"Sharpening" Our Writing!

Hi! It’s my turn to do the summary for the day, so here we go. “Sharpening”, the selection we had to read was from the same book we read about Engfish from, Telling Writing by Ken Marcrorie.

A lot of what Marcrorie discusses in this section expands on what he started mentioning in Engfish. Remember how Marcrorie talked about how we tried to make overly wordy sentences that didn’t really mean anything? Marcrorie discusses in this section ways to “sharpen” our sentences, or to make them sound better, and this process really will make our sentences sound less “Engfishy”.

One of the main points Marcrorie makes is using active verbs instead of passive verbs. Instead of using a lot of linking verbs like ‘is’, we should try to use action verbs that suit what we’re saying instead.

Example:
-- Reading this section is assisting us in becoming better writers. (Passive verb phrase is assisting.)
Versus
-- Reading this section improves our writing style.

Clearly, the second one sounds a lot more convincing. It also cuts down on the number of unnecessary words, which was one of the main aspects of Engfish.

The other main point that Macrorie brings up is all the use of unnecessary words and the overuse of the pronoun ‘it’. Rather than beating around the bush by saying things like ‘It seems that reading this will help me’, Macrorie argues that we should just get to the point and say ‘Reading this will help me’. By avoiding all the extra words, we sound a little more authoritative, don’t you think? We also sound a lot more convincing, or at least that’s how it seems to me, and I can’t really think of any situation where we wouldn’t want to sound convincing in our writing.

Obviously, passive verbs and ‘it’ can’t always be avoided, but we should always try to avoid them in situations where we could be using better and more colorful words!

For discussion:
What did you think about the article? Have you had any experience with writing that needs a little sharpening, or maybe have you seen instances in which you’ve used a lot of “its”, “seems”, and passive verbs yourself? (I know I’m guilty of it!) What do you think is the best way to try to avoid this? (Since these aren’t really errors, I know it’s a lot harder for me to catch myself doing it. I mean, I just used the word ‘it’ and ‘is’ in that sentence!) If you have any other thoughts, too, you can just put them here.

Thanks!
--Laura Treat

Writing Samples -- What's Wrong Here???

LEARNING CYCLE: Finding Out the Rules



enagage: I'm always engaging ;-)


TASK 1 (explore):

Read the following writing samples, and note down any mistakes you may find on a piece of paper. You have five minutes. Then, we'll talk in class about the mistakes we've found. One student will write them on the board as a bullet-pointed list of categories. Question: Who, you think, has written those examples (age, group of society)?


EXAMPLE 1

When entering a university or college, most students parents put a word or two into their child ear. If the student listen, its on him or her. But the advice your parents usually give you is right. Most students are introduce to drugs and alcohle and is put with the delima should they use it. Then start to think back at what they parent told them. They let it float in one ear and out the other.


EXAMPLE 2

As the showed end for that week my friends and I were preparing to leave, but stop to socialize like everyoneelse was doing. For some strange reason we were singled out. "Gentlemen, cross the street", yelled the officer. We kept talking because we didn't know if he was referring to us. "Get off the property and cross the street", yelled the officer. So, I turned around and gestured to my friends lets leave and as we were crossing the street me friend Theron got snatched up by an officer for no reason. The officer grabbed him threw him up against a car and twisted his arm behind his back for no reason. Theron ask what did he do and he said, "Shut up, your getting arrested tonight", and handcuffed him. Naturally, as friends we tried to help; in all the comotion my friend Chris got hancuffed also. So, they took Theron and Chris back inside the building.



TASK 2 (expand):

Each student on his/her own: Read over the handout "Appendix A: Student Writing Samples and Analyses" which I will distribute. The introduction will tell you who wrote these samples. This lesson is not about discrimination, but about learning of a totally different language including grammar, which has its pros and cons. Pick two to three additional writing samples (you can do more if you're very fast), looking for different "mistakes." In the following, we won't call them "mistakes" any more, but "deviations from Standard English." Add them to our class list on the board (with sample words). You have 10 minutes.



