As for my next trick. . . Brush Strokes in my Research Paper draft!

Here are two paragraphs I copied and pasted from my research paper draft with identified Brush Strokes I learned in class. . . I hope I identified and labeled them correctly.

Schooling, an immensely important factor in American society, brings, to those who seek it, knowledge to further enhance their lives. (Appositive) Teachers are the individuals gifting students with information that will bring them success. Those who are or are becoming teachers are introduced to a diverse multitude of students. Since no two students are alike in experiences, biases, cultures, languages or learning styles it becomes the responsibility of the teacher to honor each student’s differences. I decided that I want to work in my home town's high school, Wenatchee High, a large and energetic community of students, which is heavily populated with the Mexican-Hispanic population. (Absolute) Students coming from Hispanic backgrounds are either a second generation or a generation 1.5 individual. Most students identify themselves as Chicano/as. Researching the Chicano language is beneficial to my exploring and understanding of grammatical differences and the social implications between the language and English, which in turn I will use the information to value students’ languages in the classroom.

Chicanos, lively and unique, are individuals who are born in the United States but come from a Mexican culture background. (Adjectives out-of-order) There are two basic generations; second generation and generation 1.5. Second generation individuals know little to no Spanish which in turn makes English their primary spoken, written, and understood language. Second generation Chicanos are believed to have been influenced to lose their native language, at school and other public locations, to learn English. Other persons manage to learn the “cash language” and still are able to retain Spanish: they are known today as generation 1.5. Schooling is a legitimate factor in the diminishing Spanish language among Chicano students. But what can be done to honor students’ languages at the same time teach them Edited American English?     

end of draft piece

I am still having trouble as to how to focus my paper on answering the question, "How do you value students' home languages in the classroom?". I plan on first describing the grammatical differences and social implications between Chicano English and Edited American English. I also plan on focusing on high school students who are learning Edited American English and speak and write Spanish. The teaching aspect is important in my research so I want to explore schools that have classes taught in both Spanish and English (elementary schools in Wenatchee) and schools, more specifically kinds of teachers, that either respect the Spanish language or frown upon the language being spoken in a school setting. I feel like my ideas for the paper are going in all different directions and I need help narrowing ideas down. But do I need to narrow down and specify some more or are my ideas neccesary to my research, thus having them included?

Antecedents and pronouns and commas, oh my!

Paragraph #1

Original

According to the definition, the difference between realism and naturalism is that naturalism has a specific object in mind when they choose the segment of reality that they wish to convey (Campbell). In “Like a Winding Sheet” the dilemma Johnson, the protagonist, is struggling to control is anger and frustrations that develop throughout his whole day. The specific object in a segment of reality Petry decides to make the main point of the short story is the struggle to not punch the women who make him aggravated. The first incident was when Mae, Johnson’s wife, realized it was Friday the 13th and decided that she did not want to go out and work that day but rather stay home. Johnson is a loving husband so what he does was to try to calmly persuade her, which makes him late, “because they spent fifteen minutes arguing before he could convince her she ought to go to work just the same. He had to talk persuasively, urging her gently and it took time. But he couldn’t bring himself to talk to her roughly or threaten to strike her like a lot of men might have done. He wasn’t made that way” (Petry 1479). This first impediment of the day does not deter him much but it sets up the predicament he faces throughout his entire day.

Paragraph #2

Revised

The difference between realism and naturalism is that naturalism has a specific object in mind when choosing the segment of reality, which writers wish to convey (Campbell). In “Like a Winding Sheet” the dilemma Johnson, the protagonist, is struggling to control is anger and frustrations, which develop throughout his whole day. Struggling to not punch the women who aggravate Johnson happens to be the specific object in reality, which Petry decides to make the main point of the short story. Mae, Johnson’s wife, realizes it was Friday the 13th and decides she does not want to go out and work that day but rather stay home. Johnson is a loving husband. What he tries to do is calmly persuade her, which makes him late. The narrator then explains “because they spent fifteen minutes arguing before he could convince her she ought to go to work just the same. He had to talk persuasively, urging her gently and it took time. But he couldn’t bring himself to talk to her roughly or threaten to strike her like a lot of men might have done. He wasn’t made that way” (Petry 1479). This first impediment of the day does not deter Johnson much but it sets up the predicament he faces throughout his entire day.

