Senior in HS, my World Literature teacher is SOOOO nice for no reason. We've pushed back essay due dates by several weeks just by complaining, we constantly fail the small reading quizzes she gives us but still get A's anyway. My friend and I are always vidchatting on skype with some kids who have a free hour in the computer lab... during class.
Anyways... every senior gets this 10-page "research paper" on whatever we want to talk about; their suggestion is that we write about a topic related to our future careers or Wednesday internships... or hobbies.
So of course, I'm writing about Korean E-sports (SC <3)! Topic was approved by lit teacher today, and when I showed her this pic: + Show Spoiler +
She was like :0!
In other news... come Jan 1st, I need a Terran practice partner :/ out of the 12 or so kids from my HS that play SCII, not a single one is Terran. Nearly all of them are really bad too, only Animostas is good. Apparently these two Korean girls are getting SCII and playing Terran.. not that that would help
I feel like anyone can be that nice but the way I see it is that your teacher isn't doing you a favor by letting you not achieve your full potential to get you ready for further education. The way I see it, she is getting away easy by not doing enough efforts to get you to learn and you ruining your chances of education.
On December 21 2010 12:15 sc2lime wrote: I feel like anyone can be that nice but the way I see it is that your teacher isn't doing you a favor by letting you not achieve your full potential to get you ready for further education. The way I see it, she is getting away easy by not doing enough efforts to get you to learn and you ruining your chances of education.
/pessimist
High school isn't education. Literature classes have always been bullshit, I've never learned a thing from them - not even essay writing.
Blah...lucky you, synapse...I actually have to work for my grade =_= (i got a 91.7 A- in Weems...fffffuuuuuuu)
At one point, I considered doing something specific about bw for my senior paper, like how did Bisu's corsair/dt build (circa 2007) affect the PvZ matchup at the time, but I felt like there would have to be soo much explaining, so I instead stuck with some WWI-related topic. =\
wait...
Apparently these two Korean girls are getting SCII and playing Terran.. not that that would help
On December 21 2010 12:15 sc2lime wrote: I feel like anyone can be that nice but the way I see it is that your teacher isn't doing you a favor by letting you not achieve your full potential to get you ready for further education. The way I see it, she is getting away easy by not doing enough efforts to get you to learn and you ruining your chances of education.
/pessimist
High school isn't education. Literature classes have always been bullshit, I've never learned a thing from them - not even essay writing.
Then you didn't go to a good high school. This is in response to the original post too.
Teenagers love teachers who are pushovers because kids don't actually want to do any work. They don't recognize the importance of getting a good education (and apparently your teacher doesn't care enough about giving a good education); they'd much rather just fool around.
Saying that you're happy that your teacher doesn't actually make you do anything just shows how immature you are. And honestly, I don't blame you; your teacher should be holding you responsible for this material. Students are too young to care.
Surely you have some teachers that properly educate you though? (And hopefully you don't completely despise them for not letting you dick around in class or drop any Fs you guys get on quizzes?)
On December 21 2010 12:15 sc2lime wrote: I feel like anyone can be that nice but the way I see it is that your teacher isn't doing you a favor by letting you not achieve your full potential to get you ready for further education. The way I see it, she is getting away easy by not doing enough efforts to get you to learn and you ruining your chances of education.
/pessimist
High school isn't education. Literature classes have always been bullshit, I've never learned a thing from them - not even essay writing.
Then you didn't go to a good high school. This is in response to the original post too.
Teenagers love teachers who are pushovers because kids don't actually want to do any work. They don't recognize the importance of getting a good education (and apparently your teacher doesn't care enough about giving a good education); they'd much rather just fool around.
Saying that you're happy that your teacher doesn't actually make you do anything just shows how immature you are. And honestly, I don't blame you; your teacher should be holding you responsible for this material. Students are too young to care.
Surely you have some teachers that properly educate you though? (And hopefully you don't completely despise them for not letting you dick around in class or drop any Fs you guys get on quizzes?)
Quote from Wiki:
The Bergen County Academies (sometimes referred to as Bergen Academy or BCA) is a magnet public high school located in Hackensack that serves the high school population of Bergen County, New Jersey.[2] The school was conceived by the late Dr. John Grieco. The current principal is Russell Davis; Raymond Bath is the Academic Dean; Dr. David Ostfeld is Admissions Chair. [3] The Academy is recognized by U.S. News & World Report as one of the best high schools in the United States.[4] Newsweek considers Bergen County Academies to be an "elite" high school,[5] while Bloomberg Businessweek cites Bergen County Academies as New Jersey's best high school.[6]
I've learned far more in math and the natural sciences through my own reading / studying than my school classes. My history classes have never taught me anything I didn't already know (my dad is a historian, so yeah). As for Lit - I really despise the whole "literary analysis" thing. Maybe if the literature curriculum involved learning to write with style / eloquence rather than reading old classics and answering questions, I would pay a bit of attention. Not that I have anything against reading good books, I just don't see how literary analysis has any part in a non-english-major curriculum.
On December 21 2010 12:24 blahman3344 wrote: do I happen to know either of them? o_O
On December 21 2010 12:15 sc2lime wrote: I feel like anyone can be that nice but the way I see it is that your teacher isn't doing you a favor by letting you not achieve your full potential to get you ready for further education. The way I see it, she is getting away easy by not doing enough efforts to get you to learn and you ruining your chances of education.
/pessimist
High school isn't education. Literature classes have always been bullshit, I've never learned a thing from them - not even essay writing.
