Ch. 3 and 4 Response Blogs

Chapter three, “Dora Learns to Write and in the Process Encounters Punctuation,” is an article that explores the process of children learning punctuation. The author, Pat Cordeiro, begins the article with a fictional (but typical) story of a child named Dora, who is learning to write and to use periods in her writing. This story shows the process children usually go through while learning to use periods, and then commas, as they become more advanced writers. The article continues to explain how difficult it is to learn “correct” punctuation, if there even is such a thing.

While reading this article, I had to remind myself that Dora was not a real first-grader and that her teacher did not exist. Mostly, it was because I was so impressed with the teacher portrayed in this story that I hoped this astounding educator was out there somewhere helping young children read and write! I thought it was wonderful how the teacher managed to make learning such a problem solving experience for Dora. The teacher could have told her how to punctuate sentences to make them correct, but instead gave her enough information to begin working out the problem on her own. This is such a better way for her to learn than to have to teacher simply mark up the errors in her story and return it to her. It seems that by learning to punctuate as a process rather than a cut-and-dry school subject, Dora will internalize the information and make better use of it.

One thing Cordeiro mentioned that I found interesting was the idea of how punctuation and grammar vary depending on the style of writing and the maturity/experience of the writer. This is something I hit head on during high school. I was a Running Start student, so instead of taking junior and senior English classes I took English 101 and 201. I had the same professor for both of these courses and he introduced me to an idea I had never been told in high school: some writing rules are meant to be broken. This meant that it was no longer off limits to begin sentences with “because” or “and.” This also meant that any time I used wrote papers in the high school classes I was still taking, the teachers were not as happy as I was at my new found grammatical rebelliousness. Whether it was right or wrong, I had it in my head that everything I learned in college was twice as meaningful as I learned in high school and so I continued to write how I wanted, convinced that I was developing my personal style.

In chapter four, “Teaching Writing and Grammar in Context,” Scott Peterson argues against the traditional ways of teaching grammar and replacing textbook lessons with writing assignments that give the students the opportunity to compose. Writing, Peterson believes, is the best way for students to utilize and begin to understand grammar and writing skills. He offers many examples of useful lessons for the classroom that explain his concept.

At first I was confused by Peterson’s claim that the best way to teach grammar is through writing and then his statement that teachers do still need to teach grammar, just not by using textbooks. However, after reading further, I think I understand. Peterson is not arguing against grammar lessons, it just seems that he is arguing against boring, workbook assignments. Although he went into a great deal of discussion about the writing assignments he gives his students, his articles lacked examples of the types of grammar lessons he would find acceptable. I felt his activities were very creative and gave students the opportunity to fine-tune the grammar skills that are already developing, but did not show us how to teach the fundamentals, such as punctuation as is chapter three. The only activity Peterson gives that comes close are the ones that help students use the different parts of speech and help them expand their sentences. To me, these seem somewhat easier to teach in the context of writing than the “mechanics” that he lists but does not give examples of.

Concerning Peterson’s sample activities, I was also concerned that he does not give any suggestions as to what grades these would be appropriate for. Reading them, I had to estimate that they were sixth or seventh graders at the oldest. I remember writing a color poem like the one he described in the eighth grade, but I cannot believe that these would be a good fit for children older than middle schoolers. Peterson was probably writing for the grades in which he taught and had the most experience, but this article would have been more useful to me had it given examples of activities for every age range.