teaching writing
What does “have” mean?
Tweet What does have mean? Consider these sentences: I have seen him I had a baby last week I have the flu I have the answer I have a husband Have fun In the first sentence, “I have seen him,” have is purely grammatical and has no independent meaning (see previous post, Concrete and Grammatical […]
Nouns Verbs and Modifiers
Tweet Nouns, verbs, and modifiers are at the heart of sentence creation. The previous post suggested exercises in which students formed three-word sentences, but without a Direct Object, such as Mary yawned loudly, The cat sat quietly, John ran away, and further suggested that the students change the adverbs (loudly, quietly, and away) to prepositional phrases. […]
Verbs Nouns and Modifiers
Tweet The heart of language is verbs, nouns, and modifiers. I gave a simple verb exercise last time, in which students wrote a three-element sentence, Subject/Verb/Object; for example, John plays basketball. If you are teaching a formal linguistics class, there are many terms and concepts that would be introduced at this point, but for purposes […]
Nouns, Verbs, Modifiers
Tweet The vast majority of language is made up of nouns, verbs, and modifiers. The use of each has its peculiarities, and every language handles them differently. Nouns are or are not accompanied by articles, there is no universal set of verb tenses, and modifiers are usually placed flexibly. I write “usually” because I don’t […]
Testing your voice
Tweet In writing and speaking, “voice” means your instantly identifiable style. It is a combination of word choice, philosophy, level of formality, and other factors, such as local or age-appropriate slang. The following exercise challenges students to use someone else’s voice, which will illuminate their own voice for them, I hope. Exercise: Each student must […]
What does “objective” mean?
Tweet The blog “The Cranky Linguist” has a longer article giving Ron Kephart’s take on the word “objective” as applied to anthopology, a very interesting read. According to your own understanding and experience, which definition do you think is the best one? 1. From the Postmodern Dictionary (http://www.postmodernpsychology.com/ Postmodernism_Dictionary.html): Being objective means to have no bias […]
Is proofreading important?
Tweet Spellcheck is only human, after all. It can’t catch everything. Here are some errors that Spellcheck will not catch, and, by the way, one more reason why writers should read their work aloud. You are all welcome at the Christmas concert. The choir is not rehearsing. (instead of now rehearsing) Pubic relations director instead […]
Dictionary exercise
Tweet The Justices of the U.S. Supreme Court are relying on dictionaries to define the terms in their legal opinions. Read about it here. A good exercise would be to give students the definitions of three words the Justices have looked up recently, and ask them to compare the definitions. The exercise would be best […]
A challenge – can you use anything but the singular “they.”
Tweet Excuse me for writing about sex, but I think I have found a sentence in which the singular they is necessary. A good friend has written several popular books on senior sex, and on her blog she attached the answer a newspaper advisor gave to a reader whose wife had Alzheimer’s Disease and no […]
Standard Language
Tweet One purpose of standard language is the creation of a level playing field. It is the place where people get together who speak in vernaculars, with accents, and in specialized language. An author from India may have won a prestigious prize, and sold millions of books, but if she speaks English the way she […]