Revisions for "Encouragement to Dream"

Authors note: The revisions for this week didn't really make a lot of sense to me this week, so I'm not sure if I've done it correctly. While I may be confident in adjusting something from passive to active voice, identifying the passive voice is something I'm still not really sure about. I hope I did alright! 

I was raised in a home that constantly had papers to grade, parent phone calls to make, and lesson plans to be designed. I have seen the good, the bad and the ugly of education and still I pursue a degree in English education with all my heart. Both of my parents, retired after 30 years in the field, worked in the public education system, as do many of their friends. These connections, GIVEN TO ME BY FATE, [noun absolute]   have offered me a backstage pass to see the late nights, the lost causes, the love of seeing a student succeed, and the amount of responsibility that is placed on a teacher to educate a child.

            It is my belief that young adults-- the future of America-- are not given enough credit for their creativity, passion, and energy that can be put into the classroom. Their energy and youthful enthusiasm, driving their creative output, can really make a change in the classroom, school atmosphere, or community at large. By giving them opportunities to discover themselves, relate to the world around them, and connect with people on a peer level, I can help students blossom into active, healthy, successful adults: contributing members of society.

            I am passionate about both my content areas of English and theater and I enjoy working with people of all abilities and ages. I aim to encourage students to try something new, push the boundaries of what they know, and use classroom activities to enhance their education not only about literature or drama, but also about themselves. I will bring enthusiasm, knowledge, and the ability to listen to my classroom. I will provide fun, encouragement, and a positive attitude to my school (a community in itself). I will add experience, leadership, and involvement to the community I live in.

My classroom, comforting and warm, will be a safe place for students of all backgrounds. Literature and drama, the stories of generations past and present, can relate to students on a very personal and emotional level, and I will attempt to give them an outlet for sharing and contributing to classroom discussions. My classroom will not only be a place of learning, but a place of love. I hope to provide them with encouragement and care that they may not receive at home, and I hope to push them further than they every thought was possible. I want to believe make my students that it is possible for them to dream.

Encouragement to Dream: A Purpose Statement for the WSU College of Education

I was raised in a home that constantly had papers to grade, parent phone calls to make, and lesson plans to be designed. I have seen the good, the bad and the ugly of education and still I pursue a degree in English education with all my heart. Both of my parents, RETIRED AFTER 30 YEARS IN THE FIELD [past participle], worked in the public education system, as do many of their friends. Through these connections I have been offered a backstage pass to see the late nights, the lost causes, the love of seeing a student succeed, and the amount of responsibility that is placed on a teacher to educate a child.

            It is my belief that young adults-- THE FUTURE OF AMERICA-- [appositive] are not given enough credit for their creativity, passion, and energy that can be put into the classroom. Their energy and youthful enthusiasm, DRIVING THEIR CREATIVE OUTPUT [present participle], can really make a change in the classroom, school atmosphere, or community at large. By giving them opportunities to discover themselves, relate to the world around them, and connect with people on a peer level, students can blossom into active, healthy, successful adults: CONTRIBUTING MEMBERS OF SOCIETY [appositive].

            I am passionate about both my content areas of English and theater and I enjoy working with people of all abilities and ages. I aim to encourage students to try something new, push the boundaries of what they know, and use classroom activities to enhance their education not only about literature or drama, but also about themselves. I will bring enthusiasm, knowledge, and the ability to listen to my classroom. I will provide fun, encouragement, and a positive attitude to my school (A COMMUNITY IN ITSELF) [appositive]. I will add experience, leadership, and involvement to the community I live in.

My classroom, COMFORTING AND WARM, [adjectives out of order] will be a safe place for students of all backgrounds. Literature and drama, THE STORIES OF GENERATIONS PAST AND PRESENT, [appositive] can relate to students on a very personal and emotional level, and I will attempt to give them an outlet for sharing and contributing to classroom discussions. My classroom will not only be a place of learning, but a place of love. I hope to provide them with encouragement and care that they may not receive at home, and I hope to push them further than they every thought was possible. I want to believe make my students that it is possible for them to dream.

Exploring Dora

The story of “Dora” and her experiences of learning how to write were very interesting for me. I am an only child and as such, I had a lot of educational focus placed on me. My parents taught me how to read and write before I entered kindergarten and because of this, I don’t really remember a lot of techniques or experiences I had while learning these skills. I also didn’t have any younger siblings to watch as they learned how to write, so I have very little experience in the writing process. A vast majority of what I do remember has more to do with structure, organization, and content which I learned more in middle school and high school rather than the basic sentence formation from elementary school.