Then you didn't go to a good high school. This is in response to the original post too.
Teenagers love teachers who are pushovers because kids don't actually want to do any work. They don't recognize the importance of getting a good education (and apparently your teacher doesn't care enough about giving a good education); they'd much rather just fool around.
Saying that you're happy that your teacher doesn't actually make you do anything just shows how immature you are. And honestly, I don't blame you; your teacher should be holding you responsible for this material. Students are too young to care.
Surely you have some teachers that properly educate you though? (And hopefully you don't completely despise them for not letting you dick around in class or drop any Fs you guys get on quizzes?)
The Bergen County Academies (sometimes referred to as Bergen Academy or BCA) is a magnet public high school located in Hackensack that serves the high school population of Bergen County, New Jersey.[2] The school was conceived by the late Dr. John Grieco. The current principal is Russell Davis; Raymond Bath is the Academic Dean; Dr. David Ostfeld is Admissions Chair. [3] The Academy is recognized by U.S. News & World Report as one of the best high schools in the United States.[4] Newsweek considers Bergen County Academies to be an "elite" high school,[5] while Bloomberg Businessweek cites Bergen County Academies as New Jersey's best high school.[6]
I've learned far more in math and the natural sciences through my own reading / studying than my school classes. My history classes have never taught me anything I didn't already know (my dad is a historian, so yeah). As for Lit - I really despise the whole "literary analysis." Maybe if the literature curriculum involved learning to write with style / eloquence rather than reading old classics and answering questions, I would pay a bit of attention. Not that I have anything against reading good books, I just don't see how literary analysis has any part in a non-english-major curriculum.
You quoting an article about the general success of your high school obviously doesn't properly represent the class you're particularly speaking about. (You also just said that your high school is good but you can learn everything better on your own >.>) We're talking about you not having a good English class and a good English teacher. You need one that doesn't let you walk all over her. Or else of course you're not going to take the class seriously and not learn anything.
You're not learning from that class because you're not expected to... because your teacher lets you get away with anything you want.
On December 21 2010 12:15 sc2lime wrote: I feel like anyone can be that nice but the way I see it is that your teacher isn't doing you a favor by letting you not achieve your full potential to get you ready for further education. The way I see it, she is getting away easy by not doing enough efforts to get you to learn and you ruining your chances of education.
/pessimist
High school isn't education. Literature classes have always been bullshit, I've never learned a thing from them - not even essay writing.
Then you didn't go to a good high school. This is in response to the original post too.
Teenagers love teachers who are pushovers because kids don't actually want to do any work. They don't recognize the importance of getting a good education (and apparently your teacher doesn't care enough about giving a good education); they'd much rather just fool around.
Saying that you're happy that your teacher doesn't actually make you do anything just shows how immature you are. And honestly, I don't blame you; your teacher should be holding you responsible for this material. Students are too young to care.
Surely you have some teachers that properly educate you though? (And hopefully you don't completely despise them for not letting you dick around in class or drop any Fs you guys get on quizzes?)
Quote from Wiki:
The Bergen County Academies (sometimes referred to as Bergen Academy or BCA) is a magnet public high school located in Hackensack that serves the high school population of Bergen County, New Jersey.[2] The school was conceived by the late Dr. John Grieco. The current principal is Russell Davis; Raymond Bath is the Academic Dean; Dr. David Ostfeld is Admissions Chair. [3] The Academy is recognized by U.S. News & World Report as one of the best high schools in the United States.[4] Newsweek considers Bergen County Academies to be an "elite" high school,[5] while Bloomberg Businessweek cites Bergen County Academies as New Jersey's best high school.[6]
I've learned far more in math and the natural sciences through my own reading / studying than my school classes. My history classes have never taught me anything I didn't already know (my dad is a historian, so yeah). As for Lit - I really despise the whole "literary analysis." Maybe if the literature curriculum involved learning to write with style / eloquence rather than reading old classics and answering questions, I would pay a bit of attention. Not that I have anything against reading good books, I just don't see how literary analysis has any part in a non-english-major curriculum.
You quoting an article about the general success of your high school obviously doesn't properly represent the class you're particularly speaking about. (You also just said that your high school is good but you can learn everything better on your own >.>) We're talking about you not having a good English class and a good English teacher. You need one that doesn't let you walk all over her. Or else of course you're not going to take the class seriously and not learn anything.
You're not learning from that class because you're not expected to... because your teacher lets you get away with anything you want.
I am not saying that my high school is "good" by my own standards, but rather by others' perception of high schools in general.
But yes, my current lit teacher indeed does not teach us anything. My point, though, is that literature classes have never taught me anything. What am I supposed to gain through analyzing poetry or reading a book and remembering the plotline? Please, enlighten me.
On December 21 2010 12:43 synapse wrote: I am not saying that my high school is "good" by my own standards, but rather by others' perception of high schools in general.
But yes, my current lit teacher indeed does not teach us anything. My point, though, is that literature classes have never taught me anything. What am I supposed to gain through analyzing poetry or reading a book and remembering the plotline? Please, enlighten me.
LMAO. Pretty much sums up the amount of education you are getting from your school.
On December 21 2010 12:15 sc2lime wrote: I feel like anyone can be that nice but the way I see it is that your teacher isn't doing you a favor by letting you not achieve your full potential to get you ready for further education. The way I see it, she is getting away easy by not doing enough efforts to get you to learn and you ruining your chances of education.
