To Lay or to Lie

Lay and Lie are two verbs that are usually used incorrectly by most people because they don't know the actual meaning of each of them. Lay means to put something down. Lie means to rest or recline. Now you know the difference betwen lay and lie. For some examples click HERE.

The Colon:

The colon is not a very tricky grammar rule, but I thought that I would clarify it for my sake and maybe yours. A colon should only be used after a COMPLETE sentence, and it should be used to introduce a list. Although the colon is a common punctuation, it is not accepted in all publications. For more help and examples click HERE.

Does She Really Know What She is Talking About?

While I was reading Tannen’s essay, I developed a bias right off the bat. From the very first paragraph I read, I knew exactly what she was going to be talking about and I didn’t agree with her. I think that debate is a wonderful thing. Tannen argues that debate in schools is not always healthy because “Students at these institutions were trained not to discover the truth but to argue either side of an argument.” What is wrong with that, I think this is a perfect reason to debate for many reasons. First of all, usually the things that people debate about in school are not black and white. They are not facts but merely topics to get kids to think. So when he brings up the point that these kids are not looking for the truth, he’s right but there’s nothing wrong with it. Most things in life are not truth, but opinions. If you never give kids the chance to explore these different ideas that they get from other students through debate then our country as we know it would cease to exist. The thing that makes America so great is that everyone is allowed to have their own opinions and formulate their own beliefs. Another reason why debate in schools is so good is that it teaches kids how to argue appropriately. It allows students to argue a point of view while under the guidance and direction of a teacher. If they get out of line the teacher will correct them. It also helps kids because they are always going to be challenged on their beliefs and thoughts, and if no one ever taught them to argue with evidence to support their thoughts then no one will ever take them seriously.
Back to what the author was talking about. The author talks about how even in ancient times the Greek favored the style of debate, whereas the Chinese rejected the art of argumentation. Tannen says that “throughout our educational system, the most pervasive inheritance is the conviction that issues have two sides, that knowledge is best gained through debate.” His example of this is many Ph.D. programs that require a public defense of their own dissertation. He says that their ideas are presented orally so that the audience can pick it apart and tell them what is wrong with it. My opinion is that this is a great way to tell if someone really knows what they’re talking about.
One of Tannen’s problems with debate in the classroom is that women tend not to speak up. Her solution for this was to begin class with open questions and letting comments go unchallenged. In theory this sounds good, but people need to be challenged or else they will never really know what they believe. Another thing that is wrong with this, is to what degree did this actually work? Did it get every girl in the class to speak up and say something or maybe did one girl that already comments regularly throw in a few extra comments? I just don’t think this is a very good argument for Tannen.

I Just Wanna be Average

This story definitely gives the reader a lot of feelings of pathos. Rose was a kid that got put into the wrong category because his school tried to label kids with tests. The kids that were in the vocational school with him felt it was much easier to just be average because of the situation they were in and the teachers that they had. It was much simpler to be like everyone else and just go through school without learning anything than actually trying. The author even speaks about when he was in a class a student by the name of Ken Harvey said something that has stuck with him even to this day. The class was talking about the parable of the talents and when the teacher called on Ken Harvey he actually said, “I just wanna be average.” That phrase right there made such an impact of Rose that he wrote a story on it. Rose has a lot of strong feelings toward what the vocational tract does to students. He backs up those feelings with phrases like, “The tragedy is that you have to twist the knife in your own gray matter to make this defense work.” He means that kids have to act more stupid than they really are just to “flaunt their ignorance” or live up to the labels that they have been given by their school. Clearly, after reading this essay, you get a sense of ethos. That this guy really does know what he is talking about because he got past the labels that his school had given him and he overcame them and made something of himself.

Against Schools

When reading John Taylor Gatto’s “Against schools”, I found a lot of rhetoric. The passage begins with pathos. He gets his readers to feel for the children and teachers in school that are bored by making them remember their own feelings of boredom. There is also a sense of fallacy to an authority in the context that this guy was New York City Teacher of the year and New York State Teacher of the year so he obviously knows what he is talking about when he says that there is a problem with the school system. As a reader you want to just automatically believe him for obvious reasons without actually thinking about it for yourself. He also makes a comment which leads me to believe that he does not think very highly of George W. Bush. He says, “Is it possible that George W. Bush accidentally spoke the truth when he said we would "leave no child behind"?” He makes fun of the fact that George Bush hardly ever says anything right and if he does it is by accident. He is mocking the President (Former President, but when this was written he still was in office). Another thing that the author does is use big words. I think that he feels that the use of big words kind of comes with the territory. Since he is a teacher, he should know big words, and therefore since he knows them he should use them. He uses words such as jettison, resilience, autonomy, banal, satirist, paean, propaedeutic, and several others of which all of them I had to look up. And in the end of this passage he tells readers that in order to make their children really great, they must teach their own children several skills that are not taught to them in schools.

That vs. Which

That and which refer to groups or things. When deciding whether to use that or which you must consider the following question. Is thephrase that you are introducing essential or not? If the phrase is essential then you will use that, and if the phrase is not essential then you use which. For more help and some examples click HERE.

Idiot Nation or Idiot Author?

When I first began reading Idiot Nation I was interested, but by the time I got to the end of it I was almost appalled and offended. I understand that there is a serious problem with our public schools, and I understand that yeah, there are a lot of dumb people in our nation. What I didn’t understand was his tone. He came across as a very prideful, arrogant, and rude person. His demeanor was very off.
He talks about how schools make deals with companies and alludes to the fact that it is wrong. One specific example was when he said that ZapMe! Corporation gave a school a computer lab and access to pre-selected websites in exchange for browsing habits of the students. He acts like this is wrong, but its either the children of the school go without computers or they get them for a small price of advertising advances. I don’t see how having the computers and helping the advertising company out is any worse or even close to being the same as the school not having any computers.
The author seems flawed in a lot of his thinking. He had a bad experience in school and now he is encouraging kids to act out in theirs. He is not just telling them to stand up for what they believe in, but he is telling them to downright defy their authorities. His method of making his point is completely wrong.

Non-Essential Phrases

Use commas to separate phrases that are not essential to the sentence's meaning. Sometimes though I have a problem knowing what is essential to the sentence's meaning and what is not. For examples click HERE.