Tuesday, February 24, 2009
Grammar posts are where great learning is.
Sooooo, aparently you cannot end a sentence with the word "is". I think that it is because of the poor teaching that High School is. A cool website says that "Ending with "is" often creates an awkward, deflated conclusion to a sentence--and an inflated word count.", HERE is where that site is. This is something that I do all the time and I never know what the problem is.But now I know the reason for sure and I hope you find it as useful as I think it is.
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
The roots of debate...
Throughout this essay Tannen critiques the "debate" rhetoric we often rely on in college classrooms. What is wrong with this, according to Tannen?
Tannen feels that the debate system puts more emphasis on winning an argument instead of learning information. Tannen also feels that this puts people who do not have an advaserial style naturally at a disadvantage in school. With most classes giving up to 10% of their grade based on participation, its gives advantage to those who are louder and more noticeable. It seems pretty clear that Tannen is not a big fan of the Socratic Method.
How does Tannen suggest we move beyond this argument culture?
Tannen suggests that we overcome our desire to think in twos. Instead of talking about “both sides” of an issue, we should look at ALL sides of an issue. She also feels that debate should not be glorified as something more important than the issues being discussed.
Does Tannen move beyond simply arguing a point in this essay and engage in a higher order of critical thinking?
I think she does a good job of laying out the history of confrontational learning and she does in fact have some reasonable points for change. What I would of liked to see is more on the Asian method of harmony. It is like she spent so much time explaining the way she disagrees with, but only a page on her ideas for change. I think more history on cultures that adopt more of her style would have been beneficial for her argument.
Tannen feels that the debate system puts more emphasis on winning an argument instead of learning information. Tannen also feels that this puts people who do not have an advaserial style naturally at a disadvantage in school. With most classes giving up to 10% of their grade based on participation, its gives advantage to those who are louder and more noticeable. It seems pretty clear that Tannen is not a big fan of the Socratic Method.
How does Tannen suggest we move beyond this argument culture?
Tannen suggests that we overcome our desire to think in twos. Instead of talking about “both sides” of an issue, we should look at ALL sides of an issue. She also feels that debate should not be glorified as something more important than the issues being discussed.
Does Tannen move beyond simply arguing a point in this essay and engage in a higher order of critical thinking?
I think she does a good job of laying out the history of confrontational learning and she does in fact have some reasonable points for change. What I would of liked to see is more on the Asian method of harmony. It is like she spent so much time explaining the way she disagrees with, but only a page on her ideas for change. I think more history on cultures that adopt more of her style would have been beneficial for her argument.
My grammar posts are awesomenesserest!
For a grammar post this week, I chose to cover one of the most diabolicalist of issues. Using words that do not exist! I know, I know, we all use them, but even the most studfasterest of pupil knows in the heartest of hearts that these words do not belong. I was going to skipple over this shig, but feel that any effort of such Clandestination would surely wipple under the watchful un-caffeinaticeye of our instructor.
A link to the top 100 or so imaginarly made up but most often used verbace can be found HERE
A link to the top 100 or so imaginarly made up but most often used verbace can be found HERE
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
Rhetoric Reading for the Week
Our reading for the week was on two separate articles designed to highlight rhetoric and its use in media. The first article is entitled “Against School” by John Taylor Gatto who is a former teacher. The second article is called “I Just Wanna Be Average” by Mike rose who is an author of several scholary material and a professor at UCLA. The information they share is of significant value on its own, but both choose to employ rhetoric to make their points.
The first article uses Ethos (credibility) as a major force to drive home his points at the beginning of the article. In fact, the first sentence is straight to that point “I taught for thirty years in some of the worst schools in Manhattan…” This is clearly designed to immediately let the reader know that when it comes to education, he is the man.
His second point of rhetoric is in his Pathos (emotion). He uses this with questions to the reader such as “Do we really need school?” Questions like this are meant to bring the reader into the article and respond with feeling. Another use of this technique is when Mr. Gatto says “Now, you needn’t have studied marketing to know that there are two groups of people who can always be convinced to consume more than they need to: addicts and children.” This vicious little sentence brings the emotion of something you SHOULD know and allows him to link children and addicts in the same sentence to scare you. These tactics are used so well that its hard to realize exactly when the author “got” ya.
Mr. Rose chose to start his article with Pathos instead of what he could of easily relied on, his credibility. It’s hard not to get immediately swept up with his emotional appeal as he describes the two busses he took to get to school. His use of the language in order to paint an emotional picture is a tell tail sign that he intends to hook your heart first.
Mike Rose uses less of the other two rhetoric pillars of Ethos and Logos. He uses only a small amount of foot notes for his story to bolster his opinion and his educational background is not highlighted anywhere near as much as he could. It is possible that this message just did not need to expand to other parts of the rhetoric playing field, but I think it might of bolstered his argument. Emotion will keep the reader involved for a bit, but its logic and credibility that let the reader walk away with a message that can be shared with a friend and in the long run lead to making a difference.