/pessimist
High school isn't education. Literature classes have always been bullshit, I've never learned a thing from them - not even essay writing.
Then you didn't go to a good high school. This is in response to the original post too.
Teenagers love teachers who are pushovers because kids don't actually want to do any work. They don't recognize the importance of getting a good education (and apparently your teacher doesn't care enough about giving a good education); they'd much rather just fool around.
Saying that you're happy that your teacher doesn't actually make you do anything just shows how immature you are. And honestly, I don't blame you; your teacher should be holding you responsible for this material. Students are too young to care.
Surely you have some teachers that properly educate you though? (And hopefully you don't completely despise them for not letting you dick around in class or drop any Fs you guys get on quizzes?)
Quote from Wiki:
The Bergen County Academies (sometimes referred to as Bergen Academy or BCA) is a magnet public high school located in Hackensack that serves the high school population of Bergen County, New Jersey.[2] The school was conceived by the late Dr. John Grieco. The current principal is Russell Davis; Raymond Bath is the Academic Dean; Dr. David Ostfeld is Admissions Chair. [3] The Academy is recognized by U.S. News & World Report as one of the best high schools in the United States.[4] Newsweek considers Bergen County Academies to be an "elite" high school,[5] while Bloomberg Businessweek cites Bergen County Academies as New Jersey's best high school.[6]
I've learned far more in math and the natural sciences through my own reading / studying than my school classes. My history classes have never taught me anything I didn't already know (my dad is a historian, so yeah). As for Lit - I really despise the whole "literary analysis." Maybe if the literature curriculum involved learning to write with style / eloquence rather than reading old classics and answering questions, I would pay a bit of attention. Not that I have anything against reading good books, I just don't see how literary analysis has any part in a non-english-major curriculum.
You quoting an article about the general success of your high school obviously doesn't properly represent the class you're particularly speaking about. (You also just said that your high school is good but you can learn everything better on your own >.>) We're talking about you not having a good English class and a good English teacher. You need one that doesn't let you walk all over her. Or else of course you're not going to take the class seriously and not learn anything.
You're not learning from that class because you're not expected to... because your teacher lets you get away with anything you want.
I am not saying that my high school is "good" by my own standards, but rather by others' perception of high schools in general.
But yes, my current lit teacher indeed does not teach us anything. My point, though, is that literature classes have never taught me anything. What am I supposed to gain through analyzing poetry or reading a book and remembering the plotline? Please, enlighten me.
While I'm currently teaching high school math and not English (and so I don't profess to be an expert in the latter), I would think that the important things that you can carry over and generalize from reading different literary works are not merely "I memorized this plot" or "I memorized that rhyme scheme", but being able to interpret writings in your own way, and delve deeper than just the superficial meanings of books and poetry. Learn how to think critically and read comprehensively, in general. Formulate your own opinions, arguments, and projects, and be able to defend them based on given ideas and evidence. Look for meaning. Things of that nature. If you're not learning to do these things, then you're missing out. (And it's probably your teacher's fault for letting you get away with stupid shit.)
Also, it's a pity that not all of our teachers were guys like this:
On December 21 2010 12:15 sc2lime wrote: I feel like anyone can be that nice but the way I see it is that your teacher isn't doing you a favor by letting you not achieve your full potential to get you ready for further education. The way I see it, she is getting away easy by not doing enough efforts to get you to learn and you ruining your chances of education.
/pessimist
High school isn't education. Literature classes have always been bullshit, I've never learned a thing from them - not even essay writing.
Then you didn't go to a good high school. This is in response to the original post too.
Teenagers love teachers who are pushovers because kids don't actually want to do any work. They don't recognize the importance of getting a good education (and apparently your teacher doesn't care enough about giving a good education); they'd much rather just fool around.
Saying that you're happy that your teacher doesn't actually make you do anything just shows how immature you are. And honestly, I don't blame you; your teacher should be holding you responsible for this material. Students are too young to care.
Surely you have some teachers that properly educate you though? (And hopefully you don't completely despise them for not letting you dick around in class or drop any Fs you guys get on quizzes?)
Quote from Wiki:
The Bergen County Academies (sometimes referred to as Bergen Academy or BCA) is a magnet public high school located in Hackensack that serves the high school population of Bergen County, New Jersey.[2] The school was conceived by the late Dr. John Grieco. The current principal is Russell Davis; Raymond Bath is the Academic Dean; Dr. David Ostfeld is Admissions Chair. [3] The Academy is recognized by U.S. News & World Report as one of the best high schools in the United States.[4] Newsweek considers Bergen County Academies to be an "elite" high school,[5] while Bloomberg Businessweek cites Bergen County Academies as New Jersey's best high school.[6]
I've learned far more in math and the natural sciences through my own reading / studying than my school classes. My history classes have never taught me anything I didn't already know (my dad is a historian, so yeah). As for Lit - I really despise the whole "literary analysis." Maybe if the literature curriculum involved learning to write with style / eloquence rather than reading old classics and answering questions, I would pay a bit of attention. Not that I have anything against reading good books, I just don't see how literary analysis has any part in a non-english-major curriculum.
You quoting an article about the general success of your high school obviously doesn't properly represent the class you're particularly speaking about. (You also just said that your high school is good but you can learn everything better on your own >.>) We're talking about you not having a good English class and a good English teacher. You need one that doesn't let you walk all over her. Or else of course you're not going to take the class seriously and not learn anything.
