Observations

After class I went over to my place of employment and watched the employees and customers interact for about twenty minutes. There were only a few people that came in, but I tried paying close attention to how the customers interacted with the workers, and also I observed the environment in general.

Observation: The two workers were deep in conversation with one another the entire time of my visit.

Reflection: Observing this simple act of conversation, something I do myself during every work-shift, I realized that sometimes the customers felt like they were imposing on the workers by asking for help without that being the intention of the workers at all. The customer would hover nearby for a few seconds before one of the workers took notice and asked if they could help with anything.

Observation: The lighting in the CRC (Communications Resource Center) is dim and red. There is a red, neon light that arches between the Redbull refrigerator and the employee desk.

Reflection: I had a hard time pinpointing how this lighting made me feel because I have worked around it for several years now. I think it might have a relaxing effect on me...

Observation: For the most part, the students and the employees knew each other, and they seemed comfortable in their communication.

Reflection: This is a good thing :)

Observation: The CRC is a large, cluttered, rustic room. The walls are gray cement blocks mixed with painted red ventilation ducts. It seems very utilitarian, while also striving for stylishness.

Reflection: I can see how this would make the students, and the workers as well, feel comfortable. The CRC feels a lot like someone's house or dorm room. There is a very relaxed feel to it.

3/16/08

I'm having a hard time writing my paper. I don't think I'll have a complete draft for class tomorrow, but I will certainly have enough to be criticized by my fellow classmates...

I'm just not able to connect the dots as far as making the paper have a purpose. I'm having a hard time coming up with a thesis, and I'm not even sure it needs one. It seems to me that just having it be a paper documenting katie's writing process, comparing it to my own, and reflecting on that would be enough. I'm not really trying to prove anything, anyways!

We'll see what I come up with for class tomorrow, I suppose...

Exam

So the exam wasn't quite what I expected, but it wasn't absolutely 100% the worst test I've ever taken. I never really picked up on the "bedford process" when I read the text, and I missed the day where we did the practice tutoring session based on it, so I think this question was probably the hardest for me.

I also didn't really know what to classify aux verbs or helping verbs as, nor articles. I could have labeled them as articles or aux verbs, but had a hard time thinking of their larger classification.

Oh well, it's only 20% of my grade, right?! Haha...

3/1/08

Rather than write on the chapters in th Bedford tutoring guide, I thought I'd reflect on what we did in class this week.

I think the ESL paper analyzing was a very practical exercise. Giving advice, and especially advice that is at once technical and abstract, is a hard thing to teach, but putting us into the position of having to analyze a specific example, run through the process of correcting it, and then figuring out what we know that the student doesn't that allows us to correct it, is pretty powerful.

The other exercise we did of creating the paragraph from hell, was also pretty fun, and did a good job of testing our knowledge of the grammar tested. While we didn't get every single rule in (I think we missed three or so?), we did have to think about a practical way to implement every function of punctuation, which was a great test for whether or not we knew how to do it There was also the aspect of trying to fit as many rules as we could into one sentence which was a blast, haha!

Good stuff...

Adieu, Grammar Snobs!

Well, our time with Mrs. Casagrande has now come to a close, and I'd like to reflect a bit on what I liked about the book, and what I disliked.

I think she has a strong, confident, and relatable voice. She isn't pretentious, which is great and incredibly rare it seems with authors writing on grammar. She isn't a grammar expert, and she makes that blatantly clear. Instead, she is a normal person trying to understand grammar at a functional level. She doesn't dabble in frivolous points of contention (much), but rather just examines those things that affect most people in their writing, such as quote usage, confusing words, commas, semicolons, colons--you know, the bread and butter of everyday writing. I think she did a good job relating these rules in an enjoyable way.

That being said, her chapters seemed formulaic to me. I started to expect to read a funny, short story, and then jump into rules. She tried mixing it up by having short, one paragraph chapters, but I don't think it really worked. There was also, inevitably and ironically, a slight transformation in her into a grammar snob. Maybe she didn't turn into a ravenous, frothing snob like she makes an example of in her introduction, but there is no denying she imbibes some of those qualities as her book progresses. I think she never addressed just how easy it is for one to turn into a grammar snob. Often the people who try their very hardest to learn the rules, maybe out of insecurity in their own writing, are those people who go around correcting others. It's not necessary a capital offense like she portrays it as, and it can happen to anyone.

But yeah, I enjoyed her book.

2/18/08

I always use 'alright.' I had no idea that this was not a real word. Hell I've used it in academic papers...whoops! So yeah, that was nice to find out.

And that brings me to another point: We can use conjunctions, 'so', and 'because' to start out sentences. I've known this fact for a few years. I frequently start sentences with 'and' or 'but' out of spite for my high school teachers who told me not to do it. BUT yeah, that was affirming to read.

Oh, and the ending on chapter 25 was awesome. "Who the !@#!! are you?" Haha, that's great.

2/13/08

I enjoyed the conciseness of chapters 16-23. It's nice that she chops them up into small, quick reads. It makes it more enjoyable.

I snickered at the section about "irregardless," because I had a high school English teacher that would fail a paper that used it. She claimed that it was not a word, and it was one of her unforgivable infractions. Hah, talk about grammar snobbery...

Now that I'm about halfway through the book, I've started to get a better feel for its rhythm. I'm enjoying the way she teaches about grammar a tad more than I did at the start. I mentioned it felt formulaic for the first few chapters, but the latest ones have seemed to break out of the previous mold of funny story->lesson, funny story->lesson. And hell, I'm learning things every chapter. Granted, I know a lot of what she is teaching, but with respect to parentheses inside of parentheses, ellipses, and that/which, I've been able to pick up quite a bit. I had no idea, for example, that 'which' always needed to be partitioned off with a comma.

Cool...

scooter