Pow!

Sorry about the title of this post, but Poe's "Imp of the Perverse" bit me and I couldn't help it. Anyhow, I was thinking about a sentence in the Weaver article ("Teaching Grammar in the Context of Writing"), and I couldn't help but admire the truth in it. The sentence is: "...many students who have studied English grammar consciously learn the structure of English for the first time when studying a foreign language". I learned more about English grammar when I took three semesters of Russian. The Russian language is a Slavic language and totally unrelated to English, a Germanic language. It was in those three semesters that I actually began to understand the little idiosynchrasies of English.
What I find appalling is that even though research backs up that learning a foreign language helps with learning English, many schools do not offer foreign language classes until high school, when most students capacity for learning a foreign language is diminished. My oldest daughter, when she was in second grade, had a Spanish language class at a charter school. She excelled in it and I was astonished at how much more articulate she became in her native language...English.
On a different note, I did find it rather humorous that some people equated grammar with God's master plan of organization. I think that grammar does represent organization...well, at least to an extent. There are rules in grammar that can be broken and still make sense. Are there any of God's rules that can be broken and still be okay? Plus, if teachers prostelytize that the rules of grammar represent God's master plan, then what position does this put teachers in? Are we to be the priests or priestesses of grammar?
To me it just makes sense to teach grammar in the context of writing. Seriously, sometimes the best way to understand something is to work your way through it. When my children make mistakes in the oral language I tell them the right word...sometimes. Sometimes they just need to realize their mistakes themselves. Usually, after they misuse a word or say something incorrectly, such as "gots" or "her" (as in "her give it to me"), then they will self-correct.
In writing, grammar is important because it establishes the level of intelligence that the writer has (or lacks). Writing is the spoken word in written form. While vernacular English usually is imperfect, written English should at least be sensical. Written English does not have dialectal differences such as vernacular English does so written English should not reflect the vernacular (unless you are Mark Twain or Maya Angelou). There comes a point though, that all of this concern over grammar does get a little rediculous. I mean, really, does it matter if something is misspeled? Does it matter. if? i improperleeigh use my punct-u-a-shun oar spellin? doos it mater iph i spell creativelly? Your damn right it does! I can remember reading different works that had the spelling and grammar fixed. In one class I had years ago, the "unfixed" version of some work was put next to the "fixed" version and the unfixed version was completely not understandable. We have grammar gods for a reason...to make written works accessable to the average reader.

As I have been working through my pedagogy project, I realize that I am going to be a "no-boundaries" type of teacher. I am over-whelmed already and I haven't even begun teaching! I've been reminiscening about all the areas of teaching writing that we have covered this semester, and I realize that there is no way I can cover everything in one semester of writing. I mean how am I, as a teacher, supposed to teach grammar, punctuation, spelling, subject-verb agreements, passive versus active voice, alongside teaching pupils how to write engaging and creative and critical and argumentative and research-based essay? Plus, I also have to cover multiple genres---from poetry to microfictional stories to business-types of writing. I'm supposed to teach my future pupils how to use their "voice" in writing when it has never been clearly defined, how to break the rules after I clearly tell them that there are rules to writing, and how to incorporate others' opinions and ideas in their own writing. Whew! I'm confused and unsure of myself already.
I think what makes writing this pedagogy project so difficult is that I am imagining my pupils rather than actually getting to work with them through their writing. I mean, don't most teachers alter their lesson plans depending upon if their pupils actually were prepared for the next lesson or not?
With the amount of material a writing teacher has to cover, I can understand the temptation of tracking pupils. I mean, if a teacher understands that there will be all poor writers in his or her class, then at least the teacher knows what kind of help these pupils will need. Please understand that I am not endorsing tracking because I know first hand the horrible repercussions of being a low-tracked student. I know tracking is a system of setting up certain pupils for failure while preparing other pupils for more successful academic careers. I do not like the idea of tracking but that doesn't mean I can not understand the temptation of it.
On a bit of a different track, I think incorporating a writing pedagogy project with a reading pedagogy project probably would work better for me. I have aways found it easier to write after I have read something that inspires, angers, or otherwise motivates me. I think combining the two different types of pedagogies would help pupils too since I know I would get bored of continually writing every day in a class (no offense Rob!). Seriously though, reading and writing seem to be so fundamentally tied that I can't seperate the two and I won't in my future classroom. I remember when I was in Rob's other teacher prep class and we were assigned reading prompts where we would have to draw a picture or write a short reactionary piece based on whatever it was that we had read. My own writing was so much better because of the ideas that the reading generated in my mind. I am not one who easily dreams up of interesting things to write about, and I imagine I would have at least a few pupils like me in my future classroom who also may need a little prompting to write. The easiest prompt is to read. In my estimation, the best writers also are voracious readers.
So anyhow, my frustration level is going up as I try to write an engaging pedagogy project. I want my pedagogy project to fuel the love for writing, not just be another mindless task for pupils to complete alongside their algebra homework and their science reading. I want my pedagogy project to not only challenge and inspire pupils but to offer up lessons on how to make them a better writer just for the sake of their own enjoyment.