You're not learning from that class because you're not expected to... because your teacher lets you get away with anything you want.
I am not saying that my high school is "good" by my own standards, but rather by others' perception of high schools in general.
But yes, my current lit teacher indeed does not teach us anything. My point, though, is that literature classes have never taught me anything. What am I supposed to gain through analyzing poetry or reading a book and remembering the plotline? Please, enlighten me.
While I'm currently teaching high school math and not English (and so I don't profess to be an expert in the latter), I would think that the important things that you can carry over and generalize from reading different literary works are not merely "I memorized this plot" or "I memorized that rhyme scheme", but being able to interpret writings in your own way, and delve deeper than just the superficial meanings of books and poetry. Learn how to think critically and read comprehensively, in general. Formulate your own opinions, arguments, and projects, and be able to defend them based on given ideas and evidence. Look for meaning. Things of that nature. If you're not learning to do these things, then you're missing out. (And it's probably your teacher's fault for letting you get away with stupid shit.)
I like what you just said. I like it a lot. But somehow, literature classes have never done it for me.
You can argue all day about whether Huckleberry Finn is racist or not; there is evidence supporting both sides of the dispute. But ultimately, it's all just opinion, and it doesn't matter to me. I don't need to understand literary masterpieces to formulate an opinion. If thinking critically and devising arguments were the actual subjects of teaching, I would much prefer a mandatory (modern) politics course.
You can write a novel with some deep, clandestine truth, but you can also string entirely random words together as a famous poet; someone out there will call it profound or ingenious. To me, it seems that all too often these literary criticisms only give an opinion of the authors (of the criticisms), and an extremely biased one at that. People see what they want to see in literature.
Maybe I've just never been one for opinions, or maybe I'm just waiting for that one good lit teacher.
On December 21 2010 12:24 DarkPlasmaBall wrote: Saying that you're happy that your teacher doesn't actually make you do anything just shows how immature you are.
I forgot to respond specifically to this: I never said that I was happy that my teacher was a total pushover, I said that she was overly nice (aka total pushover), and that I loved her for letting me write about SC for my research paper.
On December 21 2010 13:26 sc2lime wrote: With that attitude you have towards literature (OP), this is what I foresee in your future.
I can't believe people would come in this thread and argue about the quality of your school or about how you should be angry that a teacher gave you a break.
On December 21 2010 14:05 TheCabDriver wrote: I can't believe people would come in this thread and argue about the quality of your school or about how you should be angry that a teacher gave you a break.
HOLY FUCK.
Yeah, I kind of just wanted to give some context as to why my teacher let me write about SC (and not have this blog be a one-liner).
On December 21 2010 12:15 sc2lime wrote: I feel like anyone can be that nice but the way I see it is that your teacher isn't doing you a favor by letting you not achieve your full potential to get you ready for further education. The way I see it, she is getting away easy by not doing enough efforts to get you to learn and you ruining your chances of education.
/pessimist
High school isn't education. Literature classes have always been bullshit, I've never learned a thing from them - not even essay writing.
Then you didn't go to a good high school. This is in response to the original post too.
Teenagers love teachers who are pushovers because kids don't actually want to do any work. They don't recognize the importance of getting a good education (and apparently your teacher doesn't care enough about giving a good education); they'd much rather just fool around.
Saying that you're happy that your teacher doesn't actually make you do anything just shows how immature you are. And honestly, I don't blame you; your teacher should be holding you responsible for this material. Students are too young to care.
Surely you have some teachers that properly educate you though? (And hopefully you don't completely despise them for not letting you dick around in class or drop any Fs you guys get on quizzes?)
Quote from Wiki:
The Bergen County Academies (sometimes referred to as Bergen Academy or BCA) is a magnet public high school located in Hackensack that serves the high school population of Bergen County, New Jersey.[2] The school was conceived by the late Dr. John Grieco. The current principal is Russell Davis; Raymond Bath is the Academic Dean; Dr. David Ostfeld is Admissions Chair. [3] The Academy is recognized by U.S. News & World Report as one of the best high schools in the United States.[4] Newsweek considers Bergen County Academies to be an "elite" high school,[5] while Bloomberg Businessweek cites Bergen County Academies as New Jersey's best high school.[6]
I've learned far more in math and the natural sciences through my own reading / studying than my school classes. My history classes have never taught me anything I didn't already know (my dad is a historian, so yeah). As for Lit - I really despise the whole "literary analysis." Maybe if the literature curriculum involved learning to write with style / eloquence rather than reading old classics and answering questions, I would pay a bit of attention. Not that I have anything against reading good books, I just don't see how literary analysis has any part in a non-english-major curriculum.
You quoting an article about the general success of your high school obviously doesn't properly represent the class you're particularly speaking about. (You also just said that your high school is good but you can learn everything better on your own >.>) We're talking about you not having a good English class and a good English teacher. You need one that doesn't let you walk all over her. Or else of course you're not going to take the class seriously and not learn anything.
You're not learning from that class because you're not expected to... because your teacher lets you get away with anything you want.
I am not saying that my high school is "good" by my own standards, but rather by others' perception of high schools in general.
But yes, my current lit teacher indeed does not teach us anything. My point, though, is that literature classes have never taught me anything. What am I supposed to gain through analyzing poetry or reading a book and remembering the plotline? Please, enlighten me.
