Well, with the second blog post I've officially passed the class, but I'm planning to keep on doing the homework. It's actually pretty interesting to see how they collect content and have peer grading. I got dinged last time for writing only 300 words, but since the assignment said "write a 300 word blog post" I'm not sure I get that. Oh well.
Here's my third and final post for the class:
One of my fondest grammar memories, and yes those exist, occurred
on the first day I was in fifth grade.
My teacher drew an upside down “e” on the board and asked for a show of
hands for people who knew what it was.
I raised my hand.
Now, I’ve never been a popular kid but that pretty much
sealed the deal that I was one of the biggest nerds and possible teacher’s pets
ever in the history of the world.
You see my dad, who taught English for several years, had
just explained what that symbol meant the previous night at dinner. Less than
24 hours previous to her asking the question.
How could I not raise my hand?
For those of you who don’t know, the upside down e (and I
can’t get that symbol to work right now) is called a schwa. According to
Merriam-Webster the schwa is “a vowel that has the sound
of the first and last vowels of the English word America.
That moment saved me tons of time for the rest of
the year. She assumed I knew what was going on most of the time and so I got to
do lots of fun things in the room. She had a box of starter sentences. If you needed
to write an essay but didn’t have any ideas, you could go pull out a card and finish
the topic. I loved that. It was a great idea generator.
Someday I hope that I can write a novel or a series
of short stories. When I try to get my thoughts on paper I often catch myself
creating first sentences, just like that box, as a way to get started. Helping
my own kids get through school limits my time right now, but someday I think I’ll
get it done. But, I did manage to do one thing for my kids, just like my dad
did for me. They all knew what a schwa was on the day their English teachers
asked.