TASK 3 (explain):

Get together in groups of 4, and pick up 1-2 sharpies and a poster page. Use chapter II which I will distribute, "What Are the Distinctive Features...?", and create a poster with a well-organized overview of the distinctive features, including short samples. You can use our previously created category list, too. Just make sure it is a brief overview and fits on one page of your poster. You have 15-20 minutes. Write all your group's members' names on the BACK of your poster, so I can grade it after class!

HINT: You can assign different sub-chapters to each of your group's members, to work faster. This way, you won't all have to read the same text, but can delegate the topics.

Hang up your poster, and present it briefly to the class. (evaluation; assessment)






THE NEXT BLOG TEXT is the handout "What Is...?" which I will distribute in class. If you're not present today, pick it up from the mailbox outside my office door in FANER 3202B where I always leave all handouts distributed in class.

THE BLOG SUMMMARY is due on Wednesday, Sept. 2nd, and will be done by Andre Dyson.

Everybody's BLOG RESPONSE can be posted as soon as his summary is published on Wednesday, and is due on Friday, Sept. 4th, before class time.



NOTE:
Deadline for each blog response is ALWAYS the time a new blog summary appears online. I am NOT going back to search for belatedly added comments (unless you were sick and brought me an official excuse). That means, you can post to Laura Treat's summary about "Sharpening" until Andre Dyson has published his "What Is...?" After that, I won't look at the old entries any more, so you won't get any points for late assignments. You can post to Andre's summary until the next one, due on Friday, Sept. 4th, by Alex Rude, appears online. I will distribute this text on Wednesday, Sept. 2nd.

EXCEPTION: If one of the people who do the summary decides to post before his/her deadline, for example, today instead of next Wednesday, that's fine, but your response (= comment) still won't be due before next class time, because that would have been the real due date. If you want to, you can respond earlier.

Internet Lingo - Literacy of the Future?

dEr cls, 2day w'r gunA deal W txt msgN slang. w'r gunA do a cr8tive ritN asynmnt, as wel as a :-[ thinkN response. I hope Ull Njoy deez tasks.



Read the following excerpt from Language and the Internet:

"A Mori/Lycos UK survey published in September 2000 showed that 81% of mobile phone users between the ages of 15 and 24 were using their phone for sending text messages, typically to co-ordinate their social lives, to engage in language play, to flirt, or just to send a 'thinking of you' message. Apparently, 37% of all messagers have used the service to tell someone they love them. At the same time, reports suggest that the service is being used for other purposes, such as sexual harassment, school bullying, political rumour-mongering, and interaction between drug dealers and clients.

The challenge of the small screen size and its limited character space (about 160 characters), as well as the small keypad, has motivated the evolution of an even more abbreviated language than emerged in chatgroups and virtual worlds (...). Some of the same abbreviations appear, either because of their 'obvious' rebus-like potential (e.g. NE1, 2day, B4, C U l8r ['later'], and Z ['said']) or because the generally youthful population of users were familiar with Netspeak shorthand in its other situations (e.g. Msg ['message'], BRB ['be right back']).

Basic smileys (...) are also used. Capital letters can be given syllabic values, as in thN ['then'] and nEd ['need']. But the medium has motivated some new forms (e.g. c%l ['cool']) and its own range of direct-address items, such as F2T ['free to talk?'], Mob ['mobile'], PCM ['please call me'], MMYT ['Mail me your thoughts'], and RUOK ['are you OK?']. Multi-word sentences and sequences of response utterances, especially of a stereotyped kind, can be reduced to a sequence of initial letters: SWDYT ['So what do you think?'], BCBC ['Beggars can't be choosers'], BTDT ['Been there, done that'], YYSSW ['Yeah, yeah, sure, sure, whatever'], HHOJ ['Ha, ha, only joking']. Users seem to be aware of the information value of consonants as opposed to vowels, judging by such vowel-less items as TXT ['text'] and XLNT ['excellent'].

