Run-on sentences are bad don't write them.
It's that time again! This is your friendly neighborhood English teacher checking in with what's going on in the blogosphere. There are a couple comments I want to make on issues some of you are talking about, but first allow me to say this: If you don't already know how, LEARN TO RECOGNIZE AND CORRECT A RUN-ON SENTENCE!!! The comma tutorial will help you do this, but once you've learned it you need to live it!
This week I graded about 150 short stories that my ninth grade classes turned in. (Many have been posted to the blogs, and I recommend them for entertainment and enlightenment.) I estimate that more than 2/3 of the stories I graded contained run-on sentences...and not just one or two, but a continual string of them. Granted, most of these writing errors were made by "non-honors" students, but when I looked over the most recent batch of blogs, I discovered that many of you still struggle to write complete and correct sentences too. This concerns me because it is a concept that you were supposed to have mastered in the seventh grade. Here is something I've noticed about writing complete sentences: Those who read a lot do it naturally, without really thinking about it. Those who don't particularly enjoy reading and/or writing often don't write complete sentences...nor do they recognize them in other people's writing. But here's what it comes down to: As a writer, you have to do the work. It is your job to put your thoughts, exactly as they exist in your head, into someone else's head. Then that person can experience exactly what you experienced and, if you do your job really well, feel the same way you do about it. Punctuation is part of what it takes to write precisely, and understanding a complete sentence is necessary to punctuate properly. If you don't really know what a complete sentence is, go to this page of the comma tutorial and learn it well. When you are done, see if you can get a perfect score on the sentence quiz. (You'll be glad later. Trust me.) Finally, once you understand complete sentences, realize that hooking a whole bunch of them together with commas is NOT grammatically correct! (The comma tutorial covers just such issues.)
Now I can hear some of you moaning, "Thompson! I know how to write complete sentences. But I'm a busy person, okay? I don't have time to fix every little error when I write my blog."
My reply: If you really knew the rules of proper writing, you wouldn't make the errors to begin with. So learn 'em!
Now, on to the topics of the week:
Read Liana's blog called The Power of Choice. It addresses ideas we should keep in mind all the time, not just during this month, and it includes links. How many of you know how to include a link in your blog? If you don't, do some experimenting and try to figure it out.
Check out Ashley's idea: Begin every blog with a powerful or provocative quote. You could then even go so far as to make the quote your "thesis" and write about how the quote applies to your own life and experience.
If you haven't met Jessica yet, go do it! She moved here recently and joined our class. She writes very well!
And, finally, Andy's blog (which you'll have to scroll down to find because he doesn't have a title index on his page) called "school...." got me thinking. He begins like so: "Why? Not why do we have to go. That's easy. So you don't end up begging on the streets. But why does it have to be so boring?" I won't deny that school can be boring. No one knows that better than a teacher does. (But I also know this: People who are engaged in their own learning and who are actively trying to learn are not bored as often as those who leave the responsibility for their education completely to the teachers.)
The part of Andy's opening paragraph that I take issue with is the assumption that the only reason we go to school is to ensure that we can earn a living later in life. While that may be part of the reason to get educated, I think there are many more important reasons to go. After all, there are plenty of well-educated people that don't have good jobs, and there are also plenty of uneducated millionaires. So to say that education is the key to riches can't be completely true, although some of the things you learn at school might help you be more likely to succeed in a career. For example, school teaches you how to socialize and get along with (or around) other people, which is a key factor in life and career success. In fact, for some non-academic sorts, socialization might be the only good thing about school.
Of course the content of classes is important too. For example, most of you will never be called upon to write a poem or a short story for your boss, but you very well might have to write a couple of coherent paragraphs in a business report, and almost assuredly you will have to interact with co-workers and clients via e-mail, so the writing skills you practice in English classes are very important to success in our Information Society. But it is often the content that bores us, isn't it? It would be so much more engaging (and so much easier) to be in front of the TV. And that brings me to the other important lesson that you might learn in school: How to focus your own attention. We live in a world where advertisers and all forms of media are constantly screaming at us in an attempt to get us to part with our money. The dumb people are easier to persuade because it is so much easier to watch than to think. The truly educated person is the one who, even in the midst of a boring class, can focus on something besides the boredom and engage him/herself in what is happening in that moment. Even if the content somehow slips past, the mental exercise involved in staying focused is a good thing.
Those who have the drive and determination to succeed in life will do so, no matter how good or bad their education was. Drive and determination are by-products of focused attention, and that is something that you can learn and practice in school every day...even if it's boring. Oh, and one other thing: There are lots of things in "real life" that are ten times more boring than anything in a classroom. One personal example from my own experience: faculty meetings. Not only do they suck the life out of intelligent people, but they seldom have a point (a thesis). And you know how I feel about that.