Reading Dora’s story provided me with basic understanding of the process of how one student learned to write, but one thing I thought should have been addressed is why Dora was making those decisions. The explanations that were given were the rationale of a young learner, but I feel like I don’t understand the developmental processes or WHY Dora made those choices. Did anyone else have questions like this?

I also felt a little dissatisfied in our discussion about why this information is important to secondary majors. We touched on the idea that this gives us a bit of history about how students have learned to write, but it’s only one example; there are plenty of other ways that students have learned to write. I guess the most important thing that I got out of it would be that there are different stages and comfort levels that students will reach in their writing skills, and that will hold true whether they are just starting to learn about writing or exploring the intricacies and nuances of writing. As teachers, we need to keep this in mind and encourage our students to step outside their comfort zone and try something new with their writing no matter what level they’re at.
Question of the Week: I'd never heard of a broad reference pronoun before class and it intrigues me that there are so many other things that I've thought were wrong but aren't, and this is something I've thought is acceptable, but it turns out I'm wrong. So, When is it acceptable to use a broad reference pronoun? 

Magnetic FANBOYS

This week, we really started getting into the technical aspects of grammar, but this did not mean our lessons were boring. The opportunity to use the magnetic poetry kits to better understand sentence structure was a lot of fun! Not only did it give us the opportunity to be creative and funny with our sentences, but we learned with them as well. I’ve long been a fan of magnetic poetry and it was great to see it used in the classroom as an educational tool too. 

I’m also really happy that I now have a clear sense of the differences between transitive and intransitive verbs. They seem easy to identify and the concept was easily taught to the class as well. I wonder though, how does this information affect native English speakers? I’ve gone a majority of my life without knowing this information, so what affect will this have on my writing? Perhaps I can use this to identify personal trends or writing patterns and put more variety into my sentence structure. 

Finally, I also have a “rule” that can help me identify the correct placement of a comma. Commas, as I mentioned in an earlier post, are something that I have struggled with because they seem so fluid; oftentimes, I would just place them wherever I felt it was right without actually knowing why I did it. By learning about the coordinating conjunctions (also known as the FANBOYS) I now have an understanding of why a comma needs to go between the connection of two sentences. I also really appreciated the idea that the “co” in coordinating represents equality, and as such, the two halves of the sentence need to be of equal complete sentence status. This kind of memory trick will really help me in my proofreading. 

Related to this note of compound sentences is the semi-colon. I have long been a fan of the semi-colon and it is one of my favorite things to teach students about in my English 102 classes. The thing I have to remind myself though is to not overuse it. Because the semi-colon is a slightly more advanced convention, it has the opportunity to seem pretentious if it is overused or used in a style of writing that does not require formality. For me, the semi-colon is like a coordinating conjunction because it represents cooperation and a strong relationship between the sentences. I look forward to seeing how other people view the semi-colon in class next week. 

Question: Is there an easy trick to identify what a linking verb is? I’m still having a bit of difficulty with this concept. 

Teachable Techniques

Our blog topic for this week was to address what we’ve learned so far about grammar and punctuation in class, but to be entirely honest, I’ve understood the concepts taught in class for quite a while now. Ever since I started doing mad-libs as a child, I’ve understood the basic parts of speech. These building blocks then helped me learn more complicated things like prepositions. When it came time to learn about the larger structure of a sentence incorporating the terms noun phrase, and direct object became a natural step of progression for me.

            The things I have loved the most are the activities I have done. The grammar scrapbook is becoming almost an obsession of mine. I scour the newspaper and magazine for interesting words, creative punctuation, or the rare mistake in print. I force my roommates to watch classic musicals (Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, West Side Story) with me while I cut and glue examples. If I ever have a class that focuses specifically on grammar, I can say with confidence that I would incorporate this project into my plan. Even if my class doesn’t revolve around grammar, I may consider using it anyway.

            The other technique I’ve really enjoyed is the use of newspapers in class. This allows us to use real examples and do a physical kinesthetic activity that helps us learn the parts of speech. AND it’s fun. We’re able to work in groups and have active discussions about why an author may have chosen to construct a sentence in a particular way and because there is such a diversity in sentence structure in newspaper headlines, we are able to have more of an authentic experience and connect our learning to “the real world” instead of just filling out answer sheets or doing worksheets. Thanks for the great ideas Barbara!

Question: I know what the direct object of a sentence is, but I remember learning about the indirect object in high school. Unfortunately, I can’t remember what it is. Does anyone else know?  

