Lessons from 1912

I found a link the other day to an exam given to 8^th grade students in 1912. So, because the girls and I were sitting around bored, I started quizzing them.

Good heavens. I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. So I laughed – a lot.

We laughed more and more as the night went on. The funniest moment for me was when I asked them who invented the cotton gin. "Martin Luther!" my eldest called. "Kabalevsky!" the youngest screamed. I decided to just content myself with the fact that a good number of kids their age don't know who Martin Luther is to even offer him as a joke answer, and even less have probably even HEARD of Kabalevsky.

But to be fair, I wouldn't have passed the test either. Not even the grammar section, and we all know what a grammar diva I am. "What properties have verbs?" Yeah, right. And I took some comfort in the fact that these 1912 kids had one hundred years less of history to learn than we did. So, I don't mourn my inability to "sketch briefly Peter Stuyvesant."

It also has occurred to me, when I've seen such items in the past, that we can't necessarily compare those kids to ours. While I would argue that we need to do a better job of educating our children these days, still, comparing public school results today to public school results in 1912 is like comparing apples and oranges.

In 1912, they did not have this lofty goal of "No Child Left Behind." America has decided that every single student in the country needs to be equally well-educated. That was not the goal in 1912. A much smaller percentage of students were attending school back then. Many did not have access to schools . . . many had to work to support their families and couldn't take the time for school . . . and many, frankly, just couldn't cut it in school, and they quit. And they were allowed to quit. It's much easier to hold your students to a higher standard when you don't have to worry about getting EVERY student to that standard.

That's the thing about high standards: they sometimes give the illusion of grand success, but they often reflect a reality of selective success.

My daughter had a different reaction to the test, however. In the car the next day (after finishing her history assignment for the morning over the second World War), she said, "You know, it's weird to think that those kids in 1912 knew nothing at all about either of the World Wars."

They didn't. They had no idea that these stunning, cataclysmic, world-changing events were just around the corner in their lives. Life probably seemed to them pretty calm, pretty smooth, pretty much like this is how it has always been and always will be.

Makes you wonder, doesn't it? In thirty years, what stunning, cataclysmic, world-changing events could disrupt the calm, smooth lives of MY teenagers?

I almost shudder to think.

My Grammar Curriculum . . . the One I Should Write

I shared a video on Facebook yesterday about a school in Atlanta called Ron Clark Academy. In the video, teachers are leading their students to sing and dance through their lessons . . . walking on the tables . . . stuff like that.

If I really felt the freedom to do it, that's how I would teach. Especially when I teach stuff I love, like grammar. I taught a K-2 grammar class in our co-op where we sang and did hand rhymes and played games. Those games and songs are why my daughters are grammar gurus like me -- why my eldest used to re-explain the grammar lessons to her classmates in high school who weren't getting it from the teachers' instruction.

I LOVE TEACHING GRAMMAR. That apparently makes me some kind of freak; it seems very few people like grammar. I love it. I love the labeling, the analyzing -- I love that there are right answers and I can figure it out. It appeals to many aspects of my personality as well as to my love of words.

I just recently had a conversation with our school's new principal and new academic dean about how I would change the teaching of grammar at my school. And it led me to come home and type up my ideas to give them. Because there are SO MANY THINGS I would change about how grammar is taught -- not just at our school, but pretty much everywhere.

Teach grammar through games. There are so many games -- like "The Minister's Cat" -- that are fun just in themselves but help a kid develop an inner sense of how language works. There are certain words you can use to describe the cat (those are adjectives), and there are other words that don't work. You have to understand in your gut the jobs that words are doing in a sentence before you can label them or analyze them.

Teach grammar through songs. And hand rhymes and chants. Anything rhythmic and easy to memorize. This year, I taught my 7th graders songs to remember the definitions of adjectives and adverbs ("Adverbs tell us how, where, when, or to what extent . . . "). When they needed to remember, I saw them mouthing the words to the song. If they had learned a song like that in 2nd grade, they wouldn't still be needing to mouth the words to themselves -- they would just know it.

Teach grammar through colors. In homeschool, we assigned certain marker colors to certain parts of speech and the girls wrote sentences on the whiteboard with different colors for every word. A visual aid to solidify in their minds what the words are doing in the sentence.

And teach grammar through other visual aids. I told my classes this year that modifiers (adjective, adverbs, prepositional phrases) are like sprinkles. Nouns and verbs are like ice cream and cones -- you have to have ice cream and a cone to make an ice cream cone. Sprinkles, on the other hand, are not required, but they add sparkle and flavor to the cone. You can sprinkle as many as you want on wherever you want them.

I want to write a grammar curriculum. Grammar is so easy to understand if it is taught well. Someday, when I have a reason to . . .

Comma Lessons, for the Comma-Happy

“I’m the comma queen! Help me! I need to know when to stop!” So pleaded a friend of mine this week. So, for the benefit of all my comma-happy readers, allow me to present . . .

The Four Basic Occasions to Use a Comma.

