I don’t care that your commas are in the right place as long as I know your heart is.

The conversation after last class left me thinking a lot about how we perceive one another through language and the façade that we all tend to put on of grammatical perfection. We become conscious of our own insecurities with language while speaking to someone who has been deemed a “red pen maniac.” While monitoring the miniscule details of speech that don’t make a difference in the bigger picture of the conversation, we misspeak our thoughts even worse then if we just said what we had to. In class as I was trying to make a comment I even misspoke and got all flipped flopped in my thoughts as I stopped dead in the middle of a thought to correct myself, hoping maybe to regain some sense of academic credibility to the class. It’s been really interesting to read all the pet peeves that the dear abbey column brought up. What is perhaps even more interesting is hearing my classmates talk about their own pet peeves with grammar usage. I can only think, “How many times do those individual criticism probably make the same mistakes?” For me I really don’t see the use in being such a stuck up person about grammar. I would much rather pay attention to the person I am speaking to rather than the way the person speaks. How can I ever get to know someone, let alone know my students, if I am constantly correcting them and saying that the way they speak is inadequate for my “well conditioned” ears?  After reading the article as well I must say I was a bit disheartened to think that people really criticize so much others way of speaking that language can now be perceived as a sign of class. For those people I would love to see them correcting and criticizing the way my 12^th grade inner city New York class speaks to their faces.  Talk about attitude adjustment. I came across this youtube video of Taylor Mali reciting a poem about speaking. He comments on how people fear him because he is a teacher and they have a prejudged image that all English teachers will whip out a red pen and start correcting the misspoken words in the air. (If I ever become that teacher please someone tell me to retire). But, he left the poem at this, “I don’t care that your commas are in the right place as long as I know your heart is.” If some teachers truly had this mentality kids would open up and talk and write and legitimately like English more. Isn’t the true purpose of teachers to support and encourage?

Wolverines Are The Mascot For The Grammar Police

So, this picture appeared on yahoo’s front page today and it pretty much coincided completely with what we were talking about in class today regarding the “grammar police!!!!!!” The headline of the article said “grammar fail,” as if some pretentious young columnist had nothing else to write about other than the misprint on the tee. Now, for me personally, the lack of apostrophe that occurs in the word “let’s” does not hinder my understanding of the message the tee is trying to tell. “let’s go Michigan,” is what I am getting from the print and as a matter of fact, until I actually look at the picture longer, I didn’t even notice there was something wrong.

As was brought up in class today, we spoke a lot about strictness while referring to grammar usage. We also spoke about the importance of using grammar properly in the professional sector of this world. Now, I do see why the company selling this tee would be upset with whoever printed the shirt, but at the same time I feel that it’s a bit drastic to call the mistake a complete fail. I strongly believe that anyone could look at the shirt and derive meaning and although the phrase may be incorrect as far as grammar usage goes, it’s still a good print with a good message. What peeves me is the fact that yahoo took the time to put forth this article about the misprint as a headline when I feel there are much more important things to bring to the attention of the world. How about all the hurricanes or stock market prices falling or even Steve Jobs retirement? I don’t know, and maybe some would call me crazy but I feel that this improper grammar usage as a headline is ridiculous and though I see the importance of the all-powerful apostrophe, maybe I am unable to see the relevance of having said apostrophe in the building of meaning. We learn by firstly making meaning (top - bottom learning) and not by diagnosing the nuts and bolts of grammar. We learn by experiencing the world and defining things in our own internal dictionary and although there is a time and place for the MLA handbook, I would rather sit back, relax and scream, “lets go Michigan.”

Grammar Police

I am taking this course because, to state simply, I am not as proficient as I should be with grammar and grammar usage. I have never been my entire life and I hope that this class helps me change things around. Going into the field of teaching - English at that - I am aware of the importance of being proficient with the topic. Grammar to me has always been a scary thing. Up until about grade three I was always deemed an English out cast. By this I mean I was assigned into the “special” reading groups and made to read “special” books. Everyone thought that I was dumb and that I would never be able to read, until one day my mom took me to the eye doctors. Turned out I was basically blind, that is without the assistance of glasses. Long story short, I got my new pair of spectacles and haven’t stopped reading to this day. From a young age I never had the chance to learn that basic “what’s a verb” or “proper usage of a comma.” I never developed a grammatical foundation so to speak. I have of course gotten much better in understanding things like a verb and commas but I feel that I can improve even more. Today Susan asked us to think about what we wanted to get out of the course. Well, for me I want to put myself through the perhaps deemed boring, monotonous at times, activities which will allow me to build a solid foundation in using and teaching grammar properly.  This is especially important to me because I will be teaching soon and teaching grammar will come up in my classroom. I will probably never be part of the grammar police force that so many of my piers deem themselves a part of but I do understand the importance of proper grammar usage in my own life. On the same note, I will always look at my students’ ideas over improper grammar usage on assignments and in general conversation, but I want to have the tools to be able to show my students how using grammar properly can improve their writing.