BLOG #6

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian Reflection

            I think Junior is already a very mature adolescent. Junior is on the road to his coming-of-age moment, and he is moving rapidly towards it. Junior recognized how his reservation was suffocating and held him back from making something big of his life, even if that only means getting off the reservation and getting a decent job - or, perhaps, going to college. Junior’s math teacher, Mr. P, was part of the reason that Junior eventually left the reservation to go to school at Reardon. However, Junior still recognized the nature of the “rez”. He watched his best friend getting beat by his own father and do nothing about it, except become angrier and angrier. Also, Mr. P would not have approached Junior if he had not thrown a book at Mr. P’s face. Junior was feeling so trapped by the reservation, and so depressed about the fact that they could not afford new text books for the students and instead had to use textbooks that were more than thirty years old. Junior was the one that started the conversation Mr. P had with him. He was the one that always wanted to get of the reservation.  

            In addition to recognizing the stifling nature of his home, Junior made the valiant decision to attend Reardon, even though he knew that the kids back home would torment him for it [USING THOUGH TO INTERRUPT A MAIN SENTENCE]. He isolated himself from both communities. However, he knew attending Reardon was the way to make something of his life. Even though Junior is semi-conscious of what other people think of him, and worries about getting beat up for being an Indian or a book nerd, he also doesn’t really care [USING THOUGH TO INTERRUPT A MAIN SENTENCE]. On his first day of high school, he said “I know the other kids are going to give me crap about being so excited about school. But I don’t care” (Alexie 28). It takes a very mature adolescent to know that they are going to be made fun of for something, yet still go through with it because it’s what they care about.

            I would even say that Junior has had some defining moments already; he may not have had his true coming-of-age moment, but he has made some strong decisions that have helped lead him on the path to coming-of-age. One instance was when he decided to go to Reardon, even if it meant losing his best friend and isolating himself. Another was when he punched Roger for being so racist and mean to him. What Junior’s grandmother said was true; Roger even respected Junior for standing up to him, even though he was much larger than him. Junior even said it himself – even though to most kids what Junior did wouldn’t be so much of a big deal, to Junior it was because he was in a way telling the world he was not a human punching bag [USING THOUGH TO INTERRUPT A MAIN SENTENCE]. Junior’s other defining moments were when he stood up to his “fake science teacher” and became friends with Gordy. Junior could have sat down in his seat and skated by, but instead, he stood up to the teacher. He decided to reach out to Gordy. Because he befriended Gordy, Junior is happier [START A SENTENCE WITH A "BECAUSE" CLAUSE]. 

....

Even though Junior is making moves toward having a better life, he is still stuck in his white and Indian world; there is no medium [SENTENCE USING A SEMI COLON WITH TWO DIFFERENT LENGTH SENTENCES]. He even shows signs of racism when he is obsessing over Penelope. He thinks she is absolutely perfect, when she is bulimic and egotistical. Nor does she have a very redeeming personality [STARTING A SENTENCE WITH NOR]. Junior recognizes she has these qualities, but doesn’t care because she is so beautiful and so 'white' [ENDING A SENTENCE WITH BECAUSE]. He even described her 'white-ness' with great detail. Although Junior is rapidly maturing, and almost every chapter discovers something new about his world and how to live in it – not as an Indian, but as a person – he still cannot get the idea of race separation out of his head. Maybe he won’t be able to, because he lives in a community where Indians and white people feel so segregated; I think Junior’s “who am I and what am I going to do about it” moment is going to be overcoming the race barrier, and helping his friends and family do the same [SENTENCE USING A SEMI COLON WITH MIRRORING SENTENCE LENGTHS]. Until then, Junior is continuing down that path and on the road to adulthood.

              

Emily Neeleman

September 22, 2013

 Blog #6

William Woodsworth and Samuel Coleridge examine nature as it affects man in both their esteemed poems, “Lines, Composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey” and “This Line-tree Bower my Prison.” The two poets’ speakers have a similar view on nature, but express their views in different fashions. While “Tintern Abbey” and “Lime-tree Bower” both share a deep appreciation and reverence for nature, “Tintern Abbey” focuses more on the abstract concept of nature as a whole, while “Lime-tree Bower” is more concerned with the aesthetic side of nature.

