Smoke Dancing and Oral Tradition

The first reading for Smoke Dancing really surprised me. The story is interesting and intriguing. Oral tradition can be seen throughout the story as pieces of the characters’ lives is shared with other characters from other characters. The reader is being told these stories from the perspective of three of the characters so far, Fiction, Bud, and Mason. They are making the entire book appear as oral fiction because the story is coming from them in each chapter. We also see this going on with Fiction telling the reader more and more about Bert and how she was before she died. Another thing worth mentioning is the relationships between the characters. I am unsure how realistic these relationships are to a real reservation. It seems that in the book, everyone is somehow connected to everyone else. The character of Fiction appears alone but really she is pretty much the most connected to every other character in the book. Her character is complex and confusing. I don’t understand why she wouldn’t make her father take responsibility for beating her. I wish she would confront him in some way before the end of the book. Also, I don’t understand the significance of the character of Bert. She seems to have been housing them all but there just seems to be something still missing from the story about her thus far. She seems too important to just dissolve from the story after her death. I think her relationship to the other characters must be highly significant in some way but the author hasn’t quite revealed that to the reader yet.

Prose Revised!

This play was difficult to understand, but the course packet helped a lot. I understood the play better by the end of it. I didn’t necessarily like the play, but I enjoyed the interesting parts and trying to figure out what was going on. The characters are so different than other plays we’ve read. The setting of the play influenced how I saw the characters in my mind. The Pilkings, Simon and Jane, annoyed me because of their ignorance about the culture around them. Simon thought the culture’s ways were completely wrong. It was his job to get rid of the natives’ “ridiculous” customs and superstitions. The character Olunde puts it well when speaking to Jane. He says she has no respect for what she doesn’t understand. He speaks to the western world at this moment. Jane is a representation of that. Olunde experiences both cultures, allowing him to understand both. His respect falls on both the western world and his own. At the end of the play, he teaches everyone a lesson. He dies instead of his father, taking his place in the afterworld with the King.

Blog #1 revisited!

I have to say that this last week was probably the most beneficial to me because we often worked with the lesson to learn it. I am definitely a learner who does better by putting it into practice. The AAAWWUBBIS lesson was something I never really thought about before. These are lessons you may know internally without really thinking about the actual rules. It made your realize how those subordinate clauses need a period after them and how AAAWWUBBIS makes that first half only a clause and it is no longer a complete sentence. I really enjoyed the lesson and I love keeping the workshop checklist written in a certain place so that one day I may use the lessons from it in my own classroom.
I was so thankful when the deadline was pushed back for the scrapbook because I often found sentences or commas I thought were incorrect but sometimes it would turn out that they weren’t really incorrect but rather it was a newspaper related preference. I am still really frustrated with finding examples because I suppose I do not have very much confidence that it is actually incorrect. I think looking at the example scrapbooks and asking questions really helped in class on Wednesday. I do have more ideas of what to look for now, but I still worry whether I am judging the mistake correctly. Overall, I really enjoyed class this week because I learned a lot about applying the lessons to my own writing and finding examples and common mistakes in others writing.

I have to say that this last week was probably the most beneficial to me because we often worked with the lesson to learn it. Being someone who learns from doing, using the blogs to pick out examples really helped me [Participle]. The AAAWWUBBIS lesson was something I never really thought about before. These are lessons you may know internally without really thinking about the actual rules. It made your realize how those subordinate clauses need a period after them and how AAAWWUBBIS makes that first half only a clause and it is no longer a complete sentence. I really enjoyed the lesson, and I love keeping the workshop checklist written in a certain place so that one day I may use the lessons from it in my own classroom. The checklist, which puts grammatical rules into simple terms, is a way to refer back to everything we have learned this semester [Appostive].
I was so thankful when the deadline was pushed back for the scrapbook because I often found sentences or commas I thought were incorrect but sometimes it would turn out that they weren’t really incorrect but rather it was a newspaper related preference. I am still really frustrated with finding examples because I suppose I do not have very much confidence that it is actually incorrect. I think looking at the example scrapbooks and asking questions really helped in class on Wednesday. I do have more ideas of what to look for now, but I still worry whether I am judging the mistake correctly. Overall, I really enjoyed class this week because I learned a lot about applying the lessons to my own writing and finding examples and common mistakes in others writing.

AAAWWUBIS!

I have to say that this last week was probably the most beneficial to me because we often worked with the lesson to learn it. I am definitely a learner who does better by putting it into practice. The AAAWWUBBIS lesson was something I never really thought about before. These are lessons you may know internally without really thinking about the actual rules. It made your realize how those subordinate clauses need a period after them and how AAAWWUBBIS makes that first half only a clause and it is no longer a complete sentence. I really enjoyed the lesson and I love keeping the workshop checklist written in a certain place so that one day I may use the lessons from it in my own classroom.
I was so thankful when the deadline was pushed back for the scrapbook because I often found sentences or commas I thought were incorrect but sometimes it would turn out that they weren’t really incorrect but rather it was a newspaper related preference. I am still really frustrated with finding examples because I suppose I do not have very much confidence that it is actually incorrect. I think looking at the example scrapbooks and asking questions really helped in class on Wednesday. I do have more ideas of what to look for now, but I still worry whether I am judging the mistake correctly. Overall, I really enjoyed class this week because I learned a lot about applying the lessons to my own writing and finding examples and common mistakes in others writing.

