commas were owning me

This week we covered a lot of subjects that dealt with commas. I knew that it was something that I had to pay strict attention to as I absolutely fail at commas. I mean fail! I really enjoy the idea of minilessons and found that they did a good job teaching in the classroom. This week we talked about FANBOYS, and we discussed AAWWWIBBIS. These were both very helpful in my continuing struggle to discover what to do with commas. I loved that we used the sentences that Sam and I made during magnetic poetry it truly made the lesson so much better. I hope to apply something like the sentence bank in my classroom as I teach grammar. I would like to say thanks for making the due date later as it was very difficult to find examples right away. As we showed examples in class finding these problems became a lot simpler. Also, looking through previous scrapbooks really helped give me more ideas of what to look for seeing as we haven't covered all the mistakes that are made in grammar. I also have started to make a chart in the back of my notebook like the one on the white board to make sure that I keep these ideas/rules with me as I continue writing. I have to admit that I still am worried about using the comma, and that these lessons confused me briefly but I think it has been made much more clearer to me. So for my question this week when you are going to apply a comma into a sentence can you always base where it needs to go on the structure of the sentence?

Prepositional Phrases and the Scrapbook

"It is what the bunny does to the log." I have heard this saying so many times and yet it never gets old and is a very easy way to rememeber what prepositions are. I already had a pretty thorough understanding of prepositions, however I had not done that much work with prepositional phrases. On Monday when we were going through the newspapers it was some of the first practice I had with idnetifying these phrases. It was not difficult to pick up on as finding the preposition triggers where the phrase will be. Furthermore, using the newspapers is a very effective activity and has helped me learn the different parts of grammar that we have discussed thus far. The newspapers will definetely be something that I will use as a tool in my classroom.
The scrapbook is something that I need to start working on again as the due date is starting to approach us again. The first section became very entertaining and was easy to do once I got started which I believe will be the same for this next section, or at least I hope it will be. At the moment I am not sure which of the sections I will begin working on since that portion is free and we just need the 10 examples. I do have questions about teh sections and I hope to get them answered so I can start assembling more of my book.

Questions:

• For the Gems section we are supposed to pick certain aspects that stand out to us, are their any guidelines for that or is it totally up to us?
• By errors in print would it be when a magazine breaks their own house style?
• Finally, what is the Breaking the Rules section and what goes in it?

This week we furthered our understanding with the word classes. I personally love this part of grammar, as dorky as it may be. I enjoyed class Thursday working with the parts of a sentence and felt as though using magnetic poetry was a very smart and fun way to get this idea across. One point that was made during class that struck me was that commas have certain places in a sentence, and that they are not to be just placed to represent a pause or break. I think by learning this I will definetely be able to straighten up on quite a few of the issues I have with commas. On Tuesday we did the Socratic Circle which was something that I had never taken part in before. I felt as though it was a very constructive way to discuss something. It was brought up in class that some people did not like being on the outside of the circle, however I would not be part of that group. Observing the inner circle discuss that issue allowed for me to take some very good notes and points that I do not think would have come up had we just done a normal class lecture led by the professor. Being on the inner side of the circle was very helpful as well. And for me personally I like being on the outter circle before goign in to discuss becuase it gave me ideas that I could delve into and progress the ideas of others. Overall, I am pretty stoked about what is happening in class right now. I do believe that Wednesday's class was very important and knwoing what I do about this part of grammar I know that it is a very essential part to know about. In conclusion, I would hope that we are going to share ourmagnetic poetry sentences.

Question: How big of a class do you think you could still effectively use the Socratic circle for? Also, would the circle still be as succesful and thorougly cover a work if you were to do a play, book, or some larger type of work?

What I have learned so far

So far in this class I have learned mainly about apostrophes. The one thing that I remember the most from the class was our discussion about the apostrophe when it came to the name Jones and when it was plural and showing ownership. I never would have guessed to do it that way. I would have originally just done it by changing the sentence structure so that I would not have to do it this way. However, now I know that you would write it as Joneses' to show the plural possesive form. The other item that we covered in class was the use of nouns, adjectives, and adverbs. This is one part of grammar that I thoroughly enjoy doing as it is very easy for me to understand. I have been dealing with the word classes for quite some time and they come very easily to me. Going through the newspaper and labeling all the sentences is a really fun activity for me as it was something we also did in highschool, however back then I used a different color highliter for each of the word classes and colored those pages up. Finally, this week we worked on our scrapbooks. I have to admit I was not looking forward to this project, but by the time I got home I was all into the project and couldn't stop pilferring through the magazine to find more examples. Overall, this week has been really great learning wise and my mind has been stimulated the whole time as the class has kept me engaged and what I am learning are things that I have wondered about for awhile.

My question: When it comes to house style and a magazine uses multiple forms of grammar like People did is that acceptable and right or should they have to stick to just one?

Self Assessment

As a writer one of the main grammatical issues I face, and utterly fail at would be the correct use of commas. I tend to put commas into every thing and to be honest I don't know when I am technically supposed to use them. I understand using the comma in basic uses like when making lists, during salutations in letters, or before using words like "and" or "but". However, I seem to use them also just to use them. I litter sentences with commas maybe to create breaks in sentences, but as my red marked essays have shown me this isn't correct. One of the situations where I am not totally comfortable in the use of the comma is when you are providing extra information about what you just spoke of. For example, in a paper I wrote about Pride and Prejudice I wrote, "After the ball Charlotte a family friend commented on this issue to Elizabeth." Upon receiving my paper back I found that I was supposed to have commas surrounding "a family friend". Although I fairly understand why it is needed here I would appreciate more information on specific reasons why it is needed here. I would hope to learn the correct usage of commas so that I can gain the confidence to use them. As of right now I am beginning to just completely phase out the use of commas. I would love to find the happy and correct medium of comma usage.
Another grammatical issue I have is something that is totally unknown to me, the semi-colon. My high school English teacher told my class not to worry about using them and that we didn't need to have this knowledge for her class. Unfortunately, I would like to have this skill so that I can apply it in my writing. I would love to be able to provide an example of where I am confused about the use of the semi-colon, but I know nothing about it, a blank slate if you will. Basically, I am going to need an entire lesson on the semi-colon at the moment I am terrified of it because it is a stranger.
The final issue that haunts much of my writing is switching between tenses. I understand that when writing you need to pick one tense and stick with it, however as I write I switch back and forth frequently. I believe that I need to work on the skill of proofing my paper to correct this. I was hoping that there would be a tip or idea that could help me identify when Ia m switching back and forth as I don't always pick up on it as I am reading. Most of the time I seem to begin in past tense and then float back and forth between it and future tense which confuses the reader and makes my writing look weak.
Overall, these are the three issues that I feel weaken my writing the most. The improper use of commas, the vacancy of the knowledge of the semi-colon, and the inability to use one tense throughout an entire work.