            The speakers in both “Tintern Abbey” and “Lime-tree Bower” are deeply moved by nature, to the point where it touches each of their lives in a different way. The speaker in “Lime-tree Bower” goes through a transformation throughout the poem. In the beginning, he describes himself as trapped in a lime-tree bower and therefore unable to see the parts of nature with more grandeur (Coleridge 16). After the sun begins to set, however, and the surrounding area is bathed in golden sunlight, he begins to see how each part of nature is beautiful, not just the parts with obvious beauty (16). He before describes meadows, thick forests, and the ocean as the splendid aspects of nature (16). However, after spending time sitting trapped in his lime-tree bower, the speaker realizes that the little aspects of nature are beautiful too, such as the grass and the bark of the trees.

            In contrast to the speaker in “Lime-tree Bower”, the speaker in “Tintern Abbey” always knew nature was beautiful. He came back to the outskirts of Tintern Abbey and was profoundly moved by them once again (Woodsworth 4). When he was a boy he would come to Tintern Abbey and build memories with the nature surrounding it (4). As an older man, he still appreciates the same serenity and memories he made there even after he had seen it many times. While the speaker in “Tintern Abbey” holds great stalk in existing in nature, he also believes his memories of the nature around Tintern Abbey are important; he says “Thy memory be as a dwelling-place / For all sweet sounds and harmonies” (5). Nature had a great impact on both the poems’ speakers’ lives. For the speaker in “Lime-tree Bower”, the impact was a transformation; the speaker in “Tintern Abbey” gathered memories from exploring the grounds around Tintern Abbey that made an impact on his life and his view of nature. 

Sentence(s) starting with a FANBOY: The cat chased the mouse down the hall. But, because of the mouse's small nature, it scurried out of reach of the cat.

Emily Neeleman

Monroe

ENG 326.01

September 2, 2013

 “Dora Learns to Write and in the Process Encounters Punctuation”

            I recently applied for a job at the writing center here on campus. We had a workshop last week that covered some of the basics of being a tutor and evaluating someone’s writing. One fundamental they emphasized is leading the writer in the right direction, rather than telling them exactly what to do. If we told the writers what to do, they could never apply the rule by themselves in an effective way. Dora’s teacher applies this same concept when teaching her how to correctly use periods. She does not simply tell Dora the rule of periods and expect her to automatically apply that rule in her writing. Instead, she allows Dora to struggle a little bit while she plays around with period placement. The teacher allows the class to play around with their writing because it’s theirs; she doesn’t take over their writing. She also has Dora read aloud what she thinks the story should sound like. I think this is a very effective way to teach period placement; Dora naturally heard the syntax in her writing when she strategically dropped her voice at the end of a clause. TEACHING STUDENTS TO EXPLORE PERIOD PLACEMENT THROUGH WRITING AND SPEECH IS AN EFFECTIVE WAY TO TEACH PERIOD PLACEMENT; DORA NATURALLY HEARD THE SYNTAX IN HER WRITING WHEN SHE STRATEGICALLY DROPPED HER VOICE AT THE END OF A CLAUSE. [S-V-O] While this was not the correct place for a period, she was beginning to understand where periods go through sounds. ALTHOUGH DORA DID NOT PUT HER PERIOD IN THE CORRECT PLACEMENT, SHE WAS BEGINNING TO UNDERSTAND WHERE PERIODS GO THROUGH SOUNDS. [S-V-O] This is another tactic we employ in the writing center; often times we ask the tutees if we can read their work aloud. IN THE WRITING CENTER, WE EMPLY A SIMILAR METHOD AS DORA’S TEACHER; WE OFTEN ASK THE TUTEES IF WE CAN READ THEIR WORK ALOUD. [S-V-O] This way, they can easier identify the mistakes in their writing because as writers and readers, we are better at identification with hearing because we are used to reading other people’s writing and how grammar should sound. BY DOING SO, THE TUTEES HAVE AN EASIER TIME IDENTIFYING THE MISTAKES IN THEIR WRITING BECAUSE WE ARE USED TO READING THE CORRECT GRAMMAR IN OTHER PEOPLE’S WRITING.

