Grammar?

So there is something about grammar that gets all of us riled up in one way or another. While reading the Schuster book this week, I kept thinking to myself how silly some of these mythrules and arguments can be.

I have to admit that I hate receiving communication from anyone above me (professor, supervisor) that is incorrectly articulated.

I HATE READING THINGS IN ALL CAPS AND FEEL ANGRY AFTERWARDS.

I also hte whan their are so meny rong werds that I haf to decode be4 enythng lse.

I don't mean to be a snob, but to me, language is important and we need to use it correctly to fit the situation. There are really lots of places that grammar runs rampant-- I seen, get me some, hafta, and lol--and sometimes I just have to walk away before I want to tear my hair out.

Our brains are so busy and a hot mess of language and knowledge. I can't imagine trying to figure out how to learn to speak/write English without any sort of background. There are so many different rules and exceptions.

The Williams article was very short but informative. I didn't realize our language was so much of a hodgepodge of Anglo-Saxon, French, Latin, native English, and Greek. Very interesting and it explains how some of the french words I know sound errily familiar to English. The sneaky French didn't steal it, we did! Mon dieu! This just reminds me how young our country is and how other countries have been at it a lot longer, creating societies and languages. Interesting stuff and it only makes grammar that much more complex and frustrating at times.

Time crunch!

I don't know about anyone else, but this seems to be the time of the semester when everything is due! Needless to say, I am quite stressed and full of chocolate! I am also carting around an IV bag full of Diet Pepsi to keep my eyes open and brain focused. In my state of craziness this morning as I left for Iowa City, it would seem I saved my memoir on my computer, instead of my flashdrive. Yes, ever the revisionist, I wanted to give it another once over before submitting it for class. Hmm...it would seem that I have set myself up for a stressful couple of hours. I'm depending on the quickness of e-mail and a friend with access to my computer, but it isn't looking good. Wish me luck and speed of everything! See everyone in class this evening.

Sharing personal writing is intimidating

As a way of getting some input about my memoir, took a copy of it to work and had a couple people read and comment on it. It was harder to hand over than I thought it would be! I know and trust the people, but still had doubt in the back of my mind. It's like when we talked in class about students not knowing if their writing is good unless the teacher tells them it is with a good grade.

Maybe it is a little different for me as I am not an English major, so I've done less sharing of my writing in the past, but I felt like a little kid! It seemed like their readings took so long and I thought that maybe they were trying to think of something nice to say, etc. In actuality, I pretty much know my own writing so well I can quickly scan for certain parts in a matter of seconds. These readers were taking time to really read the piece. I liked that the one reader had food in front of her, but she wanted to finish reading before she started to eat. That made me feel like it must have been compelling enough for her Charlie's to get cold!

I asked them what I could change and they both mentioned the sequencing, which is what I have been having trouble with the last couple of weeks. The one said that the piece definitely had my voice and that she would have guessed I'd written it if it didn't have a name on it. Hooray! I can't believe we are turning in a "final" draft next week--I could keep working on this memoir for the rest of the year easily.

I was struck by comment in Thomas Newkirk’s book, Holding on to Good Ideas in a Time of Bad Ones, that made me pause.

We can similarly project our teacher fantasies
of self-importnace and sacrifice and fail to
decenter; consequently, we ignore, reject, fail
to acknowledge the natural resistances and divided
loyalties to students, the inescapable fact that,
except in unusual cases, we are not as central in
their lives as they are in ours (Newkirk, 2007, pp. 160).

Wow. That has a lot of power because being a teacher is such an important job with so many things to accomplish outside of the regular school hours. Is it really necessary to do everything? Students know a good teacher by their methods and sincerity—not by the quickness of papers handed back or elaborate bulletin boards. I’m not proposing we stop doing these things, but that we re-evaluate the time we spend working to help our students actually learn and grow. Being a burned out teacher after five years will not benefit future students.

I am learning to pace myself and create separation from work and home life (I didn’t have much of a home life previously). A recharged teacher is better able to nurture students and lead them towards new experiences and opportunities. Even teachers deserve the weekend off!

Schooling, standardization, women, and lowered educational prospects in the late 1900's

The book Rethinking Rubrics in Writing Assessment by Maja Wilson really opened my eyes to the reasoning behind how our current standardized assessment began. The first couple chapters really helped my understanding of how the educational system really worked back during the industrial revolution. Since I have only known modern schooling personally, it is hard to remember back to a time in history when only rich and priviledged males attended school.

Pre-industrial revolution, assessment was used as a tool to help writers hone their craft. Now, masses of people poured into the cities, quickly raising the attendance at schools. Because of this new surge of students, teachers needed a way to measure mental "power" in an easier format for grading and ranking capabilities. It is interesting to think that a respected learning institution like Harvard would be at the forefront of creating standardized assessment over processes of learning and student discovery.

I was also shocked that "women's colleges had argued powerfully for standardized tests. If each student were judged by educational ability--not by wealth, not by gender, not by family connection--women's struggle for equality would make remarkable headway" (Wilson, 2006). This observation from the late 1900's almost seems like too much and screams of treacherous agendas! I find it interesting that when things start to run amuck, many times it is the females and minorities shouldering the brunt of the blame (when they were never in charge of making decisions about important topics anyway).