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Mangled Grammar, Anyone?
Mar. 16th, 2009 06:11 pmGreetings, friends, and apologies for the long silence. I am in week 11 of my first 12 week term, and final exams are next week. I have got through this first venture into teaching fairly unscathed. As one might imagine, the administrative nonsense trumps anything my students can do. Most of the fainthearted have already been dropped for extreme lack of attendance, and are therefore no longer my problem. Except there's this silly little instructor retention percentage to contend with and meetings with said administration to find ways of boosting student retention. Sigh.
But enough of that. I have exams to write. I discovered a great book by Douglas Cazort called Under the Grammar Hammer, and I have presented it in my Developmental and Business English classes using this handout (apologies for the link to the blog-- the handout is a pdf and I wasn't sure how to attach it to my own journal.)
At any rate, if anyone still remembers me fondly and feels inclined to butcher some English in a good cause, I am finding it harder than it looks to deliberately commit particular grammatical sins. It's even harder to commit sins obvious enough for my students to pick up which rule is being broken. If you think you have what it takes, please reply to this post.
Also, If anyone has a good web resource for generating sentences that can be stolen for exams with impunity, I'd love to hear about that, as well. I had a most uncomfortable discussion with a student about plagiarism recently, but I still caught myself contemplating stealing practice sentences later the same day. Funnily enough, the Cincinnati Enquirer often has ready made mangled sentences there for the taking.
Hope everyone is well. I'll check in again in about a week and a half. Love to all.
(ps-- things with my Beloved are still going quite well.)
Update: I've decided to try to write sentences on how hard it is to write bad sentences, and what my high school English teacher, god rest her soul,'s reaction would have been. Kind of a narrative, using the different rules. I'll put it all out, behind a friends lock when I get done....
But enough of that. I have exams to write. I discovered a great book by Douglas Cazort called Under the Grammar Hammer, and I have presented it in my Developmental and Business English classes using this handout (apologies for the link to the blog-- the handout is a pdf and I wasn't sure how to attach it to my own journal.)
At any rate, if anyone still remembers me fondly and feels inclined to butcher some English in a good cause, I am finding it harder than it looks to deliberately commit particular grammatical sins. It's even harder to commit sins obvious enough for my students to pick up which rule is being broken. If you think you have what it takes, please reply to this post.
Also, If anyone has a good web resource for generating sentences that can be stolen for exams with impunity, I'd love to hear about that, as well. I had a most uncomfortable discussion with a student about plagiarism recently, but I still caught myself contemplating stealing practice sentences later the same day. Funnily enough, the Cincinnati Enquirer often has ready made mangled sentences there for the taking.
Hope everyone is well. I'll check in again in about a week and a half. Love to all.
(ps-- things with my Beloved are still going quite well.)
Update: I've decided to try to write sentences on how hard it is to write bad sentences, and what my high school English teacher, god rest her soul,'s reaction would have been. Kind of a narrative, using the different rules. I'll put it all out, behind a friends lock when I get done....