MRT
This week I graded about 150 short stories that my ninth grade classes turned in. (Many have been posted to the blogs, and I recommend them for entertainment and enlightenment.) I estimate that more than 2/3 of the stories I graded contained run-on sentences...and not just one or two, but a continual string of them. Granted, most of these writing errors were made by "non-honors" students, but when I looked over the most recent batch of blogs, I discovered that many of you still struggle to write complete and correct sentences too. This concerns me because it is a concept that you were supposed to have mastered in the seventh grade. Here is something I've noticed about writing complete sentences: Those who read a lot do it naturally, without really thinking about it. Those who don't particularly enjoy reading and/or writing often don't write complete sentences...nor do they recognize them in other people's writing. But here's what it comes down to: As a writer, you have to do the work. It is your job to put your thoughts, exactly as they exist in your head, into someone else's head. Then that person can experience exactly what you experienced and, if you do your job really well, feel the same way you do about it. Punctuation is part of what it takes to write precisely, and understanding a complete sentence is necessary to punctuate properly. If you don't really know what a complete sentence is, go to this page of the comma tutorial and learn it well. When you are done, see if you can get a perfect score on the sentence quiz. (You'll be glad later. Trust me.) Finally, once you understand complete sentences, realize that hooking a whole bunch of them together with commas is NOT grammatically correct! (The comma tutorial covers just such issues.)
Now I can hear some of you moaning, "Thompson! I know how to write complete sentences. But I'm a busy person, okay? I don't have time to fix every little error when I write my blog."
My reply: If you really knew the rules of proper writing, you wouldn't make the errors to begin with. So learn 'em!
Now, on to the topics of the week:
Read Liana's blog called The Power of Choice. It addresses ideas we should keep in mind all the time, not just during this month, and it includes links. How many of you know how to include a link in your blog? If you don't, do some experimenting and try to figure it out.
Check out Ashley's idea: Begin every blog with a powerful or provocative quote. You could then even go so far as to make the quote your "thesis" and write about how the quote applies to your own life and experience.
If you haven't met Jessica yet, go do it! She moved here recently and joined our class. She writes very well!
And, finally, Andy's blog (which you'll have to scroll down to find because he doesn't have a title index on his page) called "school...." got me thinking. He begins like so: "Why? Not why do we have to go. That's easy. So you don't end up begging on the streets. But why does it have to be so boring?" I won't deny that school can be boring. No one knows that better than a teacher does. (But I also know this: People who are engaged in their own learning and who are actively trying to learn are not bored as often as those who leave the responsibility for their education completely to the teachers.)
The part of Andy's opening paragraph that I take issue with is the assumption that the only reason we go to school is to ensure that we can earn a living later in life. While that may be part of the reason to get educated, I think there are many more important reasons to go. After all, there are plenty of well-educated people that don't have good jobs, and there are also plenty of uneducated millionaires. So to say that education is the key to riches can't be completely true, although some of the things you learn at school might help you be more likely to succeed in a career. For example, school teaches you how to socialize and get along with (or around) other people, which is a key factor in life and career success. In fact, for some non-academic sorts, socialization might be the only good thing about school.
Of course the content of classes is important too. For example, most of you will never be called upon to write a poem or a short story for your boss, but you very well might have to write a couple of coherent paragraphs in a business report, and almost assuredly you will have to interact with co-workers and clients via e-mail, so the writing skills you practice in English classes are very important to success in our Information Society. But it is often the content that bores us, isn't it? It would be so much more engaging (and so much easier) to be in front of the TV. And that brings me to the other important lesson that you might learn in school: How to focus your own attention. We live in a world where advertisers and all forms of media are constantly screaming at us in an attempt to get us to part with our money. The dumb people are easier to persuade because it is so much easier to watch than to think. The truly educated person is the one who, even in the midst of a boring class, can focus on something besides the boredom and engage him/herself in what is happening in that moment. Even if the content somehow slips past, the mental exercise involved in staying focused is a good thing.
Those who have the drive and determination to succeed in life will do so, no matter how good or bad their education was. Drive and determination are by-products of focused attention, and that is something that you can learn and practice in school every day...even if it's boring. Oh, and one other thing: There are lots of things in "real life" that are ten times more boring than anything in a classroom. One personal example from my own experience: faculty meetings. Not only do they suck the life out of intelligent people, but they seldom have a point (a thesis). And you know how I feel about that.
MRT
posted by MRT at 7:26 AM
1 Comments:
I've found myself saying the exact same thing. "This class is boring." It is most likely my outlook on the class. If I could go into a class with an attitude of having fun and a desire to learn, I don't think we would be as bored.
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