The process saves a great deal of time and energy (given the awkwardness of selecting letters on the small keypad), and in those companies which still charge by the character (as opposed to the whole message), there is an economic value in abbreviation, too. In a creation such as ru2cn mel8r ['Are you two seeing me later?'], less than half the characters of the full form of the sentence are used. Even more ingenious coded abbreviations have been devised, especially among those for whom argot is a desirable safeguard against unwelcome surveillance."

Crystal, David (2001). Language and the Internet. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, England. Pages 229-230.

_________

Task 1: Creative Writing... (post on blog)

Pretend you are high school students. Develop a short blog entry with any kind of text written in text-messaging slang (employing emoticons, if you wish).

Then, take another student's post, and try to translate it! Post the translation on this blog, too, referring to the name whose Internet lingo you are translating, so we all know what you're answering to. Once a response is posted, nobody else can publish his/her solution any more. The winner is the person who gets most translations right ;-)

In the beginning, try without cheating. If you don’t get it all, you can use a guide, for example http://www.webopedia.com/quick_ref/textmessageabbreviations.asp
http://www.lingo2word.com/lists/emoticon_listA.html

Have fun!


Task 2: Critical Statement.... (email to me)

Write a comment (250-500 words) about how you perceive people's use of text-messaging slang (your students, yourself, your friends, peers, etc....). Do you see it as a problem/threat at all? What do you think about the English language of the future? What is your personal experience? Do you use it yourself? Do you have examples (from student teaching, etc.)? How do you deal with it? If you've never encountered it before - how would you react if your students / team mates, etc. would use this kind of language in official writing (school, newspaper, office, etc.)?


HOMEWORK for this Friday, August 29th:

I've distributed our first blog reading today in class: SHARPENING. Read this text for Friday. The first person on our blog list, Laura Treat, will publish her summary as a new thread for Friday morning.

When she has posted her summary of the article "Sharpening" by Ken Marcrorie (the writer of ENGFISH), you can all begin posting your comments to the text to his new blog thread.

The comments are due on Wednesday next week, since Monday is off!!!

Using Adverbs Abundantly -- "Tom Swifties"

Today, we are going to introduce ourselves to one another. Why didn't we do this the first day of class? Because... there were still people switching and dropping courses, and finally finding out that we're not business English ;-)

After hearing about everybody for approximately 10 minutes altogether, we'll work in groups, so you'll get to know your neighbors.

First task (everyone on his/her own):
Go to the following website and learn what "Tom Swifties" are.


Task 2:

Get together in groups of 3-4. Go to the following webpage (and other related ones you find yourself). Your group's task is to create a 12-item test for another group that this group has to solve. Get the emails of the other group's members, and email them your quiz. The group that solves most of the 12 items it gets from another group wins!! You need to retype Tom Swifties that you find on the webpage, but you leave out the last word, i.e., the pun, for the group to fill in the blank.

Examples:

1. How do you start a model-T Ford without a battery?" asked Tom _____________ .

(answer: CRANKILY)

2. "I have to wear this cast for another six weeks," said Tom _________________ .

(answer: DISJOINTEDLY)

3. "I'm shocked," said Tom _____________________ .

(answer: ELECTRICALLY)


You should select sentences that people are able to guess when they think hard.

EMAIL me your 12-item quiz (with solutions). Only one per group, please! Indicate your group members names in this email (because you'll all get points for the quiz).


Task 3:

Invent 1-3 Tom Swifties on your own!!! Publish them as a comment to this blog. If you work in groups, indicate all your names on your blog entry. If you can't finish in class, this will be homework for Wednesday.

Mini Lesson for Asian ESL student

Now you have made your first experiences with mini lessons, and most of you have done it very well. There were lots of possibilities to explain this grammatical structure to students. Room to be creative!! Kudos to the people with cool attention getters.

This was our initial practice, so don't worry if it wasn't perfect yet. I will email out the best solutions from both my grammar courses, so you have an example of what it should have been like.

Some have missed the topic - the topic was not the difference between Me and My as in "this is me dress, this is my dress" - we were not teaching pronouns to beginning learners of English. We were teaching how to construct pronouns coupled with -ing forms (gerunds), such as "Do you like him driving? Do you like his driving?"