Learning So Far

We have not covered many grammatical concepts in class as of yet, but my favorite so far has been our discussion of the many uses of apostrophes. I’ve always felt as though I had a fairly solid grasp on the use of the apostrophe, and after hearing that there were no mistakes made in our first set of blogs, I feel that it is safe to assume that many of my peers do too.

Before our discussion, I never realized there were so many gray areas regarding apostrophes. This explains why there is no cute rhyme or saying to remember apostrophe usage like the “i before e except after c” rule. Perhaps the most interesting gray area for me was using an apostrophe to denote a pluralized letter such as “the M’s” as a nickname for the Seattle Mariners. While an apostrophe in this situation would normally suggest that the M is in possession of something, in this case, it differentiates the pronunciation as “emms” as opposed to the title for an unmarried woman. This breaking of the rules on purpose defies the standard logic for apostrophe usage, but is used for clarity.

The least favorite thing I have learned is that a list does not always require a conjunction to conclude it. The example given in class is “You are kind, generous, thoughtful”. My instinct is to insert an “and” between generous and thoughtful. While the list without “and” is technically proper, I dislike it for several reasons. The first of which is that it does not sound proper. People do not speak this way and as such, it throws of the rhythm of reading. Secondly, it is vague and unspecific. The example comes from a love letter in which the mood is supposed to be wistful and longing, but if this were any other piece of writing, I would find it vague and unspecific. When I write, I write to communicate clearly and effectively. This format leaves too much interpretation up to the audience and I feel like I have failed the reader. ULTIMATELY, I FEEL THAT IT IS LAZY, GENERIC, UNSPECIFIC. Just because this format is correct, doesn’t mean I will be able to accept and use it in my own personal writings.

Of everything we’ve learned so far, my biggest questions still lie in the differences between lay and lie. With the present tense forms, I can usually figure out which one to use, but getting into “lain” and “laid” threw me off a bit. Any suggestions? 

Self Assessment

I am one of those weird people who gets a kick out of an appropriately placed semi-colon. I am the one who corrects my friends, and they come to me for help with editing their papers. The difference between to, too, and two has always been obviously clear and I have difficulty respecting people who can’t take the time to type out later, instead of l8r, in an e-mail or text message. I love the English language so much, that come September, I will have a tattoo expressing my passion.

My favorite things to write are pieces that have a strong sense of passion and emotion behind them. To this day, I think one of my best pieces of writing was a letter that I wrote to president Elson S. Floyd to “express my extreme displeasure at the ultimate decision to eliminate the Department of Theater Arts and Dance from Washington State University”. In this letter, I verbally lambasted him for the lies he told me, demonstrated the lack of respect I was given, and expressed my shame of having to tell my friends that the love of my life, theater, was no longer deemed important at WSU. This letter filled two pages at font size 11 and when I re-read it, it still brings tears to my eyes. The letter I received in return was two paragraphs and did not address any of my concerns. When I am able to express such passion and emotion through the use of words and punctuation on paper, I feel a great sense of accomplishment. It gives me pride knowing that I can convince people of my convictions by just taking the time to craft a piece that I am proud of.

           

While I do love my formal writing and personal expression, I know that I have some issues that need to be worked on. The biggest of these is commas. I have always tested at the top of my age group in the areas of reading and writing. I passed my WSU writing portfolio with distinction and I currently work at the writing center to help my peers become better writers. When I initially applied to the College of Education, I was denied entrance based on a writing exam I had to do. This was the first time I had ever been denied based on my writing skills. When I returned to my test to see what had gone wrong, I found that the largest culprit was my comma usage. Even the test evaluators had some different comments as to which commas where appropriately placed and which ones were extraneous. I briefly refreshed myself on comma usage and re-took the test, but because my confidence had been shaken so much, the second piece of writing I submitted did not express my thoughts and concepts nearly as well as the first had, but because the punctuation was correct, I was admitted. I was deeply upset that my ideas were not valued as highly as my conventions. I guess sometimes you just have to play the game.

           

As a native English speaker, sentence structure, formatting, and organization comes naturally for me. As I work in the writing center though I sometimes struggle to explain to an English language learner why something is the way it is. I know I am correct, but why? My goal for this semester is to learn not just how conventions and words interact on a page, but why they do whatever it is they do.

           

I will always strive to be an effective communicator. Even in informal pieces such as e-mails or text messages or blogs I will use punctuation marks to get my point across. I may break the rules and use an ellipsis to suggest a pause as opposed to an omission, or use parentheses instead of commas to indicate an aside, but I pride myself on ensuring that everybody involved in my communications will completely and clearly understand what I am saying.

Can you hear me now?

Good.