Task 1: Summarize and Respond to Our Assigned Reading

Linda Christensen was able to explain and further my understanding of what it means to teach grammar but she was also able to challenge my thinking and knowledge of the subject. I was never really exposed to grammar in a classroom setting so my understanding of ‘Standard English’ was more exposed from my parents, grandparents and tutors. As I moved to from the states to Canada, I was not taught grammar skills because of bad timing. I relied on my teachers for my understanding of the content of my English courses but they relied on me to know ‘Standard English’ as assumed knowledge. I appreciated Christensen’s articles for the fact that I related to the similar ideals that she portrayed in her teaching. Grammar Alive!’s article, similar to Christensen’s, incorporated the importance of ‘Standard English’ and how to teach in between he parallels of personal student wring and learning with the ability to convert to ‘Standard English’.

The articles confirmed by passion of teaching with a twist of societal norms that students are exposed to—visible or not [to emphasize an important point]. Christensen affirmed my belief that no writing is perfect and there are different kinds of grammar and there is no higher or correct version. I have always believed that everyone has a different form of language and I enjoyed how Christensen related student’s word to the importance of real world situations that everyone experiences or knows that’s real. Grammar Alive! Explains the similar importance through language variety, which is an interesting way to look at grammar.

The articles challenged my understandings of what it means to teach grammar because I have always seen teaching grammar as having a right or wrong answer, even though as student I never wanted to be wrong. The goals in Grammar Alive! Twisted my understanding because as a teacher I explain to be open to student differences and writing and then it said to have a strong form of structural teaching of grammar so students can be coherent of the content. I can image how this could be done but it just confuses me and challenges my knowledge.

Teaching grammar, as I image, has requirements but no set answer and even as a student I believe that to be true. Being a student I can see how grammar is fluid and always changing. ‘Standard English’ makes it difficult to completely comprehend grammar because it has a dominating influence of everyone’s grammar and writing. Christensen and Grammar Alive! were both able to confirm and challenge my understandings and as a teacher I feel like your teaching and understanding of teaching needs to be exposed to both. Even as a teacher you are still learning.

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I am experimenting with dashes because I have never used them before I would like to see how my writing could input them. I have never understood where exactly to put them so I experimented them in this blog post to see if I did that correctly.  I am not sure if I did so, but I feel like I since I am working on different things, it is still good practice.  I am learning more about dashes, which I have never, have and experimenting with them is really fun.

Blog #1: Self Assessment Blog

I have never taken an English class (that I can remember) that was influential or that taught me grammar, punctuation or even sentence structure. I moved to another country right before I was getting to it and when I moved my grade had already passed that content. I grew up not really understanding, not really knowing if I was correct, and not knowing different forms of grammar, punctuation or sentence structure. I would like to focus on those 3 forms of the English language as they interconnect.

Grammar to me is the natural flow of the English language that brings clear concise ideas together. I feel like I have some grasp on the idea but I want to strengthen how I write so that I can teach other how to write; I want my students to know how to correct their own flow and composition. I do not always understand the “rules” of grammar in the sense that I do not know the rules of some punctuation. I want to focus on having my freestyle writing ability to have more than simple periods and commons. I am over it. It is too generic. I would like to experiment with the colon and semicolon, preferably, and I would like to have more fun with exclamation points. I can not wait! I am exciting for this course and even more so to learn how to use punctuation; I can not wait to strengthen my writing ability.

Sentence structure is something that can be very easy but sometimes I have trouble doing is professionally. It is the age of texting, Facebook messaging and Twitter, so everyone has a mixed sense of sentence structure and I would like to experiment with more professional sentence structures that I can put in emails, essays, and even practice for when I speak to professors or in my classes. I would like to use something other than short and sweet sentences. I have trouble with long sentences and making it not make sense. I would like to experiment with long sentences so that that I can learn how to have dynamic and dramatic stances in my writing. Punctuation can also help me with experimenting because semicolons and colon prolong sentences and mix it up a little.