Our topic was GERUND PHRASE with POSSESSIVE ADJECTIVE. The main difference between using either ME or MY is that in one case, the verb with the -ing form acts as an object with an attributive adjective (HIM), and in the other case, it is a GERUND with a possessive adjective (HIS).

Let's go back to our example, "Do you like him driving?" It has a different sense than the other sentence, it means you actually dislike HIM driving, e.g. when he's drunk. It places disdain on the driver rather than on the action, the driving. HIM becomes the object, and DRIVING is the attributive adjective.

The second example means in general; "do you like his driving," i.e., his driving (style) in general, or does it frighten you. You don't like HIS driving because he always drives too fast. It places the disdain on the ACTION, the driving, not on the subject, the driver. DRIVING here is a gerund, serving as the (accusative) object of the sentence. (What do you like? His driving.) HIS is the possessive adjective.

So be careful -- sometimes, it does not work to give the kids a handout with "wrong sentences" and "right sentences" -- here, both were right, they just had different meanings.

_____________________________________

Today, we are constructing another mini lesson; this time for an Asian student who has English as a second language (ESL).

In order to deal with diversity in our students, we need to understand the background of their native languages. We do this by reading research, by observing our students, and by simply asking them.


Task 1: Proofread the sample text below. It is an original text written by an SIU TESOL student last year. (And she was a good student!) Then, take a piece of paper, and repair as many mistakes as you can find. Rewrite the sentences correctly, with regard to good grammar AND style.


The Beijing is a modern city and there are a lot of places to visit. First, there are many new building was build. One of the new buildings, it looks like a bird’s nest. Then, it have a big history. You can visit a lot of old buildings to know the history, just like “the summer Palace”. Finally, many people come from different country, there are kinds of restaurant. You can eat which you want to taste. Beijing is a nice place.


Task 2: In class, we will discuss a list of specific errors that occurred, and we will group these errors into categories.

Here is an example for a category: modifiers

In Chinese, modifiers always precede the noun, whereas in English they can follow the noun, especially for attributive clauses. Therefore, Chinese students often have problems constructing an attributive clause. For example:

· Their owners may want to come to the store knows the pets better.
· These are all good strategies should be used.
· There are some people want to live in the countryside.
· The Plan provides lots of good statistic numbers which very helpful.
· My grandfather is the only person who influenced by his actions.

Another category: pronouns

One salient error is the leaving out of the relative pronouns, because they don’t exist in Chinese. For instance, the first sentence, if written in Chinese, would be like: “Their owners may want to come to knows the pets better the store.”

To find more categories, take the following ERIC document for help. (Look only on pp. 47-62 for specific error types.)


Task 3: Pick one of your categories, or one category mentioned on pp. 47-62, and write a short passage how you as a teacher/tutor/editor would explain to the Asian writer above WHY this can’t be said in English. Use her sentences as samples, and give her some other examples, too. Please write with quotation marks (how you would actually say it to the student). Give plausible examples of right/wrong sentences, and explain to the ESL student how to use the grammatical form you picked correctly. (Don't just explain, "we do it this way in English.")Email this assignment to me. If you can't finish in class, this will be homework for next Monday, August 25th.

Here is an example of how a teacher explained article use to an ESL student:

In a case study, a Costa Rican boy used the “the” too often, for example, “the nature has a lot of secrets.” The teacher replies: “Let me ask you, if you are walking in the woods, where is nature?” – “It’s in the trees. It’s kind of … everywhere,” the student replies. “Right. It’s everywhere. So nature is a very general noun. We talk about nature but we are not talking about a specific place or specific trees…” (Celce-Murcia & Larsen-Freeman 1983, 9-10).


Task 4:
Post a short comment to this blog about your own experience with Asian students, if you are observing/student teaching and have made any experiences so far. You can also write about what you observed outside of class with regard to Asian ESL persons. Or, post your personal thoughts about teaching children of diverse cultures. What would you do to make it easier for them? Any accommodations? Or would you treat them like the rest of your students? If you had an Asian student in your class who wrote great essays but placed the articles wrongly each time, would you take points off or give her the good grade her content deserves? If you give her the good grade, would it be fair to your American students who get points off for mechanics??? Let your conscience speak.

