Chapter eight\u2019s concept of teaching students the art of writing an argument is indeed interesting.\u00a0 Whether a template works or not, I\u2019m not sure.\u00a0\u00a0 In elementary school, I used to love the exercises where we had to fill in the blanks.\u00a0 They were easy, and they had a clear right or wrong \/ yes or no answer.\u00a0 But as we grow older, we crave challenge.\u00a0 If we don\u2019t, its because we\u2019re not understanding the concept, or it\u2019s just boring.\u00a0 <\/p>\n
Ginny makes a nice point about the importance of engaging students in \u201ccultural and academic debates\u201d.\u00a0 Debates challenge students to research and stand for what they truly believe in, to defend it.\u00a0 A teacher\u2019s job would therefore be providing a variety of intellectual and engaging topics for students to choose and work with.\u00a0 Templates may confine student thinking.\u00a0 I say this because when I started college, I had brought with me the idea that all that mattered was the grade.\u00a0 I would follow the exact guidelines and templates of my instructors.\u00a0 I would write papers based on the extent they agreed with the lectures.\u00a0 But before long, I noticed I was not enjoying college.\u00a0 I would receive the A that I desired, but the grade was still not satisfying.\u00a0 This was the case until I took a class on Shakespeare plays, where the teacher helped me understand the material, required the students to take a stand on issues from the text, such as how it related to personal beliefs: i.e. bonds, honesty.\u00a0 Then learning fell into place.\u00a0 Debates enhanced learning. I didn\u2019t learn to argue from a formula, but from a passion the professor helped me find toward the material.<\/p>\n
In a previous comment I expressed my desire to acquire a more sophisticated vocabulary.\u00a0 Graff\u2019s section on A Word for Words and a Vote for Quotes <\/em>reminded me of the vocabulary exercises I would do in high school.\u00a0 In school vocabularies meant true\/false or choose the correct definition from a\/b\/c\/d.\u00a0 Francois makes a good point about the method educators use in teaching vocabulary.\u00a0 Memorizing was really not my thing.\u00a0 But either way my school required that we memorize and learn twenty six words per week.\u00a0 We had exercises in our workbook to help us learn the words, and quizzes to see if we had learned them.\u00a0 But the teachers didn\u2019t have time to explain each word, and we didn\u2019t have time to really understand them.\u00a0 So it was just another homework that was forgotten once turned in.\u00a0 I had to restudy most of the terms for the SATs.\u00a0 I succeeded, but not because of the vocabulary workbook we were handed in school, but because I had searched for different vocabulary software that helped me understand and digest each word through pictures, vivid examples and much more.\u00a0 The best part was that I actually enjoyed the activities.\u00a0 So my point is methods we use are very important in finding interest in the subject we are teaching.\u00a0 Perhaps if we didn\u2019t have to \u201cmemorize\u201d 26 words per week, and instead worked thoroughly on only six, we would have been left with much more.<\/p>\n Chapter nine on criticism reminded me just how difficult understanding criticism can be for students.\u00a0 I learned about literary criticism in English 325, sophomore year in college.\u00a0 Every single one of our papers required that we read what critiques had to say about a short story, and then compare and contrast their opinions to each other.\u00a0 We were allowed to jump in any time, but normally we had to take one side.\u00a0 As if that was not scary enough, our professor would then return our papers having marked every single grammatical and syntax error he found.\u00a0 We had to then rewrite the paper and hand it in to receive a plus on the letter grade we had received.\u00a0 The class did help me understand criticism, but it didn\u2019t help me enjoy writing about Literature.\u00a0 Which is more essential I ask.\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Chapter eight\u2019s concept of teaching students the art of writing an argument is indeed interesting.\u00a0 Whether a template works or not, I\u2019m not sure.\u00a0\u00a0 In elementary school, I used to love the exercises where we had to fill in the blanks.\u00a0 They were easy, and they had a clear right or wrong \/ yes or […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[113],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/spring2008\/610\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/193"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/spring2008\/610\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/spring2008\/610\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/spring2008\/610\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/23"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/spring2008\/610\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=193"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/spring2008\/610\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/193\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/spring2008\/610\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=193"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/spring2008\/610\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=193"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/spring2008\/610\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=193"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}