1) To separate items in a series. This one I think we’re all familiar with:

I had pancakes, eggs, bacon, and toast for breakfast this morning.

OR I had pancakes, eggs, bacon and toast for breakfast this morning.

(Note: That comma before the “and” is called the Oxford Comma, and it is optional. I almost always use it because there are times when it is necessary for clarity, so I just make it a habit.)

2) To set off introductory elements in a sentence. This could be a word, a phrase, or a whole clause – anything that comes before the main independent clause of a sentence:

Today, I had pancakes for breakfast.

On Friday, I had pancakes for breakfast.

Whenever I visit my grandma, I have pancakes for breakfast.

If I have time to make them and have all the ingredients on hand, I have pancakes for breakfast.

Susan, I had pancakes for breakfast.

Yes, I had pancakes for breakfast.

You know, I had pancakes for breakfast.

(Note: it is sometimes okay to leave the comma out when the introductory element is only a word, like in my first example. But again, because it often is necessary to have a comma to be clear, I make it a habit to always use one, and I teach my students that, also.)

3) To set off interruptive elements in a sentence. This is anything that interrupts the main clause of the sentence – it could be a word, a phrase, or a clause. The important thing is that it is not necessary to the idea in the main clause; it is “parenthetical” material.

I had pancakes, the food of the gods, for breakfast.

I had pancakes, of course, for breakfast.

I, my dear, had pancakes for breakfast.

I had pancakes, which often give me heartburn, for breakfast.

I had pancakes that my mother made for breakfast. (NOTE: “That my mother made” is NOT set off by commas because it is not parenthetical; it is a necessary idea in the main clause. Sometimes you have to make a judgment call on that, but usually, if you try to put the phrase in parentheses, it becomes clear if it is parenthetical or not.)

I had pancakes for breakfast, the most important meal of the day. (NOTE: “The most important meal of the day” is not actually interrupting the main clause – it’s at the end. But it’s still an “interruptive element”; it’s just placed at the end instead of at the beginning or middle. So it still needs to be set off with commas, although the second comma becomes a period since it’s at the end of the sentence. See more examples to follow.)

I had pancakes for breakfast, Susan.

I had pancakes for breakfast, of course.

4) To join two independent clauses with a coordinating conjunction. This is the biggest bugaboo for commas, I think. I actually explained this in great detail in an earlier post (here), so I won’t elaborate too much. The important points are that each clause must be independent (a sentence that would stand on its own and make sense) and the conjunction you use must be a coordinating conjunction (use the acronym FANBOYS to remember the coordinating conjunctions: For, And, Nor, But, Or, Yet, So).

I had pancakes for breakfast, and I had waffles for lunch. (CORRECT)

I had pancakes for breakfast, and waffles for lunch. (INCORRECT – “waffles for lunch” is not a sentence that would stand on its own. Take out the comma.)

I had pancakes for breakfast, however I had waffles for lunch. (INCORRECT – “however” is not a coordinating conjunction. It is a conjunctive adverb. Remember FANBOYS.)

I had pancakes for breakfast, I had waffles for lunch. (INCORRECT – this is a comma splice. You can’t join two independent clauses with just a comma. Either change it to a semicolon, or add a coordinating conjunction.)

NOW, there are two caveats here. One, there are occasional, rare situations where a comma would not normally be grammatically correct, but where a sentence is unclear without it.

What the crew does, does affect our voyage.

If it looks like a bizarre mess without a comma, add one for clarity; however, your better choice is to reword the sentence entirely. (Our voyage is affected by what the crew does.)

Two, if you are a good reader, and especially if you read stuff by older authors or by more “poetical” authors, you will see these rules violated all the time. I know I always have to get a grip on myself when I read C.S. Lewis because he uses older punctuation rules, and it unnerves me for a moment. Punctuation rules are conventions, and they change over time.

So, there you are. Go, and punctuate likewise. J

I Need a 12-Step Grammar Program

I didn't start it. A woman named Charlene did. 

She asked the question on the San Antonio Homeschoolers Facebook page: "In the sentence: My current favorite book is about baby animals. Is current an adjective or adverb. The book says adjective, but doesn't it modify favorite, an adjective, making it an adverb?"

All these people commented on her page that "current" was an adjective modifying book.  One of them even went into a mini-lecture about how it couldn't be an adverb, because adverbs tell us how, where, or when, which "current" clearly doesn't tell us.

And I couldn't stay silent. Because they were all so WRONG.

The word "current" in that sentence is giving us more information about when that book is her favorite, not about when that book is her book. It is modifying -- giving us more information about -- the word "favorite". And the how/where/when business is accurate when the adverb is modifying a verb; when it is modifying an adjective, it is often telling us "to what extent".

And so, I politely explained all this, with a gentle introduction to myself as an English teacher to try to give my words a little more weight in the conversation. I also softened the blow with a remark that this is an unusual construction and English is a pretty crazy language.

But in this sentence, "current" is most definitely an adverb.

Charlene thanked me. And then four or five more people commented on the thread, insisting that it was an adjective modifying book.

