Class Notes 8/28/13

Class Notes August 28, 2013

Grammar Rants:

• You’re, your
• There, Their, They’re
• Loose vs lose
• No punctuation or adding spacing b/w punctuation
• Y’all or ain’t
• Would of
• Except vs Accept or Effect vs. Affect
• Drop’n Stuff
• Text slang ex. IDK

 

Good vs. Bad Writing

-Good

• Flow- making some connections
• Clear & Short- to the point
• Author’s intent & purpose must be clear
• Appropriateness: according to audience and context
• Description- bring your reader into the world you’re trying to create
• Author(s) know what they’re talking about
• Reader Experience as the author intends it

-Bad

• No value
• Poor elaboration (lack of nondescript)
• Long sentence construction rather than short & choppy
• Grammar errors
• Difficult to understand
• No point, no purpose- can’t get to point
• Contradicts itself

 

Rhetoric- the purposeful use of language

 

“Baby shoes: For Sale, Never Worn”

Literacy Vignette One

Literacy Vignette 1

Free Write #2: Home Language

My home language I would classify as rather typical. We greet each other with the traditional “hello’s”, “How are you?”, and “goodbye’s”. At the dinner table, conversation is usually started by the usual “How was your day?” or “Did you learn anything at school today?”; these questions usually sputtered by my parents, or mainly my father. A thing about my home language that may be different from other people is the sarcasm and meaning behind what we say. We not only joke around with each other, but when we talk we are very sarcastic with each other. I’m not exactly sure who first started this pattern of sarcasm but it stuck well with my family. I don’t think my family have that much of an accent. We were originally from New York. My parents (who lived there the longest, obviously) do not carry a Northern accent anymore. Being in the south for so long, they have become accoustomed to the southern dialect. Though, I personally don’t think they have a heavy southern accent, but my opinion my be biased because I talk the same way that they do. Out of my five family members, I think my brother has the strongest southern accent. He was only six months old when we moved to Charlotte and he has grown up only knowing the southern, Charlottian dialect.

Elements of Literacy Reading Response

If you type the word literacy into Google, you will get probably thousands of answers to what exactly might literacy be. When I think of literacy, I think of one’s ability to read and write. I have always known that terms, in this case literacy, can have many different meanings, but after reading “Elements of Literacy”, my perspectives have been changed. The reading offers a whole lot of information on not only the meanings of literacy but the definitions as well, the perceived uses of literacy, and the ways literacy is taught that lead to different ways of thinking. I was surprised at all the meanings and history behind the definitions and perceived uses of “literacy”. It turned my attention to the fact that literacy was paralleled with topics like religion, the economy, and logic. A specific thing that grabbed my attention was the connection between literacy and moral issues. “If literacy causes human thought and civilization to ‘advance,’ then is becomes and ethical imperative to spread literacy and foster these changes” (Elements of Literacy). This way of thinking lead people to believe that people who were illiterate were misfits who were “intellectually inferior, less humane, and uncivilized”. This was sadly not that shocking to me. In today’s culture, when one is different, they are looked down on and make outcasts. In today’s world, most children attend school and are taught the basic reading and writing skills. They are also given an outrageous amount of standardized tests due to the No Child Left Behind Act. This act makes sure that schools have a high rate of success and that each and every student passes with “proficient” testing levels. This affects literacy in more ways than we can think. It also illustrates “how deeply definitions of literacy are rooted in historical, political, and cultural contingencies”. Another thing that affects literacy is culture. Different cultures use different kind of literacies, which use different writing systems. These different writing systems correspond with different languages, which are learned using different techniques. This affects the way we view people because we judge them based on our own kinds of literacies and cultures. This being said, it is not fair to judge them on what they consider the “norms”. Elements of Literacy Reading Response 1 Notes

Grammar Rant: ‘There’, ‘Their’, & ‘They’re’

One grammatical mistake that we all frequently stumble upon is the incorrect uses of ‘there’, ‘their’, and ‘they’re’. I never have fully understood why they are used so incorrectly all the time! I see it at least four times every time I go on a social media sites. I honestly feel bad for people that don’t know the difference. It makes you wonder what kind of education they have received in their lives. I don’t mean that in a mean way, sometimes people do it by mistake, but you can certainly tell who knows the correct uses and who doesn’t.