Question: How do you recognize an introductory clause? What rules do you have for identifying them?

FANBOYS and Punctuation

I am very happy we discussed compound sentences and using a comma before FANBOYS. Now that I think about it I think I only used commas before for, and, nor, but, or, yet, and so if I thought it was necessary. I never thought of them always needing a comma if they were used as a conjunction between two sentences. The lesson was really straightforward and I think I now understand how to punctuate these sentences. I was also interested in learning what a comma splice is because you hear people talk about them but I never really understood what they were. I understand now that they occur when two sentences are connected only with a comma and the FANBOYS are left out. However, I am not exactly sure what a complex sentence is now. I know the difference between simple and compound but what is complex?

Our discussion on the second half of Cordeira’s article I felt was more interesting than the first. It really brought out the teachers in our classroom. You could see how different we were in our teaching styles. Some thought it would be better to let students explore punctuation completely on their own and to not correct it because then they will never learn how to use it but rather will just correct whatever you say is wrong. Others like myself thought there had to be some line you draw as a teacher when you do correct them. How will they ever learn if they keep making the same mistake? It is important to let students explore with the language but at a point shouldn’t we step in and do our jobs as teachers and actually teach something? I was really frustrated with the article because the author kept saying punctuation is a “negotiation between the writer and reader” but then turned around and said there must be a common reference for the rules of punctuation. Is punctuation solely up to the author or do some forms of punctuation need to follow the rule?

My question for this week is, can you give me an example of a complex sentence, and what exactly makes it different from a compound sentence?

Verbs and the circle

The more I learn about grammar the easier it gets. I’m really enjoying challenging myself in learning the specifics for writing. This week we went over prepositional phrases and we also had another Socratic circle. I wasn’t in class Monday so I’m not exactly sure what to say about it. I suppose I understand prepositional phrases to an extent. Is it true that basically they state a location such as “under, about, above, or with?” I feel confident that I could recognize them in a sentence.

As for transitive and intransitive verbs, I think I have the basics down when I say that transitive needs a direct object whereas intransitive does not. It is just a little difficult to identify in text sometimes but if you look for the direct object it is much easier. When we studied the two before using the magnets it was very helpful to see each words separately or to decide on a verb and then use it in a transitive or intransitive way. Linking verbs I do not feel as confident about. I understand that the verb links the subject with a description of the subject but when there is not one of the five senses involved it is difficult to determine if it really is a linking verb or not. I am sure with more practice I will be able to identify them right away.

The Socratic circle this time was different then how we had done it previously. This time we were in one giant circle which I found both positive and negatives. People were much more willing to talk because we were all on the same level I suppose you could say but I like how with two circle you get to take a step back and watch from the outside. However, with one circle you get to voice your opinion basically whenever you have an idea. I can see the pros and cons to both but I would say that I enjoyed having two circles.

Question: How do you go about recognizing linking verbs? What triggers you to say it is one and do you have any examples?

Yay for Verbs and Socratic circle!

This week in class was definitely an interesting one. I really enjoyed furthering my learning of verbs with the magnetic poetry activity. It really helped me to be able to see the words separately and identify what they were before putting them into a sentence. I guess I never realized or was taught about how there are different verbs and that they may function in a different way. I always kind of thought there were just verbs. I think the one I will struggle the most with is linking verbs. It is difficult to explain but I those verbs I have to take another look at to really remember what they are. I understand transitive verbs to require a direct object. The direct object can be any noun really correct? Intransitive verbs can stand alone but can also have modifiers if the writer chooses. I am excited to learn about verbs and to recognize them in every day writing and language.

We also had the Socratic circle this week. I must begin by saying, unlike most, I rather enjoyed being on the outer circle rather than the inner one. On the outside I got to observe and see a whole new perspective. It was interesting to me because I was not able to give any input which made me listen more carefully and actually think about what they were saying and where they were coming from. There was not much content to discuss so I really enjoyed how people brought up other ideas and stories about teaching and us as teachers. However, I did not like how we discussed writing only from a teacher’s view. Yes the article was about teaching writing but we ignored how writing can be explored by lack of structure. What I mean by that is writing can sometimes serve a purpose by just telling students to write. It opens up imagination and creativity. They do not always need to know the specific assignment or purpose of the writing. Overall I think the Socratic circle was an effective way to get us talking. Our group size was just right I think to keep the circle flowing effectively.




Question: Which verb sentence pattern do you think appears the most in every day language?