Seriously, people????

One tried to explain: "My current favorite book, remove favorite, the sentence still works ..... My current book, and also you can write the sentence as, 'My favorite current book' and it makes sense......which you couldn't do if it was an adverb."

I started to fume inwardly. (For real -- what's wrong with me?) I asked my daughters which word "current" is modifying in that sentence, and even they got it right. I tried to explain -- again, gently -- that although the phrase makes sense with the words switched, the two phrases do not mean the same thing. "One says, 'Of all of my books that I am reading at the moment, this one is my favorite.' The other says, 'Of all of my books, this one is my favorite at the moment.' The words are interchangeable, but the meaning changes when you change the words. That's because the first word is modifying the second in each case."

After a few more exchanges with Charlene about "light blue" (light is obviously modifying blue, but it can't be an adverb, she said -- YES, IT CAN!!), I decided that I'm a pretty sick person to obsess this much about labeling language. I bid them all good night and tried to get it all out of my head and go to sleep.

But friends, "current" is most definitely an adverb in that sentence. Definitely. Harrumph.

Be Ye Transformed

Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Rom 12:2

Sometimes I have to write to think. And sometimes that writing/thinking is a bit rambly. Allow me to ramble a bit on those two words . . . “conform” and “transform”.

“Form” means to shape, and the “con-” prefix means together. “Conform” means to become similar in form or shape to something – to become like something else. We conform when we change how we look or act in order to fit in with the group. Conforming is an external process.

In “transform”, however, the “trans-” prefix means across . . . like being here and then being there . . . being this and then being that. Transforming means changing in composition or structure. Transformation is internal.

One is changing how you look from the outside; the other is changing who you are on the inside. Notice also that “conform” is an active verb and “transform” is passive. Conforming is something that we do to ourselves, while transforming is something that is done to us.

Vocabulary and grammar are good things. They can shed light on our spiritual walk.

Let's say Jimmy has always been a good person, and he knows he's not supposed to lie. So, he tries to tell the truth most of the time. Sometimes it's painful – so painful that he doesn't succeed as often as he probably should. But nobody knows that, so it doesn't bother him much. He looks the part of an honest man; he has successfully conformed to the image of what society expects of him.

But then the day comes when Jimmy becomes a follower of Christ. Now when he lies (which still happens once in a while) he is genuinely grieved in his spirit – not because he's afraid he's going to go to hell, but because he has come to value truth, just for itself. He gets better at being honest and genuine all the time, and it's important to him in a way that it never was before. Not only that, it satisfies his soul in a way it never did before. He is becoming more like Christ. He is being transformed, from the inside.

The goal here is transformation, not conformity. (In fact, if you find yourself looking and acting too much like everyone in your church around you, you might want to check and be sure that you're not just wearing a mask to fit in. Real transformation by God will never result in cookie cutter Christians. Our God is a God of variety.)

All this to say: if I find that I'm am upset by the prohibition of a sin in my life, I am merely conforming. If I find that I am upset by the presence of a sin in my life, I am being transformed.

And, again, the goal here is transformation.

Thanks for the ramble.

Getting Your Commas Right

In the course of editing the writing of several friends in the last couple years (and just reading random stuff on the internet), I have found a certain punctuation error that seems to be quite common.  And the English teacher in me, having a platform for instruction here, thought some of you might be interested in a short lesson.  (Because I have intelligent readers who care about such things.  Yes?)

So, here we go.  Suppose you want to combine the following two sentences:

He lay in bed all morning.
She read the newspaper to him.

Notice the comma that is necessary:

He lay in bed all morning and she read the newspaper to him. [WRONG]
He lay in bed all morning, and she read the newspaper to him.

When you are combining two stand-alone sentences (two independent clauses, each of which has its own subject - verb relationship), you need a comma before the "and" (or "but", "or", "so" . . . whichever conjunction you use).

Interestingly enough, the reverse error is also common.  Consider the combination of the following two sentences:

He lay in bed all morning.
He read the newspaper.

He lay in bed all morning, and he read the newspaper.

Most people would rightfully note that the second "he" is redundant and want to take it out to make it sound less awkward.  But note the punctuation change that must happen:

He lay in bed all morning, and read the newspaper. [WRONG]
He lay in bed all morning and read the newspaper.

Once you take out the second "he", you no longer have two independent clauses; you have one clause -- one subject with two verbs.  In this case, a comma is incorrect.  Usually, a writer will catch this in a simple sentence like the one above.  The error will happen when the sentence gets more complicated.

He lay all morning in his king-sized bed his parents had given him for a wedding gift twenty years earlier, and read the newspaper with his morning cup of joe. [WRONG]

So, here's the rule.  When combining two independent clauses (stand-alone sentences) with a coordinating conjunction (and, but, or, nor, so), you need a comma before the conjunction.  When you have one independent clause -- one subject with two verbs -- you do not need a comma before the conjunction. 

Clear as mud?  I thought so.  ;)  I hope you were taking notes; there will be a short quiz next period . . .