Grammar, Grammar, Grammar.

The evil time has come. I am the teacher that Petit talks about. I am the English teacher who is scared to death (not to mention angry) about teaching grammar. As some of you know, I've spoken before of my high school experiences in grammar. My favorite teacher of all four years subjected us to about three days worth of grammar instruction under the guise of, "We HAVE to do this. I'll make it as short and painless and possible." It was short and painless. But guess what else? I didn't learn anything. NOTHING. As we all so were so painfully reminded of in class the other week, most of us know squat about grammar.
I think that is what makes both Petit's and Dean's arguments so attractive. They both advocate a short lesson on grammar (or are we talking usage?) at the beginning of each class. A short time in which students can explore writing and maybe even learn something. Dean's approach of mimicking sentences to help expand your sentence vocabulary seems just too simple. Could it be that such an easy and painless approach can garner real results? Petit's approach, too, seems so easy. Pick an element of a grammatical issue that is important, something that students can grasp onto, instead of tuning out. I think the simplicity of these approaches is what really makes me weary of them. But if they work, you'll find me using them in my classroom.
Which begs the question for me: is there any place for explicit grammar teaching in our schools? My seventh grade English teacher, Mrs. S. absolutely pounded us with grammar instruction. It was the meat and potatoes of our classroom. We may have read something worthwhile in her class, but I'll never know. ALL I REMEMBER IS THE GRAMMAR. Last year, before entering this program I heard she was teaching at one of the high schools that I was observing. I took the opportunity to go watch her class and reassess her classroom with my new eyes, my college eyes, my "I now know what was good for me" eyes. It was painful. The kids hated her. She was using THE SAME worksheets, that I had once filled out in seventh grade, with TENTH graders. The kids were aching to leave class and go run the halls free of the grammatical boundaries that she had set. Where they could "ax" someone a question and if they "don't want to do nuthin,'" they could.
Now this is an obviously extreme example. The more I speak with individuals about their English instruction, the more I hear this same sob story. "I hated English because of Mrs/Mr ______ and I never wanted to study it again." I feel like this is the most important issue when it comes to grammar instruction. Forcing these ideas down the throats of students without contextualizing or justifying it, breeds hatred, not only of you as a teacher, but of the discipline as a whole.

Revising techniques.

I'm bad at revising. Anyone who has read my work can attest to that. Let me explain my point to you, and all will be well, but make me write it and refine it? Not a chance. I've always been this way, from the time I wrote detective stories as a third grader, to that awful paper I turned in to _________ (insert any professor here) in college. I don't like to change things. I don't like to write.

So how the hell do I teach my students to do it? I'm not against revising per se, I see the value in it and teaching it, but I have a hard time selling things to students that I don't 100% buy. That's what really struck me about the readings this week. They are FULL of good ideas, tons of 'em. But what on earth do I do with the student that is like me. She may be articulate, intelligent and have a great understanding of the text. Her papers are passable (A or B range) on their first draft, though they lack the polish they should probably have. She, like me will argue, "That's cool if you want to give it a B, it doesn't deserve much better." She continues, "When I really need to look over a paper, I can do it... my college essays are a perfect example, but the things I turn into you just aren't that important in the long run."

What then?

Do I tell her:

a)Fine, if you're cool with the grade, that's your business, you're almost an adult and have obviously thought this through?

b)I'm not going to accept this paper without previous drafts attached... AND THEY BETTER BE DIFFERENT AND MARKED UP?

c)If you don't think my papers are important you can get the hell out of my class?

d)I think it would really help you as a writer if you worked hard on the revision process. Your work shows so much potential, but it could be stellar if you gave it some time and effort?

If you answered a and d, you're just like me. But if you answered option d, you're allied with my conscious. There is obviously a lot of worth in the revision process, for both polished academic pieces as well as creative writing and correspondence. I need to figure out a way to make it quick and painless for short assignments, and comprehensive and complete for longer ones...

again, any ideas?

Belated 5 paragraphs.

So I missed my post last week about the 5 paragraph essay. I'm sorry. It won't happen again. To my faithful readers: I'll do everything I can to make it up to you, I promise.

I find myself in the heat of battle over this issue. As I prepare myself to start student teaching in a few weeks, I realize that I will actually have to make a decision about this. Soon. I talked over the issue for a little time today with one of my cooperating teachers and was still left wondering what I should do. "It's your call when it comes to a polished writing piece," he told me, though I know where his allegiance lies, "we do stress that format here, but it's up to you." This got me thinking about the purposes for the FPT.

1)Organization: This will be part of a eleventh and twelfth grade class. They couldn't have gotten this far without some understanding of organization right? True, True, but these are the kids who might need more help emphasising their ideas and putting them together. On the other hand, I'm going to have some really disengaged kids... wouldn't a more open ended piece be more appropriate, with more room to explore? Well yes, but I've heard time and time again that my students need "clearly defined assignments, goals, and grading criteria, otherwise they'll be lost."