Paragraph #3

Explanations

I omitted “According to the definition” which, in my mind, makes my writing less redundant. Most of my writings tend to be redundant. While highlighting commas I have either included them because most are before the word “which”, which is a relative pronoun following a relative clause thus commas are needed, or due to me including extra information that is not necessary but included to add more detail also known as non-essential clauses. Omitting “they” during “when they choose the segment of reality” because I use pronouns too often and because I made a hidden antecedent and faulty pronoun reference making realism and naturalism the thing choosing the segment in reality when writers are the ones doing the choosing. (The difference between realism and naturalism is that naturalism has a specific object in mind when THEY CHOOSE the segment of reality that THEY WISH to convey. VS. The difference between realism and naturalism is that naturalism has a specific object in mind when CHOOSING the segment of reality, WHICH WRITERS wish to convey.)

I make this change for the same reason to “reality that they wish” and “frustrations that develop”. Rearranging words in a sentence is encouraged so I gave it a try with “The specific object in a segment of reality Petry decides to make the main point of the short story is the struggle to not punch the women who make him aggravated”. “Noticing that I do not have variety in sentence length I attempted to change sentences: “Johnson is a loving husband so what he does was to try to calmly persuade her” I made this sentence into two. I then put the quote in the book in a complete new sentence beginning with “The narrator then explains”, because I use the same words to begin every sentence and I wanted to change up the leading words. Since I included the narrator in the previous sentence I had to make it clear as to whom the word “him” was referring to in the last sentence so I replaced the name with “Johnson” to clarify that it is Johnson who is set up for the struggle not the narrator.

To be completely honest I am not one hundred percent sure that I have correctly supported my revisions and the reasons I gave as to why I revised what I revised.

Alternative to a Typical Daily Oral Language

I have to be completely honest; I don't really understand the assignment but I will do my best to thoroughly complete it. I need to discuss contextual differences between similar statements with different registers. People use different grammar styles according to whom they are talking to. First of all I feel i need to explain what prescriptive grammar entails. Prescriptive is a set of rules in grammar that cannot be changed, so there correct and incorrect grammar. This grammar is used when wanting to be proper and professional.  An example of prescriptive grammar can be, "I am older than she". This sentence is considered prescriptive because it uses grammar correctly. "She" is the correct rather than her because "than" is a conjunction. "Than" joins two like forms: "I am older" with "she is older", giving "I am older than she is older". But speakers leave out the last part "is older" to not repeat unnecessary words. According to prescriptive grammar, 'than' functions as a conjunction, so speakers should use "she" in that context. Descriptive on the other hand is more flexible due to many ways and styles of editing "incorrect" grammar. This is what people use when speaking outside of professional/polite environments: like when speaking to a friend or a family member. An example, opposite of the example in prescriptive grammar, is "I am older than her". The reason why is because subject pronouns are paired with a verb, on the other hand object pronouns are not. Since the phrase "than her" doesn't have a verb we can see or hear, some people choose an object pronoun.

This will help my students because learning about these two styles in grammar they will be able to choose which is appropriate in registers they use. Everything I stated above are the tools they need to know in order to know the difference between two commonly used grammar settings: Prescriptive and Descriptive. So to continue with this activity my assignment is to use different registers and choose which type of grammar I want to use to say what I want to say.

Sentence1: I am going to prepare dinner.
Close friend register: Ima cook dinner.
General friend register: I'm gonna cook dinner
Parent register: I'm going to cook dinner. or Voy senar (I am going to eat dinner).

Sentence 1 is prescriptive because it uses the correct vocabulary/ grammar. The other sentences are either using incorrect grammar/vocabulary or less formal.

Ellipses . . . my favorite!

Grammar has always been a subject in school I have never really learned to keep in mind. Although I have had new light shed on the punctuation of ellipses. All through my schooling I was taught it was not a real punctuation but rather something "lazy" writers use to write less; I was taught to believe the ellipses should never be used in any writing what so ever. Teachers also went to great lengths as to not use the name ellipses but rather call them “the three consecutive periods”. I was extremely relieved when I learned that ellipses are acceptable punctuations . . . when used appropriately.

