Compound Phrases: Is that One Word or Two?

Having majored in English Literature as an undergrad, naturally I love engaging in conversations about literature and language. Aside from being a fabulous way to connect with people, I am constantly learning of books, authors, and points of view I wouldn't have otherwise.  Most people, however, aren't equally as excited to discuss grammar or elements of style, arguably the less interesting aspects of language.  I, too, was loath to discuss these necessary yet often subjective aspects of language.

As people who grew up with English, we tend to rely on our intuitive sense of the language to write or edit--after all, style is subjective.  However, there are times when that workaround is not good enough, or other times when we just want to settle a debate with a fellow lover of language.  Thus, I have decided to start blogging on the topic of editorial style as a way to strengthen my own editing skills while providing an accessible forum wherein aspects of editorial/writing style may be discussed.  So where do I start? Yesterday a former student, who's currently writing her personal statements to meet imminent application deadlines, asked me if there is an easy way to remember when to hyphenate words.  "When do I hyphenate a phrase like "time intensive" or "problem solving"? Thus, inspired by my student's question, my first Editorial Style blog entry is on compound phrases.


It helps to keep in mind the 3 basic categories of compounds:
Open, hyphenated and solid (or closed)

• Open:  A compound written in two words (e.g., high school, common sense)
• Hyphenated:  A Compound phrase linked by a hyphen (e.g., self-confidence, ego-driven)
• Solid:   Compounds written as one word (e.g., schoolteacher, headache)

Although the structure of some compounds is fixed, the treatment of others depends on their grammatical function.  For example, a compound such as time consuming, is hyphenated when it precedes a noun, as in When I take a math exam I attempt the easier, less time-consuming problems first.  When the same compound follows a noun, however, it is open, as in The research I did in grad school was time consuming.  

Adjectival compounds that precede nouns are called attributive, while ones that follow the nouns they modify are known as predicate adjectives.

October 20 is National Day on Writing: Write without self-judgement

Today, October 20, is National Day on Writing.  You say you haven't heard of it? Join the club.  Actually, I just heard about it through a friend on Facebook.  Despite there being many other arguably more compelling events and days in honor or commemoration of people, ideas and events, I must admit that for a fleeting moment I felt I was out of the loop at having not heard about this day set aside to focus in on and promote writing and its many benefits.  This ever-present pressure to stay informed in this case is due in part to my personal identification with writing, and in general due to the usual high bar I set for myself to stay abreast of as much as possible.  Alas, I usually fall very short of my expectations.  But I'm probably not alone in putting such unreasonably high expectations on myself to stay informed.  Aside from the obvious benefits of acquiring knowledge, there is a sense of satisfaction one derives, perhaps even a guilty pleasure, from being the "first" to bring news to others.  A competitive edge honed by media professionals, the satisfaction of possessing breaking news is no longer the domain of journalist and reporters, but of bloggers, tweeters and Facebook members alike, as was evidenced by the clamor to post news of Steve Jobs' succumbing to his long battle with pancreatic cancer.  


So now that you know that today is National Writing Day, are you going to blog, journal or write a letter to the editor of some magazine? By the way, I also learned that "National Writing Day's" inception was just last year. And though it really is an inconsequential day in the grand scheme of things, I felt compelled to write about it given the increasingly important role of writing in an information-driven age, in which I am just as interested in being first as the next person.  I like to lightheartedly associate my desire to be first with being an Aries, a pioneer in astrological terms.  So here's to us getting over our shyness of writing publicly.  It's not always easy to do, but it feels great to write without self-judgement.  Happy writing!

Living in the Information Age: You are What you are Fed

I recently watched the documentary "Forks over Knives".  I highly recommend it! It will likely change the way you eat, if not the way you think.  That eating fruits and veggies is good for us is not news.  However, the research and subsequent findings that underpin the central argument of this film—that eating an exclusively plant-based diet may not only help prevent illness but also reverse degenerative diseases like diabetes, hypertension, heart disease, arthritis, and cancer—reveal that even diets comprised of roughly 20% meat, dairy and processed foods may lead to debilitating diseases by the time one reaches middle age.

But the documentary invites us to reevaluate more than just our diets.  Nudging us, much in the way that Michael Moore's documentaries do, "Forks over Knives" compels us to consider the consequences of not questioning the status quo.  While pondering the social and political implications of such a documentary, I was once again reminded of the extent to which information is either withheld or promulgated in the interest of profit.  But who decides what information reaches the public? And how can we know definitively whether those who control the flow of information, beyond the ubiquitous motive of profit, are not themselves misinformed to some degree? 


"Forks over Knives" movie trailer
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O7ijukNzlUg  

"Sunday Readers"

         I am reading two books that I am finding to be very helpful as I begin my video taping and thinking about short-term and long-term goals for my accelerated reading class of emerging readers. Some of these kids, many of whom confessed that they hated reading on a questionnaire given on the first day of school, are now telling me during our one-on-one conferences that they spend most of their weekends reading for pleasure! Yes! I am happy to report that they are now "Sunday Readers," which by the way is the title of the charming sepia tone photograph that my friend sent me.