2) Learning how to work effectively and imaginatively within given constraints: This is the one that really kills me. I know how much this sucks. I've had to do this over and over again, and it's agitating. This is not the class to try and do this. It's an elective, after all, and there may be a mutiny if I try to pull this over on them. On the other hand, a lot of these kids are going to need to show this skill in the workplace and in college... it will help them better understand their topic, right?

3)FPT's are easy to grade and assign: this may be a stronger argument than it sounds. My kids are comfortable with writing this type of paper. It's pounded into their heads. After all, it'll be easier for me and them to finish this type of assignment.

I think the key to solving this predicament is finding a middle ground (like so many other arguments.) Perhaps I'll just assign the most engaging, AMAZING fpt that anyone has ever seen!

Ideas anyone?

Who are we writing for?

This will probably end up being a bit of a rehash of last week, though incorporating this week's readings. I must first admit that I went into the Williams reading with a chip on my shoulder. It's been years since I've come across a text book that I've marked up this badly. As discussed last week, I feel like Williams should have citations for most of the absurd generalizations that he makes. Instead they just sit there, glaring and alone, waiting for grad students to come in and rip them apart.
The reading this week seemed much less absolutist than last week, though I still had some problems with it. A number of us have discussed at length about the ideas of "should all kids go to college, and therefor take college prepratory classes? What about students who aren't planning on going to college? Should we base instruction differently for them?" Williams addresses this on page 280, saying that, "goals must include preparing students to write at the college level." Only there, he argues should students be taught how to write to an audience of "the general public and workplace professionals." This seems backwards to me. What has happened to the worth of a high school education? As I see it, when a student gradutates from high school, that should mean that s/he should be ready to take on gainful employment. Therefor, teaching students to write for an audience of "the general public and workplace professionals" should be part of the high school curriculum. Teaching students to write at the college level is great, for those who are planning on attending college, but should be an elective course, and not part of the day to day curriculum.
People will probably argue that this is setting the standards too low, and will give advantage to the students who are 'on the college track.' This is a very fine line to walk. I don't believe in career education courses in high school. We should be focusing on adequately educating our childeren to function in our democracy first, and our capitalist system second. Part of this education should include a thorough understanding of how our language works and how it is often used. An example would include Williams use of the term 'the general population.' What does he mean by this term? Those folks who didn't go to college? Those that have left the ivory tower and must work forty or fifty hours weeks? Do these words hold implicit asumptions about college educated vs. high school educated peoples? These ideas are what people have to deal with trying to be an intellegent consumer of information in the United States. This is what we should be focusing on in high school. Those that go on to college can find their writing feet there.

Editing Vs. Revising

While exploring the Williams reading, I was furiously scribbling in the margins. These were mostly notes about how his sweeping generalizations and absolutist rhetoric annoyed me, but a few were about good points he made. One of these notes stemmed from his argument about the confusion between revising and editing. As I was growing up, these words seemed interchangeable. It was all the same idea... actually taking the time to read over your work and change it for the better. There was never any discussion about what elements were more or less important. It always included editing, often including revising as well.
The though that these are two different entities with different aims really caught me off guard. I am generally very careful about my sentence structure. Having sentences in my work that don't accurately convey my thoughts is totally unacceptable (That sentence alone just took me 3 minutes.) Perhaps it is because I've internalized many of the editing processes (or externalized them through Microsoft Word,) but editing never seems to be much of a concern to me nowadays. When I was in high school however, this is where I spent the majority of my time. The idea of revising (prior to editing) seemed odd... "My teacher is only concerned about my grammar and usage!"
I think that I may have become a much better writer, much quicker, had this distinction been made clear to me. I know that this is a major pedagogical shift right now, moving the focus of writing to concise organization of thoughts versus the older focus on grammar (or usage as Williams is so concerned about pointing out.) This is something that I need to stress, not only in my own writing, but it the writing of my students. As Williams argues, editing occurs after a paper does what is supposed to do.

So much for the revising part ... here's the best resource I ever found for editing: Diana Hacker.

Is there anything Funny about being Muslim in North America?

I just found this and thought it was worth posting.


http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/07/arts/television/07mosq.html

Local Ownership

I really enjoying hunting down who owns the media that I consume every day. I am always surprised by certain outlets that are still qausi-independent.

