Blog #3 response and importance of commas

In the article Sudden Possibilities the author introduces her idea of mistakes having a deeper meaning than a simple grammatical error, she does this by writing "My Purpoise" As if she were to begin writing about a marine mammal. She continues on this idea of the reader drawing conclusion on the text based on the title. She states that although it is misleading for her she found it served a different purpose. That purpose was that it can engage students into reading further into the text by tricking them with a clever use of words. She also underlines the reasons that students might make common mistakes such as: spelling viola as walla. She describes that even though these are simple grammatical errors the reason behind them isn't simply a learning deficiency but is normal to the learning process. The author talks about error analysis and how teachers often approach correcting errors. She dives into DOL or Daily Oral Language, and at first gives reason why it might be beneficial she notes that it doesn't incite interest in the learning or understanding of the actual language. One of the problems she recognized with DOL is that the sentences or text their working with isn't usually student work, but "prepackaged classroom guides"( Crovitz, Darren p.33). Crovitz Argues that because the statements are detached, and random sentences that they exist in a vacuum. Crovitz then says that they are "contextually generic as opposed to an individual's actual language"(Crovitz, Darren p.33). Crovitz even brings in Weavers summary of research which states that students writing might actually suffer due to these random isolated activities. The author then points out that these DOL exercises assume "that repetition is key to better grammar"(Crovitz, Darren p.33). she concludes her ideas on DOL exercies elegantly by saying the writer rarely has a chance to look back at their own writing and why they make errors instead the attention is focused on the fact that the errors should just be fixed.
    When creating a DOL exercise I really wanted to highlight the importance of punctuation. Although the DOL exercises constantly use random generic sentences I tried to take a different approach and make the importance of punctuation stick. I do this by bringing in examples of wrong punctuation in everyday life; from signs to letters. One of the examples I found that deals with the importance of commas goes like this

"lets eat Grandma!"
or
"lets eat, Grandma!"    

Naturally the pattern of the week I chose to deal with was compound sentences. After doing some work looking up the importance of commas I noticed in some of the letters and larger pieces of text I found that compound sentences were more common. It is important to correctly use conjunctions and commas properly in compound sentences in order to avoid run on sentences.

blog #2

After reading both of the articles Grammar Alive and Christensen's article, I found these two pieces of literature could prove to be very helpful when teaching grammar. A lot of people struggle with grammar and the English language so bringing in two pieces of work that are working towards a common goal, to help the readers better their understanding of learning. 

In the first article Grammar Alive, they laid out three main goals from the start. Goal A states "Every student, from every background, will complete school with the ability to communicate comfortably and effectively in both spoken and written Standard English, with awareness of when use of Standard English is appropriate.(1)" Goal B was then introduced saying "Every student will complete school with the ability to analyze the grammatical structure of sentences within English texts, using grammatical terminology correctly and demonstrating knowledge of how sentence-level grammatical structure contributes to the coherence of paragraphs and texts.(1)" And lastly Goal C was defined as "Every student will complete school with an understanding of, and application for, the natural variation that occurs in language across time, social situation, and social group. While recognizing the need for mastering Standard English, students will also demonstrate an understanding of the equality in the expressive capacity and linguistic structure among a range of language varieties both vernacular and standard, as well as an understanding of language-based prejudice.(1)" I recognize that these three goals are essential to teaching grammar, and I would like to try to implement these goals into my teaching someday. 

In the second article by Christensen, I noticed that throughout the article the goals from Grammar Alive are present but she presents theme in a less formal and social manner. She brings all of the goals to light, by describing real life situations in which they are present. I found this part of the article to be particularly helpful because, grammar is hard to grasp; especially if there isn't any examples to look at. Grammar Alive did a really good job of laying out what it is that students need to be able to do with grammar but Christensen goes to the next level and applies these goals. 

Although both of the articles were designed to help the reader better their understanding of grammar, I found the way each article approached that to be different. The Grammar Alive article really focused on giving the reader the information and making as clear and understandable as possible. Whereas Christensen assumed the reader was more comfortable with grammar and went on to describe ways in which one might apply the three goals to their teaching. I found both articles to be helpful in creating a better understanding of grammar and how to apply it to a classroom.

Work cited

1.Haussamen, B., & Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar. (2003). Grammar alive! : A guide for teachers. Urbana, Ill.: National Council of Teachers of English.