Learning from PACT

Think about the teaching strengths and weaknesses that you would like to highlight or receive feedback on for your PACT videotaped lesson. How could you capture those aspects of your teaching on video in a meaningful way that would demonstrate your teaching philosophy for your portfolio?

My next unit, which I will start teaching on Monday April 27th, 2009, will be focusing on the book Bronx Masquerade by Nikki Grimes. This work of fiction gives voice to archetypal urban adolescents who are coming of age and grappling toward a sense of identity, each in his or her own way. Through her characterizations Grimes brings to life a classroom of students whose preconceptions, misconceptions, stereotypes or internalized myths are shattered as each of these archetypal teenagers reads his or her poems revealing their pain, scars, innermost fears, hopes, goals and family issues.

Since Bronx Masquerade's overarching theme is identity and self-perception versus the perception (internalized gaze) of others, and since Grimes sheds light on these challenges that adolescents face through poetry, I will be teaching and scaffolding the major components of poetry, focusing on symbol and theme. Thus in terms of strengths and weaknesses (or areas where I have a greater learning curve) I would like to focus and receive feedback on how well I scaffold instruction of poetry. I will be asking my students to identify symbol and theme in poems written by well known authors as well as their peers so as to model for them how to write their own poems. The poems they will be asked to write will be thematically (identity and challenging misconceptions and stereotypes) inspired by the poems written by the fictional high school students in Bronx Masquerade, and will also incorporate symbolism.

One of the strengths that I would like to highlight is my ability to prepare and ask questions that will engage the students and encourage critical thinking and analysis or unpacking of poetry and literary texts. I hope this strength will come across on the video when I work with my students as they are working in groups to analyze poetry with a focus on identifying symbol and theme.

An area where I anticipate will present a challenge for me might be classroom/behavior management. My students are generally very vivacious and lively. They are at times verbally impulsive and disrespectful toward me as well as their peers. Although I have made strides and improved tremendously in the area of classroom/behavior management, it remains extremely challenging to keep many of my students focused and on task.

Using Multimedia in the Classroom

The entry that follows is in response to the below prompt:

How might you apply the ideas summarized by Karppinen when using videos in your teaching? Describe (or provide a link to) an example of a videoclip that you might incorporate into a lesson, or a video-production project that you might ask your students to complete, and explain how you would use this videoclip/project to achieve a particular learning objective.

The article, Karppinen, P. (2005). Meaningful learning with digital and online videos: Theoretical perspectives. AACE Journal, 13(3), 233-250 focused on using multimedia as a teaching tool. The article emphasized the point that these multimedia technologies give students multiple entry points into a curriculum and ultimately appeal to differing learning styles among students. My experience with using multimedia in planning curriculum has been at times frustrating as there was a learning curve, but the results in general were almost always very rewarding and served their purpose in the sense that using multimedia not only gave students with differing learning styles multiple entry points into a text, but the students found it to be engaging and enhanced their experience with the text when it was used as a supplement to more traditional forms of instruction, such as quick-writes, classroom discussions or group work.

I also found that clips were most effective and powerful as compared to showing a whole movie. Instead of showing a feature length film showing only clips which were the most relevant to the text helped the students stay more focused. I also found that students were much more focused on the clips I presented in class when I required the students to answer questions related to the clip while watching or right after watching the clip. These questions also asked students to connect the clip to the text and encouraged them to think critically about the text in some way.

Now that I have worked with Ethan on our Multimedia and Teaching project (presented on Thursday April 16th, 2009) where we used http://www.googlelittrips.org/ to create engaging multimedia literary journey to Verona, Italy, the home of Romeo and Juliet. I am looking forward to creating lesson plans with the objective of engaging students in a study of literary settings (landscape, geography, architecture) and particular historical events relevant to the text we will be reading. I am especially interested in using Google Lit Trips as a multimedia tool in my classroom as it will invite students to think critically about the significance between setting and historical events by allowing me (or students) to incorporate quotes and questions, pictures, video clips, links to other sites relevant to the text. And in the process of achieving this objective of encouraging students to think critically about literary settings and historical events, the students and I will have become more technologically savvy by using this multimedia too.

goodreads.com

I recently joined an online community called goodreads.com, where you can post books (and reviews, recommendations to friends, students or colleagues) you are currently reading or have already read.

As soon as you sign up goodreads.com prompts you to invite friends it searches your address book in your email. It then lets you know all the people you know who are already members of the online community and then recommends friends, students or colleagues you might want to invite to join the online community of readers.

Once you have connected with goodreads.com you will be alerted through your email whenever one of your friends has posted a review or recommendation of a book.

goodreads.com is an especially relevant online community for me to have joined this semester as I am student teaching in an Accelerated Reading class, where our goal is to motivate and encourage students to become avid readers. In doing so, we are confident that our students will raise their reading comprehension and fluency levels.