Learn Your Grammar.

Guys,

Remember that one time I filled out the answer to the example question and got the answer wrong? Yeah. I'm embarrassing. It's been a long week. All sense of grammar flew out the window last night lol.

Side note: I'm doing this blog in the writing lab in Hollenbeck again. Yay focus. But I'm really hungry... And I don't think they have a vending machine on the first floor, so I'm going to try to make this quick.

Anyway. I feel like the grammar test went pretty well. Other than the example problem, I only missed like five questions. Of the questions I missed, all but two were just stupid mistakes that I would have corrected had I taken the time to read over my answers. I don't want to say this test was really easy, but it definitely was not difficult. Like Lorena, I thought that this test was taken from some form of standardized test. To be honest, I actually thought it was some form of middle school Ohio Proficiency test.

The fact that this is a test potential teachers have to take as part of the Praxis kind of scared me. I really feel that if a college student doesn't know how answer these simple grammar questions, they need to learn some things before they decide to be a teacher. Maybe we should give a test like this in English 101. I, personally, would be pissed if we talked about nitty gritty grammar things all year in 101, but if students don't know how to do this, they need help.

I realize my grammar has yet to be perfected, but I saw something on facebook yesterday that drove me crazy. There was a facebook status that ended up having 145 comments on it, all arguing about politics, media, and materialism.

When you are trying to make a point, use grammar properly! Clarity is important.
This was a comment:
"Politically you are wrong, media does not rule the world when you have country's like Russia in which citizens there have media as there number I think it's 3 or 4 source of information and most interest in. Looks are more of a younger woman's concern to. Yes people are overwhelmed with what people think of them, but so are they in different ways all over this world. Losing faith in humanity only makes you as an individual naive. We have come so far, and only can keep going. We live in America. Not a third world country."

The whole conversation continued with similar grammar usage. GROSS. College freshman should understand grammar.

On another note, our class today kind of reminded me of my Philosophical Perspectives in Education class today. We had a guest speaker in class, and I'm really embarrassed I don't remember his name.... It was the guy who leads/created the Springfield Promise Neighborhood. He gave a really heavy presentation and told a story about one of the kids from Lincoln Elementary. After explaining his program, he showed us Ohio Proficiency Test scores from Lincoln Elementary. He handed out charts that displayed the percentage of students who were proficient in reading and math tests.

About 60 percent of the third graders at Lincoln were proficient in math. and 40 percent were proficient in reading. Looking at the chart for fourth grade scores, there was an obviously downfall. Only 25 percent of the fourth graders were proficient in math, about 40 percent again in reading! This scares me.

I realize this may not be related to Writing Center Theory, but makes me consider the background of each student who walks into the Writing Center.