and things to do and worry about, with so much information to take in all in a
day, even though I know all these study tools and tips for success, I feel the
pressure coming down on me. Middle and high school students feel the same
way—but sometimes worse because they have not had the time or experience to
develop the same strategies that I have.
“With what we know about the brain absorbing information visually, is it
a sane educational strategy to have students stare at something so wrong for
the first ten minutes of class every day?” Page 16
I chose to focus in
on this quote because it is exactly how I was brought up learning grammar. It
is NOT what I want to do when I am in charge of my own class. I’m still waiting
to come up with a good idea of my own, but so far, nothing.
Sentence Stalking:
“A mind needs books as a sword needs a whetstone, if it is to keep its
edge.”
-A Game of Thrones:
A Song of Ice and Fire by George R.R. Martin
“The gentlemen pronounced him to be a fine figure of a man, the ladies
declared he was much handsomer than Mr. Bingley, and he was looked at with
great admiration for about half the evening, till his manners gave a disgust
which turned the tide of his popularity; for he was discovered to be proud; to
be above his company, and above being Derbyshire could then save him from
having a most forbidding, disagreeable countenance, and being unworthy to be
compared with his friend.”
-Pride and Prejudice
by Jane Austen
“Before Fortunato could guess what was happening, I closed the lock and
chained him tightly to the wall.”
-Cask of Amontillado
by Edgar Allan Poe
“It is not now as it hath been of yore;--/ Turn whaeresoe’er I may,/ By
night or day,/ The things which I have seen I now can see no more.”
-Ode by William
Wordsworth
“There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio, than
are dreamt of in your philosophy.”
-Hamlet
by William Shakespeare
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