Of my favorite media, here's who owns what:

Food Network-- E. W. Scripps
ESPN -- Walt Disney Co.
The New York Times -- The New York Times Company
The Star Tribune -- The McClatchy Co.
Discovery Channel -- Liberty Media/Cox/Advance -- Newhouse
CNN -- TimeWarner
Comedy Central -- Viacom/TimeWarner/AT&T
Cable TV -- Comcast
Internet -- Comcast
City Pages -- Village Voice Media
89.3 The Current -- Minnesota Public Radio
TPT -- publicly Funded

I definitely notice content changes when getting my news from different sources. The biggest difference I see is between The News Hour with Jim Lehrer on PBS and CNN. I often hear about certain aspects of a story on CNN, but it is often surface/shock info about a story. I can then see the same story on NewsHour and get much more full coverage. It strikes me as very strange that a 24 hour news station doesn't seem to cover anything in depth. Especially when then have news scrolling across the bottom of the screen at all times.

I also notice a difference when reading news from the City Pages and the Star Tribune. The depth doesn't seem to be much of an issue, both papers cover certain stories in a great deal of depth. There is an obvious slant, however, to the news in the City Pages. It seems to try and be a much more aggresive, no-holds-barred, source. Unfortunately, it often comes off as mere snobbery and trying too hard.

As for my other soureces for media... I know that content for ESPN is chosen very carefully by the Disney Co. There is often cross promotion for ABC television and Miramax or Dimension films. This has recently risen to a new level of obnoxiousness on Monday Night Football. They have a guest in the booth everyweek that is part of another Disney Owned Venture.

Music.

Writing about music is always one of my favorite things... though I've found that the media literacy courses I've enrolled in have focused much more on popular music and not the value and effects of much of the music I listen to. That's not to say that I have a big problem with popular music or that I don't like it, it's simply to say we rarely focus on other genres. I, for the most part listen to Jazz music. For the purposes of this post, I'll stick with the music of Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers, even more specifically the song "Calling Miss Khadija."
I've known this song for much longer than I've known the name or the artist. My first encounter with it was at the Artist's Quarter in St. Paul. I would often go to the B-3 Organ Night with friends and have a drink and listen to great music for a while. Though the music was always changing, the band had a rather small repetoir that they chose from week after week. This particular song quickly became a favorite of mine, though I was still oblivious to the name and writer. I eventually found the song on a record by accident, when I randomly bought a Jazz Messengers record from the Electric Fetus. I was surprised to find the song after years of hearing it out of the context of the record.
My interest in this tune came about because of it's very rhythmically interesting head. The first few times I listened to the song I was really impressed by the way the meter seemed to shift every time the head came about... it really made me think about what was going on. Of course another aspect of my interest in this song is that each time I hear it it changes. The thought of this is particularly interesting to me, because it seems to harken back to the time of music before recording, where each performance of a song was something special to be experienced. This may, in fact, be the most important aspect of the song to me. Beyond this aspect, of course, there are a number of other elements of this song that I love, including the driving rhythm section. The rhythm section is magnificent on the one recorded version of this song I have, with Art Blakey on the drums, Cedar Wlaton on piano, and Reggie Workman on bass.
Part of the appeal of this music to me is it's historical significance. The music reminds me of a time when music was less commercial, when performance meant everything, and intellectually challenging music seemed to rule clubs and the night life in this country. The msuic has a strong association with drinking whiskey in a dark smokey room to me. It can maintain my constant attention for hours and will keep me moving and thinking.

Documentary

This spring I worked for a little while with my brother opening a restaurant. It was a trying ordeal for he and his business partners. Luckily, I came to work for them after the serious storm of the whole process, but I was able to understand a bit of what they had gone through. If I were to put together a documentary, I think I would focus on the opening of a restaurant, from beginning to end. Although this was kind of done with the Rocco DiSpirito fiasco on TV, I would like to go a bit more in-depth with people who actually have something to loose.
By doing this documentary I would like to convey to people how hard it is to actually start a restaurant. The problems are not just what to serve and at what prices, but a laundry list of other issues including location, licensing, clientele, financing, etc. I would like to help show why people might like to support local businesses (especially restaurants).
There are a number of different people involved in the opening of a restaurant that could be interviewed. First, I would set a little bit of back story by interviewing former coworkers and supervisors of those attempting the opening. These could be 'character witnesses' for the main characters in the film. I would obviously interview the folks that are opening the restaurant to find what inspired them to do so and what problems they foresee. From that point on it would depend on what kind of problems the characters face. If they have a problem getting licenses, I would potentially talk to city council members about the problem. If they have a problem with getting the food they want, talk to distributors, etc.
I would like to think that it would be easy to provide a realistic portrayal in this film. I assume that most people would be willing to talk to me for such a project. However, it could potentially be a problem talking to people who may come off as 'the bad guy.' People in city planning or local government may be a bit uneasy with being interviewed. I think I could work around this by doing off-camera interviews and presenting the material garnered anonymously.