Gaining some inspiration from Kathryn's blog posting on grading the high-schoolers' papers that Rob gave us last week, I decided to post a blog article on grading. I was disappointed in the essays that we were given to grade. I don't know...maybe I am just a perfectionist and I expect others to be perfectionists, but these essays were poorly written. Not only were there simple spelling errors and punctuation problems, but the lack of support for opinions and the obvious bias in each essay made for a tough reading of them. I took it for granted that these essays were to be expository writing on a subject, so therefore, I didn't expect so much obvious bias. The first and second essays were littered with it. For example, in essay one, the pupil writes that "Bush's speech...and Roosevelt's speech...have both very unique strategies that are of genius". Ummmm, yeah. Major problems here. Not only is the sentence screaming bias, but it also has problems with word choice (mind you, I did clean up the spelling and punctuation errors). If both speeches are similar, as the writer would have us believe, then they are not unique...they are similar. Unique means one of a kind. Plus, call it one of my little pet-peeves, but any time someone uses the terms "very", "good", or "bad" in their writing, I just want to roll my eyes. Using those types of non-descript words seem so elementary-ish. "Very", "good", and "bad" really do not have any set boundaries...in other words, give me something concrete! Perhaps these pupils should have tried words like "convincing", "grounded", "personally troubling", and so forth.
I also noticed that each of these essays are mired in the passive voice; although, the third essay not as much as the other two. I'm wondering if passive versus active voice is even discussed in most high school English classrooms. Passive voice verbs are hard to read after awhile because it seems as if everything is happening by some outside force rather than the actors in the story. Using active voice verbs provides the story's actors responsibility. Rather than allowing things to happen to them, they are making things happen.
The second essay was a bit better on certain areas than the first. Yet, I was shocked to see the obvious plagarism in the essay. It was fairly easy for me to see what passages the pupil had lifted straight from Tacitus's text on the burning of Rome. Also, this pupils failed to give any summary of "The Burning of Rome" in the report. If this pupil had provided even a one paragraph summary, then it would have made more sense to me.
The third example essay was, by far, the best written. However, there is a complete lack of a grounded thesis and the paragraphs that follow do not seem to flow together in a connected way. The lack of transitions made the writer's thoughts seem disconnected. I did like the fact that this pupil actually pulled quotations out to use in the essay. This essay (yes, I found the link to this essay online), like the first two, also showed obvious bias. The pupil thought that the poem was about the lack of respect and endorsement for Muslim women, but I wonder if the poem may be more about how Muslims' view death. I think this pupil got on a kick about the religion and what this student thought is the subjugation of Muslim women and those opinions brought about a narrow view of the poem. I must confess, though, that I have never read this poem ("Elegy for a Woman of Importance" by Nazik al-Mala'ikah) so I may be wrong.
Overall, these essays disappointed me a bit and made me realize what I am going to be facing on a day-to-day basis. I graded the essays a B-, B-, and B+.