Dawkin's and Bryson's Responses & Project #1

Dawkins: 

Before you read:

Original sentence: 1. My sister’s treehouse made a great place to play with her friends. 2. The treehouse was made out of wood scraps and cardboard.

Rewritten:

1.       My sister’s treehouse, a great place for her to play with her friends.

2.       A great place for my sister to play with her to play with her friends, is her treehouse.

3.       My sister and her friends, think her treehouse is a great place for them to play.

4.       The treehouse, made of wood scraps and cardboard.

5.       Made of wood scraps and cardboard, is what the treehouse was made out of.

6.       Cardboard and wood scraps, made up the treehouse.

Ø  I used commas to break up the sentence so that no matter how you arrange the words, it still makes sense and you know what the treehouse is made out of and that my sister and her friends play there.

Summary:

In Dawkin’s article “Teaching Punctuation as a Rhetorical Tool”, he discusses all the proper ways to use punctuation. He explains how the sentence can be broken down into independent and dependent clauses. He discusses the hierarchy of functional punctuation marks with a top, middle, and bottom level of usage. He discusses raising and lowering the level of punctuation to properly fit the writing. And he also discusses how properly choosing the correct form of punctuation can alter your writing into saying something different than you write. The punctuation tools depict your tone more than your words.

Synthesis:

Dawkin’s makes good use of how punctuation can alter your writing based on how you use a comma or a semi colon. This reminds me of Elbow’s article on voice. He states that voice is how the argument is heard. Dawkin’s talks about how using punctuation properly uses tone in an argument. This could also tie into Klein’s article about students not using their own thoughts and ideas, therefore their papers do not have their tone, or their punctuation to make their words heard.

Dialectical notebook:

Response	Quote
I like how this quote states that there isn’t a handbook. But I really think that there should be, with more practical examples, like breaking down an English essay, or a writing prompt that more students can relate to, not just random sentences about Johnny and Paige going to the park.	There weren’t any handbook rules to tell Annie Dillard to use a semicolon rather than a period or a dash or a colon… page 141
I also liked this quote because it shows that some of the things we are taught about punctuation is wrong, and as students we still use the wrong ways. If the education system would improve its teaching of grammar and punctuation this would not be a problem in our schools.	Such instruction is negative in that it tells students what not to do and how not to do it… Page 141
Knowing the parts of a sentence is important when inserting punctuation. Certain phrases and key points need to be marked and segregated from the sentence. It also helps with writing being more directive and influential.	To understand the principles, however, one grammatical element must be recognized- the independent clause. Page 142
I have a fear of trying to use a higher mark in punctuation for fear that it will be wrong.  I stick to commas and the occasional semi colon for when I know that they belong in the sentence.	Pressure to use a higher mark in the hierarchy I call raising. Page 145

Questions for Discussion:

5.) That you can raise and lower your level of punctuation in writing. I did not know that there are ways to change the level of writing by using punctuation differently. I thought that the rules applied to semi colons where semi colons belong, commas where commas belong, and dashes where dashes go. I did not know that by added them somewhere else could change the way the reader would comprehend your text.

Meta Moment:

By reading this article I learned that punctuation is not as complex as I was lead to believe but rather, using it properly can aid me in my writing and getting my point across. I also learned that by using punctuation properly my argument is able to be interpreted properly.

Thoughts:

I think that this article can help me when writing my paper, but I found it to be boring and dull. I did like all the examples he added to the text. It helped further elaborate his point. I also learned a lot about how using punctuation helps the writer present and state his argument and helps the reader comprehend better.  I plan to use some of his concepts and points in my paper on punctuation and how the ideas and rules have changed it.

Bryson:

Before you read:

Summary:

Filling in later, was not posted on BB.

In Bryson's article "Good English and Bad" he talks about how throughout history grammar and word structure has changed and been a very large debate. Beginning with when the English language was being created, the "grammarians" were unhappy about the roots of our words being Latin in origin. They also did not care for certain words and their tense, as in past, present, future. When we only use three forms, there are actually five total, and in Latin there are 120 ways to use a  verb. Bryson brings attention to how the French wanted to change the spelling of some of their words in the late 1900s. If language is so opposed in how it is used, why do we have so many laws to follow, if half the time the laws are ignored or found to not be proper English? How can we know what is correct, when "grammarians" don't even know themselves?

Synthesis:

Bryson mentions on page 63, "John Adams wrote to the President of Congress appealing to him to set up an academy for the purpose of  'refining, correcting, improving and ascertaining the English language' (a title that closely echoes, not to say plagiarizes, Swift's pamphlet of sixty-eight years before)." Which reminds me of Porter’s article on “Intertextuality and Discourse Community”, where he states that if Thomas Jefferson had turned in the Declaration of Independence in as a paper to his English teacher, he’d be told he plagiarized. So why is it okay for one person to “echo” exact thoughts to promote something, but not allowed to branch off and require the same ideas and laws for a nation? This makes me think of Klein’s article when he states that students do not research but rather copy text from the book and then try to cite it later not caring if they have their own ideas. So are we calling some of the most intelligent men in the world plagiarizers, for not having their own ideas, or are we simply stating that sometimes parts of the conversation are forgotten until someone brings them back up with new evidence and information.

Dialectical Notebook:

Response	Quote
I agree with this quote because it’s true, the rules for grammar and English are so misinterpreted and students are only taught the basics that when they try to push the envelope they are told they are wrong because honestly no one knows what they are doing.	Not to put too fine a point on it, the labels are largely meaningless. Page 61
I like this quote, it states that even the creators of our language and writing, don’t even know what they are doing all of the time. It makes me feel better as a writer that I am not the only person that struggles with this.	The complexities of English are such that the authorities themselves often stumble. Page 61
I think it’s dumb that our language is based off a language that is “dead” now. Also why are we based off another language? The Greeks, Romans, and the Latin people made their rules up as they went. Why should we copy them? Wouldn’t that be a form of plagiarism?	Making English grammar conform to Latin rules is like asking people to play baseball using the rules of football. Page 62
This ties into the above quote, in that which we base more than a third of our words and phrases off of the Greek, Roman and Latin words. Why didn’t we just do it ourselves?	For the long-est time it was taken entirely for granted that the classical languages must serve as models. Page 62

Thoughts:

I enjoyed Bryson’s argument and topic. But I see a lot of issues with how we as an intelligent nation could not write our own laws for our language. I do not like how our words are rooted to other languages which are now not used. I also did not know that there are five forms of tense while we only use three, do to “proper English”. But also the men who created our language don’t even understand what they are doing. Not only that, but the way we talk and what is okay to say now has dramatically changed since when we first began making rules for English.

Project #1

I am researching more into my topic so that I have more information and lots of different views to come into on my paper. At first I wasn’t sure what direction to take with my topic, it is very broad and very important. I finally decided to take an academic and historical approach. This way I can talk about how students are not taught everything they need to know. Also I can discuss how things have changed and usage has evolved from how people used to use punctuation and how they use it now. I plan to compare and contrast the way we use it today and how they used it then. And also to attack the education system for not teaching our students the correct things, and only vaguely covering the basics so students can pass elementary English classes and standardized tests. The workshop really helped me. It helped me realize the angle I needed to take, and also how to present my argument over the entire conversation, not at the beginning so that the reader doesn’t have to technically read my whole paper. I also saw how someone with a similar topic is writing their paper and how we have different subtopics we can still work together to help the other get their point across and explain that punctuation is important in all aspects of writing.