While I'm currently teaching high school math and not English (and so I don't profess to be an expert in the latter), I would think that the important things that you can carry over and generalize from reading different literary works are not merely "I memorized this plot" or "I memorized that rhyme scheme", but being able to interpret writings in your own way, and delve deeper than just the superficial meanings of books and poetry. Learn how to think critically and read comprehensively, in general. Formulate your own opinions, arguments, and projects, and be able to defend them based on given ideas and evidence. Look for meaning. Things of that nature. If you're not learning to do these things, then you're missing out. (And it's probably your teacher's fault for letting you get away with stupid shit.)
I like what you just said. I like it a lot. But somehow, literature classes have never done it for me.
You can argue all day about whether Huckleberry Finn is racist or not; there is evidence supporting both sides of the dispute. But ultimately, it's all just opinion, and it doesn't matter to me. I don't need to understand literary masterpieces to formulate an opinion. If thinking critically and devising arguments were the actual subjects of teaching, I would much prefer a mandatory (modern) politics course.
You can write a novel with some deep, clandestine truth, but you can also string entirely random words together as a famous poet; someone out there will call it profound or ingenious. To me, it seems that all too often these literary criticisms only give an opinion of the authors (of the criticisms), and an extremely biased one at that. People see what they want to see in literature.
Maybe I've just never been one for opinions, or maybe I'm just waiting for that one good lit teacher.
I think you raise a good point, and I certainly understand where you're coming from. A lot of the stuff you read in high school is crap, or (at the other end of the spectrum) you can't fully appreciate some of the stories until you get older anyway. I think English class should be mainly based around reading comprehension, critical thinking, grammar (no one seems to be able to put together a coherent sentence in this day and age), spelling, vocabulary, and things of that nature. In other words, basic elements of reading and writing that everyone needs.
Sure, some books and poety may be good, but I think that the intentions may be lost on many of the students. You don't want to force students to read *just because the curriculum says so*. Heck, I loved to read as a kid... because I found books that interested me.
But there's a justification for these books.
The thing is, a lot of the basic elements have already been taught at lower levels in education, so we need a way to teach higher-level thinking and harder concepts. Generally, we turn to more complex language for this kind of instruction... and English teachers find this in books. These stories subtlely work on the more advanced versions of those elements of reading and writing, while not explicitly stating, "Now class, we're going to learn new vocabulary!" It's just *in* the story. You figure it out based on the context clues. The same line of reasoning goes for the other elements I listed above. Continuous reinforcement in realistic scenarios. (You're going to be reading in the future.)
But to digress again to your original post: It doesn't seem like your English teacher is doing the subject justice. Obviously, English class is not a lost cause. In fact, the only two subjects you continuously get evaluated on throughout your entire education career is math and English (standardized tests, SATs, GREs, etc.). I feel that a better teacher might foster more optimism for the subject matter.
On a side note, I have a friend who went to that high school. I live in New Jersey as well Small world.
On December 21 2010 12:15 sc2lime wrote: I feel like anyone can be that nice but the way I see it is that your teacher isn't doing you a favor by letting you not achieve your full potential to get you ready for further education. The way I see it, she is getting away easy by not doing enough efforts to get you to learn and you ruining your chances of education.
/pessimist
High school isn't education. Literature classes have always been bullshit, I've never learned a thing from them - not even essay writing.
Then you didn't go to a good high school. This is in response to the original post too.
Teenagers love teachers who are pushovers because kids don't actually want to do any work. They don't recognize the importance of getting a good education (and apparently your teacher doesn't care enough about giving a good education); they'd much rather just fool around.
Saying that you're happy that your teacher doesn't actually make you do anything just shows how immature you are. And honestly, I don't blame you; your teacher should be holding you responsible for this material. Students are too young to care.
Surely you have some teachers that properly educate you though? (And hopefully you don't completely despise them for not letting you dick around in class or drop any Fs you guys get on quizzes?)
Quote from Wiki:
The Bergen County Academies (sometimes referred to as Bergen Academy or BCA) is a magnet public high school located in Hackensack that serves the high school population of Bergen County, New Jersey.[2] The school was conceived by the late Dr. John Grieco. The current principal is Russell Davis; Raymond Bath is the Academic Dean; Dr. David Ostfeld is Admissions Chair. [3] The Academy is recognized by U.S. News & World Report as one of the best high schools in the United States.[4] Newsweek considers Bergen County Academies to be an "elite" high school,[5] while Bloomberg Businessweek cites Bergen County Academies as New Jersey's best high school.[6]
I've learned far more in math and the natural sciences through my own reading / studying than my school classes. My history classes have never taught me anything I didn't already know (my dad is a historian, so yeah). As for Lit - I really despise the whole "literary analysis." Maybe if the literature curriculum involved learning to write with style / eloquence rather than reading old classics and answering questions, I would pay a bit of attention. Not that I have anything against reading good books, I just don't see how literary analysis has any part in a non-english-major curriculum.
You quoting an article about the general success of your high school obviously doesn't properly represent the class you're particularly speaking about. (You also just said that your high school is good but you can learn everything better on your own >.>) We're talking about you not having a good English class and a good English teacher. You need one that doesn't let you walk all over her. Or else of course you're not going to take the class seriously and not learn anything.
You're not learning from that class because you're not expected to... because your teacher lets you get away with anything you want.
I am not saying that my high school is "good" by my own standards, but rather by others' perception of high schools in general.
But yes, my current lit teacher indeed does not teach us anything. My point, though, is that literature classes have never taught me anything. What am I supposed to gain through analyzing poetry or reading a book and remembering the plotline? Please, enlighten me.
