Memorandum Review

Writing the memorandum was really very daunting at first because first we had to read those articles that were very informative and had lots of ideas in them. My section of articles alone were enough to write the memo with, but then taking into account the other articles read by my peers was a lot more information for me to pile into my memo. My first draft was very rough and just a little synopsis of my main recommendations and the basic format. My peers who read it realized my draft was already long because I had way too many recommendations and hadn't even really said anything specific yet. For my final draft I went through and condensed my thoughts and ideas into broader categories and then expanded on those. It still ended up being really long, but after all the time and effort I spent reading and finding great quotes as well as integrating my own opinion, I think the memo went well. I know I'll never have to actually write a memo for a principal, but just the practice could be useful for other jobs that I might get in the future.

Correctness

So after looking through the Rules of Thumb book, I realized that English is ridiculously convoluted. I guess I take for granted that over the years I've somehow, if by osmosis, learned all these strange, intricate rules of the English language and grammar. It's the antithesis of cut and dry. Flipping through those pages I realized that I really already knew most of those rules and things, but I'm still fuzzy on some rules: is it who or whom? My mom and her mom are the people I know who have the strongest grasp on the English language and grammar and apparently it was passed down. Only a couple times have I ever caught my mom make a grammatical error or not know how to spell a word. My maternal grandmother used to give us little aphorisms and adages to complete like "Waste not,........" "or Power corrupts and absolute power......" We were encouraged to read often and my mom never simplified her language for us, so we often learned through context. What was very important was (were??? I don't know all of the rules.) that we had good grammar. All daily speech,homework assignments, and letters written had to be perfectly spelled and punctuated, and if it was to Grandma, formal. I don't remember learning any of these rules in school but they were enforced at home and my mom still corrects any of us if we say "I" instead of "me" or if we put ourselves first in a list, or say "myself" instead of "me". In classrooms today though, and just in general, I don't think these rules of spelling and grammar are as valued as they used to be, or maybe it's just my family. My dad and my sister in law are two of the smartest people I know and they often use incorrect grammar and spell things wrong. My mom even proofread my dad's papers when he went back to college for him. Most of my teachers don't value grammar either. I often catch my teachers misspelling or incorrectly pronouncing words or using incorrect listing. I catch them saying "supposeably" instead of "supposedly". It errks me. I know no on is perfect, but I've always been taught that the way you present yourself is important so if I'm writing a cover letter for my resume, correct grammar is essential. I judge my own brothers who write "your" instead of "you're." Revising is really a great thing, though. In one of the inquiry readings it talked about this girl who wrote well and fluently but with horrible grammar. When she was asked to be more careful with her grammar she completely lost her sense of paragraphs and focus, so this is where I feel that editing is wonderful and you don't have to be perfect on the first try. English is tricky, for sure, but for basic daily correspondence there are some spelling, context, and grammatical rules that are absolutely essential.

Taaching Writing Readings

Reading these three articles so far has been very interesting. I think they have some really great points and ideas in them. The first one that was such a huge long research written paper was too long and it had some good ideas and thoughts, but the other two I've liked more. Being written by teachers, I think they have a much different point of view and I especially appreciated the third article. If I were going to teach I would definitely take a lot of her ideas into account. I love the idea of the quick writes with the prompts and having students do them daily which makes them think and produce something in a short period of time. Then having them share them with one another is sucha a wonderful idea. The second article was good because the teacher was a coauthor with her students. They helped her write and she reciprocated, bt also had the students help one another. It just really shows that other people can be really helpful if you need a little nudge or you hit a wall with your writing. I have enjoyed learning what my fellow groupmembers have been reading as well. They've had some similarly interesting articles and reading their annotated bibliographies has been a great way to share the knowledge and get new ideas. I think that writing this memorandum will be daunting and knowing that I'll never have to actually do this in the future makes it feel less relevent to me.