Along with this, the one concept I want to teach my students are the ellipses. I do not want my students to be afraid of looking “lazy” or unprofessional when using ellipses; so I will explain to them the appropriate times to use them and when they get the hang of it, maybe intentionally bend the rules when using them. I have to be completely honest; I will be using the “More Nitty-Gritty Grammar” book when teaching my students. In explaining to them what ellipses can be used for I will start out by simply telling them to use them when: indicating you are omitting information, shorten a sentence, or to indicate a hesitation of some sort in your writing. Once the students understand the basic I will get more detailed and answer their questions when they have any. If my teachers took the time to teach me about the appropriate way of using ellipses my writing could have been less restrained; but now that I know, I am more willing to write what I think and feel.

I still have difficulty using the colon and semicolon so I thought I should use it in my “pattern-of-the-week”. I understand what they both do but I still struggle to know as to when to use which punctuation. Ellipses are now my favorite punctuation so I also threw it in my blog and I hope I used it correctly . . . let me know if I did or didn’t.

Engl. 326: Self Assessment

I am asked to write what I want to improve in my writing and grammar through this semester. I tried to stay away from using grammar and writing styles I know I have trouble in. But I guess now is a great time to learn something new, to make my writing that much better. One thing I want to improve on is trying to put my thoughts into clear and "to-the-point" sentences. I sometimes confuse my readers. I tend to have run on sentences that seem to have syntax problems or repeats an idea a second time but in a different manner. To be honest I think I just did that but sometimes I cannot catch it because I understand what I'm trying to say but others may not. This vague topic is what I want to improve on although it is difficult to explain.

A second thing I want to improve on is knowing when to use dashes, semi-colons, colons, and periods. I say periods because sometimes I may have run on sentences. I have no idea how to use dashes (except for in words or phrases like "semi-colon", "extra-curricular", etc), semi-colons, and colons. I also wonder if consecutive periods(...) is a real punctuation. And if it is not, I want to know if I can use any other punctuation, with the same "meaning", to replace the consecutive periods (...). For example, I may use the consecutive periods (...) in the short narration of a movie called Limitless, "He looks over, standing on the ledge and thinks if jumpimg is the best choice. The loudness of the furious men trying to beat down his door makes him realize they are going to kill him. He wants to be the person having the power over his fate. Taking one last look down at the hundred floors height, he picks up his left foot off the ledge and prepares to jump... but wait, he stops and realizes the human nature is to survive. Fighting for his survival is better then beating the murderer to his own death".

One last thing I want to improve on is knowing the appropriate time to use a marker of punctuation in my writing. I sometimes have the problem of using too many commas or not enough. I have the problem of not using the correct punctuation also. If you look through the second paragraph I am sure I did not punctuate correctly. I also high-lighted a comma because I was unsure if it is even supposed to be a comma. These are the three main points I want to improve on in my writing overall. I also want to broaden my vocabulary but that does not have to do much with what I am going to learn specifically in class.

"Teaching Standard English" by Christensen

When I first read the first few paragraphs, before going on to the next subtopic, I found myself being able to understand the situation she found herself. Myself being a bilingual individual, I find myself pronouncing words differently then those who have been speaking or only speak english. Going on with the reading I understand that grammer is difficult to have etched in our minds because rules can vary between sentences. Reading about the teacher's student, Fred, it reminded me of a friend, Celene. I never really had trouble with grammer but it may have been due to trying to play it safe, also like the teacher herself. Sometimes I also found myself correcting Celene and other peers. This made people feel inferior to me and unwilling to speak to me as often as they used to. I learned that I shouldn't be strict with peers grammer in a comfortable, non-professional and friendly setting because as long as we understand eachother there is really no need to correct eachother.

Reading on I understand how minorty race groups in public schools can feel like they are unappreciated or feel like schooling is trying to make them as "American" as the major race group. All through most of my high-school I was never encouraged to write or talk about my culture or anything pertaining to my Latin race. I ended up knowing everything about the American culture and forgot about my own knowledge about other topics not pertaining to the American culture. Finally during my senior year in high-school I took a World literature class and read books from other countries and cultures. I felt graditude towards the school for having a class that made students feel like we are a generation of people who really do try to recieve knowlegde about other places then America. I also liked the idea how the author advises other teachers to encourage their students to write while ignoring their grammatical errors. Once the idividual is comfortable with writing the instructor can then help the student understand new and helpful grammer tips and information.

This one simple piece of advice for other teachers and instructors can greatly help students. Students gradually improve and have an easier and more comfortable time in learning. I was glad to here from my teacher, Beth Buyserie, that she will not be making us memorize boring grammer rules but rather do what the author advises. I am looking forward to learning new things and stop being my own grammer cop.