HOMEWORK: Read the complete article (the ERIC document above).

Mini Lessons and Learning Cycle

I am a believer in constructivist teaching, and hands-on practice. Students learn by inquiry; they find out things on their own rather than by listening to a lecture how it is done. You don't need to favor this teaching method, but in order to accept or reject it, you should experiment with it a bit.

Today, we are going to model a Mini Lesson as an example for the ones each student is going to present.

This is the topic: the difference between "Me" and "My" plus -ing form. For example: Do you like my teaching? Do you like me teaching? Other examples from a teacher's instruction:

FINITE AND NON-FINITE CLAUSES

Finite clauses /sentences – finite verb forms, i.e. the verb is conjugated (past, present, future)
Non-finite clause – non-finite verb forms (no time aspect)
-ing clauses and infinitive clauses

Examples of non-finite clauses:

-ing clause with a subject:
Your changing the plan has caused a lot of trouble.
Do you mind me/my smoking?
I heard about Jim arguing all night.

Hint: you can use websites such as this one for help.

Your first task for this hour (and your homework for Friday, August 22nd, if you can't finish in class today) will be to create a Learning Cycle (LC) for an English class (grade level of your choice)about this topic.

This is an explanation of a Learning Cycle: LC


According to this model, a Learning Cycle consists of 5 E's:
Engage (you catch your students' attention to the topic)
Explore (the kids find things out by themselves)
Explain (students try to analyze the problem; you explain the rules to them)
Expand (kids get a different task to apply what they've found out)
Evaluate (you assess their comprehension)

Some people even suggest that a LC does not only have 5 E's, but 6! The mysterious number six is "E-search." Read the following article: http://science.nsta.org/enewsletter/2005-05/sc0411_47.pdf

Now, develop a lesson how you would teach the ME/MY grammatical issue to your audience, using all 6 E's, and email this lesson plan to me. You can make a separate heading for all 6 E's, and just say what you would do, and what the students would do. You are allowed to use the Internet for ideas. For the "explore" and "expand" part especially, you are welcome to do games or quizzes, etc. For the "evaluate" part, you should create a small test or quiz with sample questions. It should look user-friendly, depending on the age-group you chose - a handout you would actually use if you were the teacher of a class.

When you're done with this, here's your second task:

Post a short comment on this blog what you think about the Learning Cycle model. Originally, it was conceived for math or sciences classes. Do you think it is useful for English (or any language, or ESL) classes? Would you use it? Were you taught this way? Your personal opinion...

Welcome to Grammar 300-1!

Welcome to Dr. V's grammar course 300-1 for education majors!

This is going to be a fun course. Let's jump in at the deep end right away: here's your first prompt, which will be homework for Wednesday, August 20th, in case we don't finish in class today - go to the following link

http://www.kristisiegel.com/engfish2.htm

Read the excerpt "The Poison Fish" from Ken Marcrorie's book Telling Writing.
It talks about ENGFISH, a common form of student writing (AND textbook writing!!) that you will encounter during your future career as teachers.

Your task: write a short blog entry about your personal experience with ENGFISH - are you maybe student teaching already, and have seen it in your kids' writing? Did they serve you ENGFISH in their final exams when they wrote: "When I came into this class I knew nothing, but this semester I've learned so much; I owe it all to you, and you are a great teacher"?! Or did you produce ENGFISH texts yourself in certain situations? What do you think about the term? Does it work for you, or do you think it is inadequate? Better suggestions? Or do you perhaps have a funny example of ENGFISH you want to share? How can its use be avoided?

Hint:
Your blog comment should be about as long as this entry -- if it's too long, people won't be thrilled to read it, and if it's too short, it can't contain very much insight. Consider this blog as a discussion board. You can offer your own stories, or react to your peers'. The only time you have to publish a longer article here is when it is your turn to summarize a chapter reading from our textbooks or articles I distribute.