The first article uses Ethos (credibility) as a major force to drive home his points at the beginning of the article. In fact, the first sentence is straight to that point “I taught for thirty years in some of the worst schools in Manhattan…” This is clearly designed to immediately let the reader know that when it comes to education, he is the man.
His second point of rhetoric is in his Pathos (emotion). He uses this with questions to the reader such as “Do we really need school?” Questions like this are meant to bring the reader into the article and respond with feeling. Another use of this technique is when Mr. Gatto says “Now, you needn’t have studied marketing to know that there are two groups of people who can always be convinced to consume more than they need to: addicts and children.” This vicious little sentence brings the emotion of something you SHOULD know and allows him to link children and addicts in the same sentence to scare you. These tactics are used so well that its hard to realize exactly when the author “got” ya.
Mr. Rose chose to start his article with Pathos instead of what he could of easily relied on, his credibility. It’s hard not to get immediately swept up with his emotional appeal as he describes the two busses he took to get to school. His use of the language in order to paint an emotional picture is a tell tail sign that he intends to hook your heart first.
Mike Rose uses less of the other two rhetoric pillars of Ethos and Logos. He uses only a small amount of foot notes for his story to bolster his opinion and his educational background is not highlighted anywhere near as much as he could. It is possible that this message just did not need to expand to other parts of the rhetoric playing field, but I think it might of bolstered his argument. Emotion will keep the reader involved for a bit, but its logic and credibility that let the reader walk away with a message that can be shared with a friend and in the long run lead to making a difference.
Possessive Pronouns
My grammar post last week was on apostrophes and I noticed a rule about possessive pronouns that made me think about investigating it this week.
What the post said was "Please note that none of the possessive pronouns are spelled with an apostrophe." This is something I had no idea, so hence the grammar article this week.
I have found that over the weeks it is getting harder and harder to come up with grammar posts. I will be looking forward to some feedback on our first assignment in order to come up with some grammar issues that I actually have a problem with.
Anyhow, the link for the article is HERE
Good luck to all and I cant wait for some more fun on Thursday Night!!!
What the post said was "Please note that none of the possessive pronouns are spelled with an apostrophe." This is something I had no idea, so hence the grammar article this week.
I have found that over the weeks it is getting harder and harder to come up with grammar posts. I will be looking forward to some feedback on our first assignment in order to come up with some grammar issues that I actually have a problem with.
Anyhow, the link for the article is HERE
Good luck to all and I cant wait for some more fun on Thursday Night!!!
Tuesday, February 3, 2009
Idiot Nation Response
This week our assignment was to read Idiot Nation by Michael Moore and respond with some more raw response. I knew this information would be controversal to those without a lifetime of exposure to the more direct and brutal of peoples oppinions, but I did not consider it to be much of a stretch for myself. I was not only prepared for read one mans oppinion on our society, but actually looking forward to it. I relished the idea of engaging in some great debate on the merits and wisdom of his beleifs.
What I was not prepared for was an oppinion article laced with sudo factual data that is delivered as the truth. "There are forty-four million Americans who cannot read or write above a fourth grade level", great fact but where is the footnote? Where did he get this information? When was this study published? He lays out information in order to bolster his oppinion, but without any traceable validation or complete reference. He then goes on to answer all my questions about validity with "How did I learn this statistic? Well, I read it." Oh boy that make it all better now doesnt it. There are way too many other examples of this authors creative use of "facts" to cover in this response, but I can tell you that there are more holes in his information than a cheese grater.
I beleive everyone is entitiled to their oppinion. I have an issue when it is distributed to people with facts that have more bends and twists in them than a pretzel. It is dangerous and irresponsible to distribute information closer to propoganda than fact without a disclaimer attached.
What I was not prepared for was an oppinion article laced with sudo factual data that is delivered as the truth. "There are forty-four million Americans who cannot read or write above a fourth grade level", great fact but where is the footnote? Where did he get this information? When was this study published? He lays out information in order to bolster his oppinion, but without any traceable validation or complete reference. He then goes on to answer all my questions about validity with "How did I learn this statistic? Well, I read it." Oh boy that make it all better now doesnt it. There are way too many other examples of this authors creative use of "facts" to cover in this response, but I can tell you that there are more holes in his information than a cheese grater.
I beleive everyone is entitiled to their oppinion. I have an issue when it is distributed to people with facts that have more bends and twists in them than a pretzel. It is dangerous and irresponsible to distribute information closer to propoganda than fact without a disclaimer attached.
Mike's Apostrophe' Article
I knew this one would come up in regards to grammer issues, mostly because I have no idea what an apostrophe is. I know it must be important because it ranks above the " on your keyboard and is even on the home row! I took the opportunity to look it up and still have only some idea on what it is and how to use it, but hey... I am trying.
Here it the official rule from Houghton Mifflin "Use apostrophes to show possession: add 's after a singular noun or plural noun not ending in –s ; add ' after a plural noun ending in –s. Do not use an apostrophe after a possessive pronoun (my, mine, our, ours, his, hers, its, their, theirs)." More fun and merriment on apostrophe usage can be found HERE or HERE. Please be carefull about the second one as it is signifigantly more colorfull in showing errors found in cartoons. You have been warned… really.
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