tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5978975285518561941.post2210272333781174215..comments2023-08-10T05:01:45.872-07:00Comments on Blog of Myself: Apologia Pro Suo Curriculum: What Do English Majors Need to Know?a.k.a. "Joe"http://www.blogger.com/profile/09297686120651846304noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5978975285518561941.post-80908011652616268652014-03-25T18:59:31.497-07:002014-03-25T18:59:31.497-07:00My experience in school was that there wasn't ...My experience in school was that there wasn't enough time, either to read the literature or to learn grammar. Let alone both. This was partly because many of my fellow students did not understand what they read. In my college English class (which granted was the evening class meant to catch all the sports majors unable to take the day course) we once read "To an Athlete Dying Young" and 15 min. into the class discussion one of the students said "you mean he's dead?". The next 20 min. involved half the class saying the poem couldn't be about someone being dead because it only mentioned death in the title, not the poem itself. I have never seen a teacher more despondent. The stories of my high school classes are even more dire, involving not realizing Shaw was funny because they were so bad at reading out loud they couldn't understand what they were saying.<br />The one class that taught us the most about grammar just happened to be the one in which we read as much as possible and then talked about what we didn't understand. I'm not talking about just regurgitating the reading for the day but an actual discussion of what Mercutio's speeches mean, line by line. And possible alternate meanings. <br />Perhaps it isn't so much of a coincidence that a class focused on understanding what we read went hand in hand with learning grammar.<br />And finally let me mention that even as a dyslexic, I care about spelling. I can't get the spelling right without outside tools but I care about being understood and part of that is using the word you intend. Misspellings often cause people to read a different word than you meant and therefore not understand what you wrote. I am baffled that English teachers don't teach people how to check their spelling which, to my mind, is more important than being able to spell words out of your head the first try.Gwyneth Whistlewood the Feral Flutehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18044619104058671721noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5978975285518561941.post-56937986136449030522014-03-24T18:45:22.229-07:002014-03-24T18:45:22.229-07:00Thanks, Kris! Hopefully I'm not as cranky as M...Thanks, Kris! Hopefully I'm not as cranky as Mrs. Dillon - I'm actually pretty excited about syntax. It's a poet thing, I guess. Thanks for responding!a.k.a. "Joe"https://www.blogger.com/profile/09297686120651846304noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5978975285518561941.post-83764743140074135152014-03-24T18:23:41.587-07:002014-03-24T18:23:41.587-07:00Well, you're not full of shit. I am shocked t...Well, you're not full of shit. I am shocked that a student can arrive at a 300 level course without having encountered the basics of everything I thought an English major would know.<br /><br />Your students needed to have had my 8th grade English teacher, Mrs. Dillon. She introduced herself to us with "Now, I'm cranky, and I mean to be." That was true, but she was also an indefatigable teacher who did her best to instill her own staunchness into our puny spirits (and brains).<br /><br />We diagrammed sentences. Endlessly. I can still see those lines--straight and diagonal, branches off branches like some crooked thorny tree. If you put me in front of a blackboard I can, to this day, diagram any sentence it's legal to construct in English.<br /><br />My point is that when I arrived at KU 45 years ago as an honors English major, I did already know these skills. So yes, please, let your students learn them. I don't think their utility has expired just yet. Tell them that hundreds of students much younger and less able than they survived the crankiness of Mrs. Dillon and went on to be able to write, speak, reason and possibly make a difference. Please let it be so. Kris H.https://www.blogger.com/profile/14169624386094416697noreply@blogger.com