Blog 9

I am honestly not sure what to write about for this blog. In the past I have been going back to previous writing, however now that we have so many patters I have been having trouble shoving them into essays that I have already written. So I’m trying something different. (Long sentence then a short sentence) Is there even a point in forcing you to read a boring essay I wrote last year for a class I probably hated? (Real question) So instead of that I decided to a write stream of consciousness this week. Honestly I should be asleep right now- but I have a lot to do tomorrow. (Dash to emphasize the last element of a sentence) Because of this I really feel like I should finish my blog tonight so it is not late. In the morning I have to go grocery shopping and then meet people to work on a group project and my logic homework is due later in the day. (Simple sentence with compounded verbs connected with ands AND use of “then”)

However I do not want to do any of this. (Use "however" in a correctly punctuated sentence AND a one-sentence paragraph)

Finishing the book I am currently reading sounds much better than my responsibilities. (Use of “than”) So why do I have to do anything tomorrow? (Rhetorical question) 

Blog 7

Aside from a few months in middle school when I decided that I was going to write everything, poems, novels, short stories etc. (which you can image did not pan out very well) all the writing I have done has been academic writing for classes. Thorough out the years I have noticed that most of my teachers have had the same comments upon returning my edited papers; I do not use enough commas. Nor do I use the active voice. (start a sentence with "Nor")

I have been fully aware of my comma underuse for years, yet for some reason I have neglected to do anything about it. I continued to write sentences, pause to look over them, realize that my comma use had to be far to infrequent, and then instead of fixing them I just moved on. Because it was easier to do than actually bother to look up where to properly place them. (start a sentence with a "Because" clause) Looking back over the English classes that I have taken through my life I am slightly shocked to realize that I do not remember being instructed on commas since 6^th grade. Not that I can use this as an excuse for my resistance to taking the time out of my day to find the answers that my education was not providing, however I feel that there are a lot of misconceptions regarding commas and more English teachers should take time to address them. Then maybe I would not find sentences in my writing such as:

“While Lovelace praises the action of fighting Owen condemns it because unlike Lovelace he had actually seen combat. (end a sentence with a "because" clause) He realizes that regardless of hundreds of years of literature glorifying the actions of soldiers, there is nothing pleasant about war”.

Looking back on this is realize that it is a run on sentence without commas; yet this is a final draft. (a compound sentence using a semicolon) For this reason I plan on making sure that I use the proper number of them when I am writing in the future. This way my academic papers in the future will be more grammatically correct and clear and professional.

My relationship with the passive voice is significantly more complicated then commas. I can trace it back to my Junior year of high school, when, despite years of English classes this is the first time I had even heard the term. I remember a teacher actually explaining what the passive voice was and why we should avoid it when writing; The only problem was I had absolutely no idea what she was talking about. (a compound sentence using a semicolon) I got that the active voice was what I should be using in essays, and based on several papers I received graded from that same teacher I knew I was using the passive voice. And when she pointed it out in my writing I could recognize it, though I could not stop myself from using it once or twice in every paper. (though, to interrupt a main sentence as a kind of aside) Now when proofreading my own papers I can generally catch myself and change my sentences to the active voice. Yet it is still a struggle for me to recognize what I am using as I am writing. This year and I want to become better at identifying the difference between the two and I can stop myself and change my sentence structure before I write it down the first time. This way I will be avoiding turning in papers with sentences such as “The action of fighting is praised by Lovelace…”. By taking more care the omit the passive voice from my writing it will be come a lot more straightforward.

My Goals Revised

Aside from a few months in middle school when I decided that I was going to write everything, poems, novels, short stories (which you can image did not pan out very well) all the writing I have done has been academic writing for classes. Thorough out the years I have noticed that most of my teachers have had the same comments upon returning my edited papers: use more commas and make sure you avoid the passive voice.

I have been fully aware of my comma underuse for years. But for some reason I have neglected to do anything about it. (sentence that begins with a FANBOY) I continued to write sentences, pause to look over them, realize that my comma use had to be far to infrequent, and then instead of fixing them I just moved on because it was easier to do than actually bother to look up where to properly place them. Looking back over the English classes that I have taken through my life I am slightly shocked to realize that I do not remember being instructed on commas since 6^th grade. Not that I can use this as an excuse for my resistance to taking the time out of my day to find the answers that my education was not providing, however I feel that there are a lot of misconceptions regarding commas and more English teachers should take time to address them. But then maybe I would not find sentences in my writing such as:

“While Lovelace praises the action of fighting Owen condemns it because unlike Lovelace he had actually seen combat and realized that regardless of hundreds of years of literature glorifying the actions of soldiers, there is nothing pleasant about war”.