While I'm currently teaching high school math and not English (and so I don't profess to be an expert in the latter), I would think that the important things that you can carry over and generalize from reading different literary works are not merely "I memorized this plot" or "I memorized that rhyme scheme", but being able to interpret writings in your own way, and delve deeper than just the superficial meanings of books and poetry. Learn how to think critically and read comprehensively, in general. Formulate your own opinions, arguments, and projects, and be able to defend them based on given ideas and evidence. Look for meaning. Things of that nature. If you're not learning to do these things, then you're missing out. (And it's probably your teacher's fault for letting you get away with stupid shit.)
I like what you just said. I like it a lot. But somehow, literature classes have never done it for me.
You can argue all day about whether Huckleberry Finn is racist or not; there is evidence supporting both sides of the dispute. But ultimately, it's all just opinion, and it doesn't matter to me. I don't need to understand literary masterpieces to formulate an opinion. If thinking critically and devising arguments were the actual subjects of teaching, I would much prefer a mandatory (modern) politics course.
You can write a novel with some deep, clandestine truth, but you can also string entirely random words together as a famous poet; someone out there will call it profound or ingenious. To me, it seems that all too often these literary criticisms only give an opinion of the authors (of the criticisms), and an extremely biased one at that. People see what they want to see in literature.
Maybe I've just never been one for opinions, or maybe I'm just waiting for that one good lit teacher.
Thanks, I'll remember not to misspell every other word in my future essays.
First of all, Huckleberry Finn is the protagonist in a novel by Mark Twain, (Samuel Clemens nom de plume), entitled Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Second of all, you're using the semicolon the wrong way (it isn't used as a convenient way to string your sentences together), see: http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/566/01/
Third, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, that is the novel itself, is a racist one. I'd like to know who taught you otherwise and forgot to tell you that Twain focused on realism in his work. Additionally, you sound extremely naïve when you quote novels as having "deep, clandestine truths" and poets having "profound" and "entirely random words" that are strung together; in fact, you sound simply ignorant.
Tell me why Shakespeare invokes the beautiful boy in his sonnets, tell me what The Road Not Taken is, or tell me why Huckleberry's father is a drunk and a child abuser. Tell me why Jim is Huck's seemingly one true friend, and he's also the same who is seeking freedom? Tell me why Paradise Lost is sympathetic towards Satan. Tell me of the relationship to the story of the battle of troy in The Iliad to classic mythology? Why is it framed in dactylic hexameters?
You see, literature, poetry, and criticism isn't just what you make of it, it's what you get out of it. At the core, it's learning how to be smart, which is the most valuable possession.
On December 21 2010 14:05 TheCabDriver wrote: I can't believe people would come in this thread and argue about the quality of your school or about how you should be angry that a teacher gave you a break.
HOLY FUCK.
Did you read the OP? His teacher doesn't *give the class breaks*.
She gives them free As when they earned Fs, and she pushes essays back for weeks on end. She also has no control of the classroom.
The fact that this teacher isn't keeping the students responsible probably relates to the reason why synapse doesn't give a shit about his English class.
But yeah, the StarCraft thing is cool too. He just prefaced it with something that some of us considered worthwhile to talk about.
On topic: To be honest, I don't see the issue in writing an exposition-type essay about e-Sports. The subject is equally as frivolous as most of the 'novels' taught in high school.
In any case, the specific style of essay espoused by high school teaching (e.g. AP test essays) is not so much good writing as much as speed-writing/speed content analysis, which isn't all that useful in most contexts. Technique and transitions are sacrificed for "put as much shit into your essay as possible".
Which leads into a slightly less on-topic rant:
A lot of the stuff you read in high school is crap, or (at the other end of the spectrum) you can't fully appreciate some of the stories until you get older anyway.
This is particularly obvious in 'Internationalized' IB curricula, where the primary criteria is not technical quality, but whether author is not white. Its absolutely silly to elevate something like Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart to something even close to Heart of Darkness, for example.
Its a sad day when authors like Toni Morrison get the nod over Dante's Inferno. Talking to high school students, I've noticed a consistent devaluation in the old (16th century classics and before) classics in reading curricula (and an increase in semi-functional illiterates in college students -- correlated? you decide).
On December 21 2010 14:17 ffdestiny wrote: First of all, Huckleberry Finn is the protagonist in a novel by Mark Twain, (Samuel Clemens nom de plume), entitled Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Second of all, you're using the semicolon the wrong way (it isn't used as a convenient way to string your sentences together), see: http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/566/01/
This is an online blog / forum, not a dissertation. Please don't nitpick about whether I properly cited the title of the book, especially since you obviously understood my meaning. And I believe I am using the semicolon correctly. It separates two independent clauses, and my second clause is essentially restating the first (If I am wrong about this, then do point out where my mistake lies).
EDIT: Oh, I see. I used it a second time, I think that should be a dash...
On December 21 2010 14:17 ffdestiny wrote: Third, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, that is the novel itself, is a racist one. I'd like to know who taught you otherwise and forgot to tell you that Twain focused on realism in his work. Additionally, you sound extremely naïve when you quote novels as having "deep, clandestine truths" and poets having "profound" and "entirely random words" that are strung together; in fact, you sound simply ignorant.
I have never stated my opinion on the issue, or even what I was taught. I have only said that there is dispute between literary critics about the matter. And thanks for your opinion, however irrelevant it is to the point I was trying to make.