            One thing Dora’s teacher does not do, however, is point out Dora’s glaring mistakes. I think there is a fine line between telling the student what to do and making sure to snub out reoccurring errors before they become habit. After Dora was wavering between putting periods at the end of a page or line, she decided to put them at the end of a line again. Making this decision, because no one was there to tell her both forms are wrong, affirmed her belief that periods go at the end of a line when they in fact do not. If Dora’s teacher had told Dora point-blank earlier that periods do not go at the end of a line, Dora wouldn’t have had to make that decision and thus affirm her belief that they go at the end of a line. Doing so made learning the syntactic rules of periods more difficult for her because she was still caught up in the notion that periods have a very specific place where they go every time. While Dora’s teacher was right to let Dora explore a bit when deciding where to place her periods, I do not think she should have allowed Dora to create a steadfast rule for herself, because as a student I remember false student-created rules to be the hardest habits to break.

            Exploring different hypotheses is the reason it took Dora so long to understand period placement. Like most children her age, Dora explored different placement of periods without much instruction on what was absolutely wrong. Dora had to go through all the phases of where to place a period and understand how they are wrong before figuring out where the right place is to put a period. Additionally, Dora also had the added complexity of spelling and forming and separating words from phrases. Dora often became confused and tired of all the work she had to do to become an adequate writer. In the end, her exploration is what helped her to understand the syntactic rules of period placement, but not without a lot of work and dedication.

Compound verb: The students worked on reading in writing in their language arts class.

Compound subject with 2+ personal pronouns: They are renowned architects and builders while he is only a painter.

Compound object of preposition with 2+ personal pronouns: The sadness of the man and woman is heartbreaking for him and her.

Compound direct object with 2+ personal pronouns: I played soccer and tennis when he was a boy.

A sentence using who or whoever: Whoever took my phone is a dead man.

A sentence using whom or whomever: Whom did she want to see?

Dora Part 1

Emily Neeleman

Monroe

ENG 326.01

September 2, 2013

"Dora Learns to Write and in the Process Encounters Punctuation"

            I recently applied for a job at the writing center here on campus. We had a workshop last week that covered some of the basics of being a tutor and evaluating someone’s writing. One fundamental they emphasized is leading the writer in the right direction, rather than telling them exactly what to do. If we told the writers what to do, they could never apply the rule by themselves in an effective way. Dora’s teacher applies this same concept when teaching her how to correctly use periods. She does not simply tell Dora the rule of periods and expect her to automatically apply that rule in her writing. Instead, she allows Dora to struggle a little bit while she plays around with period placement. The class has to work through their own writing because it's theirs; she does not try and fix their writing for them. She also has Dora read aloud what she thinks the story should sound like. I think this is a very effective way to teach period placement; Dora naturally heard the syntax in her writing when she strategically dropped her voice at the end of a clause. While this was not the correct place for a period, she was beginning to understand where periods go through sounds. The writing was easier to read because of its correct punctuation. This is another tactic we employ in the writing center; often times we ask the tutees if we can read their work aloud. This way, they can easier identify the mistakes in their writing because as writers and readers, we are better at identification with hearing because we are used to reading other people’s writing and how grammar should sound. The writers who come into the writing center, whose writing steadily improves, also feel more confident when they're inserting the punctuation themselves. 

            One thing Dora’s teacher does not do, however, is point out Dora’s glaring mistakes. I think there is a fine line between telling the student what to do and making sure to snub out reoccurring errors before they become habit. After Dora was wavering between putting periods at the end of a page or line, she decided to put them at the end of a line again. Making this decision, because no one was there to tell her both forms are wrong, affirmed her belief that periods go at the end of a line when they in fact do not. If Dora’s teacher had told Dora point blank earlier that periods do not go at the end of a line, Dora wouldn’t have had to make that decision and thus affirm her belief that they go at the end of a line. Doing so made learning the syntactic rules of period more difficult for her because she was still caught up in the notion that periods have a very specific place where they go every time. While Dora’s teacher was right to let Dora explore a bit when deciding where to place her periods, I do gnot think she should have allowed Dora to create a steadfast rule for herself, because I remember false student-created rules to be the hardest habits to break.

            Exploring different hypotheses is the reason it took Dora so long to understand period placement. Like most children her age, Dora explored different placement of periods without much instruction on what was absolutely wrong. Dora had to go through all the phases of where to place a period and understand how they are wrong before figuring out where the right place is to put a period. Additionally, Dora also had the added complexity of spelling and forming and separating words from phrases. Dora often became confused and tired of all the work she had to do to become an adequate writer. In the end, her exploration is what helped her to understand the syntactic rules of period placement, but not without a lot of work and dedication.