Looking back on this is realize that it is a run on sentence without commas, yet this is a final draft of a paper that I turned in for a grade. For this reason I plan on making sure that I use the proper number of them when I am writing in the future; this way my academic papers will be more grammatically correct and clear and professional. (compound sentence with a semicolon)

My relationship with the passive voice is significantly more complicated then commas. I can trace it back to my Junior year of high school, when, despite years of English classes this is the first time I remember a teacher actually explaining what the passive voice was and why we should avoid it when writing. The only problem was I had absolutely no idea what she was talking about. I got that the active voice was what I should be using in essays, and based on several papers I received graded from that same teacher I knew I was using the passive voice and when she pointed it out in my writing. I could recognize it, but I could not stop myself from using it once or twice in every paper. (Compound sentence with comma) Now when proofreading my own papers I can generally catch myself and change my sentences so they are using the active voice. Yet it is still a struggle for me to recognize what I am using as I am writing. This year and I want to become better at identifying the difference between the two so I can stop myself and change my sentence structure before I write it down the first time. This way I will be avoiding turning in papers with sentences such as “The action of fighting is praised by Lovelace…”. By taking more care the omit the passive voice from my writing it will be come a lot more straightforward.

Blog #5

Dora Part One

In the article "Dora Learns to Write and in the Process Encounters Punctuation" by Pat Cordeiro Dora’s teacher did a lot of things correctly when teaching her how to properly punctuate sentences. For example after writing stories the teacher would have Dora read hers out loud to the class. Then, with Dora she compared her writing to that in a book and asking if she noticed the difference between the two. This helped show Dora that in writing the letters do not flow together they are spaced out. In order to farther her point the teacher and Dora used their hands to frame the words in Dora’s story so she could see there the spaces should go. THIS GAVE DORA CONFIDENCE IN HER WRITING. Through this teaching method Dora was able to gain confidence in her writing.

ANOTHER THING IS DORA WAS TOLD THAT SHE NEEDED TO READ IN SENTENCES AND THAT PERIODS GO AT THE END OF THEM. In addition the teacher explained to Dora that she needed to read in sentences and periods go at the end of them. However even though the teacher did a good job explaining that dots are periods and Dora started thinking of them this way her explanation could have been a lot better. THIS IS BECAUSE SHE FAILED TO EVER EXPLAIN EXACTLY WHAT A SENTENCE IS. The confusion occurred because Dora's teacher failed to explain exactly what a sentence is. After her very brief explanation the kids got into their groups to discuss their writing. After looking at their writing Dora and the others figured out that periods must not go at the end of every word, but they had no idea where else to put them due to their lack of understanding of the nature of a sentence. In order to help correct this however the teacher read Dora’s story back to her with the incorrect punctuation and by pausing everywhere Dora put a period the teacher was able to convey the choppy nature of the story Dora created and help her understand that she was not creating sentences, merely fragments with a period at the end. In addition the teacher showed Dora a book to demonstrate that there are not periods at the end of each line because the end of a line does not signify the end of a sentence. However this entire time the teacher is still not telling Dora what a sentence actually is. So even though Dora understands the examples she is presented with when it comes time to punctuate her writing she is at a loss. Some could see that the teacher never telling Dora whose way of punctuating is better it helped Dora learn how to figure out things for herself and grow as a writer.

To farther Dora’s confusion when she is still punctuating at the end of every line her teacher does not say anything about it and Dora interoperates this silence as her writing is correct and keeps up this method of punctuation. Then the teacher furthers her confusion by giving instructions that Dora views as contradictory. She tells her to “stop at all the periods” and to read it in sentences. Because the teacher was never clear with Dora what a sentence is she is unsure how to read her story in a way that fit into both of the categories that the teacher described. So she ended up reading it how it is supposed to sound and ignoring the periods. After hearing Dora reading it this way the teacher assumed that she was punctuation the sentences correctly when in fact the written version did not match up with Dora read aloud.

Miscommunication like this and Dora’s general confusion on the nature of a sentence is what caused Dora to take such a long time to learn how to properly punctuate. If the lessons had been clearer and the teacher had asked Dora more questions to clarify her understanding the entire process would have been much shorter.

Dora Part One

In the article "Dora Learns to Write and in the Process Encounters Punctuation" by Pat Cordeiro Dora’s teacher did a lot of things correctly when teaching her how to properly punctuate sentences. For example after writing stories the teacher would have Dora read HERS (possessive pronoun) out loud to the class. Then, with Dora she compared her writing to that in a book and asking if she noticed the difference between the two. This helped show Dora that in writing the letters do not flow together they are spaced out. In order to farther her point the teacher and Dora used their hands to frame the words in Dora’s story so she could see there the spaces should go.  