On December 21 2010 14:17 ffdestiny wrote: Tell me why Shakespeare invokes the beautiful boy in his sonnets, tell me what The Road Not Taken is, or tell me why Huckleberry's father is a drunk and a child abuser. Tell me why Jim is Huck's seemingly one true friend, and he's also the same who is seeking freedom? Tell me why Paradise Lost is sympathetic towards Satan. Tell me of the relationship to the story of the battle of troy in The Iliad to classic mythology? Why is it framed in dactylic hexameters?
You see, literature, poetry, and criticism isn't just what you make of it, it's what you get out of it. At the core, it's learning how to be smart, which is the most valuable possession.
I can't answer most of those questions (though it seems obvious that that was your intention). I also don't see how your last two sentences relate to each other, though that can be blamed on my not having "learned how to be smart," I guess.
I can't answer most of those questions (though it seems obvious that that was your intention). I also don't see how your last two sentences relate to each other, though that can be blamed on my not having "learned how to be smart," I guess.
I don't get this either. Its like the whole point is so he can feel smug on an internet forum devoted to a computer game. Even more amusing is that the answers to those questions are, in any context outside of literary academia, useless. I kind of agree with what you're saying but there are plenty of other avenues to develop critical thinking besides literature analysis.
On December 21 2010 14:28 bbq ftw wrote: On topic: To be honest, I don't see the issue in writing an exposition-type essay about e-Sports. The subject is equally as frivolous as most of the 'novels' taught in high school.
In any case, the specific style of essay espoused by high school teaching (e.g. AP test essays) is not so much good writing as much as speed-writing/speed content analysis, which isn't all that useful in most contexts. Technique and transitions are sacrificed for "put as much shit into your essay as possible".
A lot of the stuff you read in high school is crap, or (at the other end of the spectrum) you can't fully appreciate some of the stories until you get older anyway.
This is particularly obvious in 'Internationalized' IB curricula, where the primary criteria is not technical quality, but whether author is not white. Its absolutely silly to elevate something like Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart to something even close to Heart of Darkness, for example.
Its a sad day when authors like Toni Morrison get the nod over Dante's Inferno. Talking to high school students, I've noticed a consistent devaluation in the old (16th century classics and before) classics in reading curricula (and an increase in semi-functional illiterates in college students -- correlated? you decide).
Is someone really going all ~grammar-Nazi~ in the TL blogs section?
I am so very in agreement with you, so very in agreement. What is loved about classics is their amplification to the core values of learning: content, critical analyses and sophistication. With an exemplary professor backing such remarkable works like Heart of Darkness, Dante's Inferno or (my favorite) Paradise Lost, anyone is going to receive a cornucopia of learning and "smarts".
And do forgive my Nazi-grammar like tendencies. I've been a student for so long, and an instructor; therefore, I do evoke grammar as a tool for enforcing the triteness of its measurable influences, but the correctness in its usage—having been held at the doom of its power for so long.
While I think ffdestiny has the right intent, he does it in a rather abrasive manner. There is definitely a value to courses on literature - whether the issue is within the quality of your school or your past teachers isn't really relevant.
Personally, my English classes all been amazing. Grammar, reading quizzes, vocab - yeah, it's all bullshit busy work. They're all things I already learned in middle school - they existed somewhat my freshman year (didn't like English much then), ones that started dying down in sophomore year (mostly just vocab quizzes), and altogether didn't exist my junior and senior years. Instead, my English AP and Faulkner classes flat-out ignored the AP, knowing we'd be smart enough to know the bullshit routines standardized curricula demanded of us, and instead focused all on our readings, essays, and ideas.
The posts condemning literature in these classes as "useless" are flat-out wrong. The value in such writing is what you as a person derive from them. If person chooses to numb himself, close his eyes, and ignore the writing, he creates his own self-fulfilling prophecy in the idea that "literature is useless [to said person]."
Nor is it really about "learning how to be smart" - "being smart" is way too subjective to make a claim like that. It's about looking at the big picture of the meaning of life, explaining/exploring emotions, reality, and searching for capital T "Truth." And please, spare the "derp the meaning of life is bullshit," because if you honestly believed that, you'd be a nihilist, and probably jumping off a bridge to join Quentin Compson.
@ffdestiny show off! (it's a compliment) @synapse Your attitude towards literature is a shame. It's really not about memorizing plotlines or anything of that sort, but more about learning empathy, getting a feel for social behaviors in a practical setting, placing historical events in personal context, and learning to analyse situations for their deeper meanings and undercurrents.
You're right that it doesn't matter to you whether or not Huck Finn was racist, but teaching it, the hope is that you will receive a better understanding of racism, why people are racist, the effects of racism on the victims, the subtleties of racism, and the self justifications of the racist. The idea is that with this practice, you will be able to better identify and deal with discrimination in your real life, however you encounter it.
Let me put it in StarCraft terms. If you make a blog post about how Starcraft is about memorizing Phoenixes > Overlords and Hydras > Phoenixes and just learning counters, that would be uh, laughable. In life there are trends, big pictures and smaller pictures, aspects of human nature that are consistent and aspects that are shifting. Literature is all about giving you a perspective to see them. Once you get into college, you'll learn about things like meta-narrative, and write angry blog posts about how that word is as overused as meta-game. But not learning those concepts will hurt you as a human being just as not knowing the meta game will hurt you as a SC player.
