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Thanks for sharing. Now you raise another question in my mind: why the check was cursive taught in middle school? That's elementary school work, too! I wonder how the middle school curriculum even allowed for time to spend on cursive. Maybe it was just that school, that had an administrator who felt it was important? Clearly, the elementary schools at that point in time didn't view it as relevant anymore, and had dropped it. What a waste of middle school time!
I am not sure, but you are right that the English department head had some issues. Penmanship is not included in the English 6-12 certification because we don’t anticipate that we will need to teach kids at that level. I really couldn’t believe that they were still doing daily cursive drills, even in the honors classes! It might have only been 15-20 minutes a day, but that is 15-20 minutes you can use on grammar or writing instruction. It really adds up over the course of a 180-day school year.
I am not sure, but you are right that the English department head had some issues. Penmanship is not included in the English 6-12 certification because we don’t anticipate that we will need to teach kids at that level. I really couldn’t believe that they were still doing daily cursive drills, even in the honors classes! It might have only been 15-20 minutes a day, but that is 15-20 minutes you can use on grammar or writing instruction. It really adds up over the course of a 180-day school year.
Exactly. Those sound like honors classes that weren't fully meeting the "honors" criteria.
I was actually surprised to find that using "gift" as a verb goes back several centuries, but for people of a certain age, saying something like "he gifted it to me" sounds wrong because it wasn't in common usage until the 1980s. It started being used in American Express commercials during that materialistic "acquire it" era, and so it sounds pretentious and incorrect to many of us. It is, however, acceptable usage, even if we don't like it. I don't personally use it. "Gave" is perfectly fine.
This surprised me too. I just thought it was another example of turning nouns into verbs (MY pet peeve, along with "free reign"---it's free REIN) like networking. Sounds awkward and yes, pretentious.
I remember nothing about grammar lessons (SoCal education) and what little I have learned, came only from being an avid reader. I know if something "looks" right or wrong but I don't know why or what parts of sentences are called. And I was an English "major"---hah. Got all As (does that need an apostrophe )
Lack of capitalization these days is driving me nuts. Glad it's not too prevalent here on well-educated C-D!
I'm sitting up here with the Canadians. Some of it is just getting used to the vowel differences. Like "hock" for "hawk", removing the "aw" sound from where it's supposed to be, but then they turn around and say their capital city is Autowa.
And have weird words for common items, like eavestroughs and serviettes (gutters and napkins).
They also have some silly-sounding abbreviations just as the British do with their tellies and brollies. I internally rolled my eyes when my Canadian said, "brekkie", and then I saw it on an actual restaurant sign: "We serve brekkie until 11." But they are polite and lovable, so I let it go. Plus I'm in THEIR country, so there's that.
Remember to pay your Hydro bill!
I used to get irritated by "bad grammar", but not anymore. It may simply be a marker of cultural differences, status, and education level.
Most people know good grammar from bad and can "code switch" between ain't and isn't when necessary (e.g., talking to your friends vs. your boss, or the landscaper vs. the architect).
This! The bolded is what 9th grade grammar is supposed to be about, not learning the parts of speech, which is probably what you started learning in 3rd grade. Those Appalachian coal patches had outstanding schools, it sound like! Who knew? You were very fortunate.
What kind of writing skills could they develop, without the foundation of grammar? No wonder the so-called "skills" didn't stick. And spelling is essential to reading, not just writing. Did some of the schools you subbed for have kids who were promoted from grade to grade without learning to read?
In your Appalachian coal patch school, were you taught phonics in 1st and 2nd grade? Phonics is key to reading and spelling. And in the later elementary grades, it really doesn't take much time to "teach" spelling. You just give vocab lists and quizzes. Or base spelling quizzes on the reading material for the week.
I agree the writing skills have to build on a sound foundation. Students are being encouraged to start writing at an earlier age including kindergarten. They are told not to worry about things like spelling, sentence structure or grammar. Most schools have adopted some type of elementary writing curriculum such as the Four Square Writing Method. The main idea is to get your thoughts on paper.
Yes, I was taught phonics in 1st grade. I remember taking weekly spelling tests from 2nd grade through 7th grade. We also had penmanship classes all through elementary school. Many high school students writing today looks like they are in first grade. I've only been in one elementary school where they actually taught penmanship.
I have encountered many students who were promoted from grade to grade without learning to read. The worst case was a 7th grader who could not read at all and did not have an IEP.
Since 1963?? Of course!!! Language gets more and more casual with every generation. People were saying thee and thou at one point. But news hosts should NOT be saying, "Me and my wife."
Even on City Data, you can tell that most people are 50+ based on the larger vocabulary words they use. By comparison, if anyone's on Twitter or Daily Mail, you can tell the vast difference in how simple the words have gotten.
And I hate "myself" used incorrectly because they don't want to use "me" and sound self-centered. "Look for myself in that room."
I haven’t taught for 20 years, but I remember teaching grammar. Part of why I left was because the curriculum too much time teaching cursive in middle school and less time on basics like grammar and writing coherently. Even 20 years ago, it was pretty clear that people would be spending 90%+ of their time writing things on a computer or printing thing in forms, not handwriting long documents.
At my last job, I had to review documents. It was not supposed to be an editing job, but it ultimately ended up being mostly editing because I’d get work that made absolutely no sense. Eventually that duty got pulled because it got so bad that we weren’t even able to make edits. It’s one thing to have to make expected edits, like a typo here or there. When management asked us why we couldn’t just make corrections, we had to tell them that the issue was more that people would need to be taught basic grammar before we could get to the point of doing surface edits. I know I had a worker or two sending me stuff that was just a series of sentence fragments.
That seems to be a midwestern thing. I knew someone who had moved to my area from Indiana who spoke like that. "The sink needs replaced."
The first time I ever noticed this was with a co-worker who was born and raised in Maryland in the same area as I grew up. She is also the same age as me (north of 50). She is first generation US-born (parents from Ireland). Maybe her parents spoke that way???
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