Friday, June 4, 2010
Hello my name is Jennifer and I currently work at Shady Spring Middle School and I teach 8th Grade English. I often worry about the road that students are traveling down in regard to English, because they do not seem to worry about learning English, let alone doing any type of work in relation to English. I realize that 8th Grade is a difficult year for our youth, but I struggle to point out to them the importance of English in their overall life and education. Please feel free to share your feelings and any strategies that you may have that I can use in my classroom to help work with my students with me concerning this subject. I look forward to hearing from you.
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Hi Jennifer,
ReplyDeleteI think that the informal nature of texting and other forms of modern communication has the potential to negatively influence the need for formal English grammar. I have noticed with my own daughter though, that when she started texting, her spelling and grammar actually improved because she really cared about writing correctly. I suppose it just depends on the child, but we certainly have to be positive influences and keep telling and modeling the importance of proper writing and speaking. One thing I do is find real-life examples of poor writing that reaches masses of people--such as a newsletter, advertising, articles, etc.---where someone has made errors. I let the kids find the mistakes and discuss the negative impacts of such communication. You might also role play job interviews & other important speaking situations with one person speaking properly and another not so much :)
Just a few thoughts...
Hey Jennifer,
ReplyDeleteGreat idea. I think that you should maybe share this blog site with your students. Have them post to your blog about what they think about English grammar or just school in general. It might work, it might not. No harm in trying, right?