In addition the teacher explained to Dora that she needed to read in sentences and periods go at the end of them. However even though the teacher did a good job explaining that dots are periods and Dora started thinking of them this way her explanation could have been a lot better. This is because she failed to ever explain exactly what a sentence is. After her very brief explanation the kids got into their groups to discuss their writing. After looking at THEIRS (possessive pronoun) Dora and the others figured out that periods must not go at the end of every word, but they had no idea where else to put them due to their lack of understanding of the nature of a sentence. In order to help correct this however the teacher read Dora’s story back to her with the incorrect punctuation and by pausing everywhere Dora put a period the teacher was able to convey the choppy nature of the story Dora created and help her understand that she was not creating sentences, merely fragments with a period at the end. In addition the teacher showed Dora a book to demonstrate that there are not periods at the end of each line because the end of a line does not signify the end of a sentence. However this entire time the teacher is still not telling Dora what a sentence actually is. So even though Dora understands the examples she is presented with when it comes time to punctuate her writing she is at a loss. Some could see that the teacher never telling Dora WHOSE (possessive pronoun) way of punctuating is better it helped Dora learn how to figure out things for herself and grow as a writer.

To farther Dora’s confusion when she is still punctuating at the end of every line her teacher does not say anything about it and Dora interoperates this silence as her writing is correct and keeps up this method of punctuation. Then the teacher furthers her confusion by giving instructions that Dora views as contradictory. She tells her to “stop at all the periods” and to read it in sentences. Because the teacher was never clear with Dora what a sentence is she is unsure how to read her story in a way that fit into both of the categories that the teacher described. So she ended up reading it how it is supposed to sound and ignoring the periods. After hearing Dora reading it this way the teacher assumed that she was punctuation the sentences correctly when in fact the written version did not match up with Dora read aloud.

Miscommunication like this and Dora’s general confusion on the nature of a sentence is what caused Dora to take such a long time to learn how to properly punctuate. If the lessons had been clearer and the teacher had asked Dora more questions to clarify her understanding the entire process would have been much shorter.

My Goals

Aside from a few months in middle school when I decided that I was going to write everything, POEMS, NOVELS, SHORT STORIES ETC. (series connected by commas without and’s) (which you can image did not pan out very well) all the writing I have done has been academic writing for classes. Thorough out the years I have noticed that most of my teachers have had the same comments upon returning my edited papers: use more commas and make sure you avoid the passive voice.

I have been fully aware of my comma underuse for years, yet for some reason I have neglected to do anything about it. I continued to write sentences, pause to look over them, realize that my comma use had to be far to infrequent, and then instead of fixing them I just moved on because it was easier to do than actually bother to look up where to properly place them. Looking back over the English classes that I have taken through my life I am slightly shocked to realize that I do not remember being instructed on commas since 6^th grade. Not that I can use this as an excuse for my resistance to taking the time out of my day to find the answers that my education was not providing, however I feel that there are a lot of misconceptions regarding commas and more English teachers should take time to address them. Then maybe I would not find sentences in my writing such as:

“While Lovelace praises the action of fighting Owen condemns it because unlike Lovelace he had actually seen combat and realized that regardless of hundreds of years of literature glorifying the actions of soldiers, there is nothing pleasant about war”.

Looking back on this is realize that it is a run on sentence without commas, yet this is a final draft of a paper that I turned in for a grade. For this reason I plan on making sure that I use the proper number of them when I am writing in the future. This way my academic papers in the future will be more GRAMMATICALLY CORRECT AND CLEAR AND PROFESSIONAL (series connected with and’s, no commas).

My relationship with the passive voice is significantly more complicated then commas. I can trace it back to my Junior year of high school, when, despite years of English classes this is the first time I remember a teacher actually explaining what the passive voice was and why we should avoid it when writing. The only problem was I had absolutely no idea what she was talking about. I got that the active voice was what I should be using in essays, and based on several papers I received graded from that same teacher I knew I was using the passive voice and when she pointed it out in my writing I could recognize it, but I could not stop myself from using it once or twice in every paper. Now when proofreading my own papers I can generally catch myself and change my sentences so they are using the active voice. Yet it is still a struggle for me to recognize what I am using as I am writing. This year and I want to become better at identifying the difference between the two so I can stop myself and change my sentence structure before I write it down the first time. This way I will be avoiding turning in papers with sentences such as “The action of fighting is praised by Lovelace…”. By taking more care the omit the passive voice from my writing it will be come a lot more straightforward.