The most powerful people in modern society rules not with muscle or guns, but with words, the media, control over people by knowing what they want and manipulating it to what you want.
Literature is just one of the many tools to help make you better at it. Disrespecting it is just shooting yourself in the foot.
Your problem is that you had a fucking shitty teacher and a fucking shitty class. You're probably completely correct that your literature classes are a total waste of time for you, that's why you should probably read more outside of class.
I can't answer most of those questions (though it seems obvious that that was your intention). I also don't see how your last two sentences relate to each other, though that can be blamed on my not having "learned how to be smart," I guess.
I don't get this either. Its like the whole point is so he can feel smug on an internet forum devoted to a computer game. Even more amusing is that the answers to those questions are, in any context outside of literary academia, useless.
To each his own, I guess.
But a dissertation on the theory behind mineral collection is not useless, nor realizing what "strategies" work and what do not. If you change your perspective, you'll realize that the key to information here on Team Liquid, or anywhere else (your job for example) depends on your ability to be smart enough to interpret the information that you're given.
Just let it be known, in college, in life, you may not easily be given a way out and be allowed to have a little laugh about it afterwards. I also welcome your perspective on my questions about literature; in fact, the most valuable responses are ones outside of "literary academia". Individual interpretations like that offer a truly invaluable look into the core meanings of life itself. I'll have you know that's what any college course grades you on; that is, your ability to explain and interpret the information being provided, even in Mathematics!
And excuse my smug behavior. Those questions are very basic ones in terms of literature and they are supposed to make someone want to probe into the deeper implications. I find that it is typical of many individuals (emphasis on younger ones) to not have enough attention or capacity to want to find out more. That, or they are being motivated in a similar way with free grades of an A.
EDIT: @gen.Sun - I agree wholeheartedly with your post! Thank you. @LlamaNamedOsama - I'm such a foaming nihilist anymore, especially after that Mark Twain seminar. I felt compelled so much so that I wrote two critical essays on Twain and nihilism.
I guess I was overly harsh too, but TL Blog Whiteknight mode kicked in.
While you ask a lot of interesting questions, they aren't the only ones worth asking. And to say they are "basic", necessary foundations for being:
smart enough to interpret the information that you're given.
Is really quite a narrow way to put it.
There are many ways you can interrogate a piece of literature, and to say that the way current high school education does it is the only way, or the best way, is pretty unwarranted.
I'd almost say that since the high school/undergraduate approach highly values insincerity (its often not about what you truly believe about the piece, but what you believe the evidence should point towards, if that makes any sense) its really not the best way to go about actually appreciating literature.
@bbq ftw sry Inferno is no longer relevant in American youth society. I'd rather they teach Harry Potter than that shit.
I totally agree on the part about speed and stuff though. Imagine if the final mission of SC2 is testing whether or not you have 200 APM. Would be a terrible game.
The public education system is all fucked up, and I feel sorry for everyone who had to suffer through it without the resources to do self study.
One of the main problems with the current literature classes is that many of the books people study don't feel relevant.
IMO most decent / big published books are extremely fertile ground for analysis by students. The selection of books that are taught in school should be a LOT bigger imo. This is something that internet startup people I'm familiar with are solving as we speak.
I can't answer most of those questions (though it seems obvious that that was your intention). I also don't see how your last two sentences relate to each other, though that can be blamed on my not having "learned how to be smart," I guess.
I don't get this either. Its like the whole point is so he can feel smug on an internet forum devoted to a computer game. Even more amusing is that the answers to those questions are, in any context outside of literary academia, useless.
To each his own, I guess.
You're kidding me, right. You don't know the answers to those questions, yet you're automatically assuming that those answers are "useless"? Well, for one thing, literature is great at teaching people to draw logical conclusions .
But in seriousness: Jim is Huck's true friend because, along with other characters in the story (for ex, the grangerfords and shepherdsons), he proves that white does not make right, and that socially accepted norms do not make them good norms. Yeah, not like we need to know that, heh oh by the way there's some issue with homosexual marriage, eww society says that's gross, let's not let them marry.
Paradise Lost is sympathetic to Satan because Satan is an underdog, displaying that undying spirit of resistance, which is of course strange that we would be sympathetic to a figure so detested. This exposes and deconstructs the whole puritanical codes that people might ordinarily assume from religion - the ideas that hedonism is bad, or that submissiveness is always good. Note that it is not a flatout condemnation of religion, as Satan does still want to fuck up humanity, but it exposes an ambiguity in our values, that it's not good guys and bad guys, because sometimes the bad guys have some things that you may empathize with.
sry Inferno is no longer relevant in American youth society. I'd rather they teach Harry Potter than that shit.
It turns out that Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire is on my local junior high's reading curricula. You may have gotten your wish!
IMO most decent / big published books are extremely fertile ground for analysis by students.
They are, but the analysis would center more around technical flaws of the books than thematic elements. Not saying that's a bad thing.
You're kidding me, right. You don't know the answers to those questions, yet you're automatically assuming that those answers are "useless"? Well, for one thing, literature is great at teaching people to draw logical conclusions .
Viewed in a vacuum, yes. Knowing the answers doesn't mean anything (except outside lit. academia, I guess), how you got there is the key.
But I know I'm prone to streaks of science-elitism, so take my statements with a grain of salt.
I'm in disagreement with how we "do" high school here in America. We should ultimately make it much more like college and "up" the value of learning over the banality of it. Of course my bitterness is usually eternal.
However, it is reverberated in many college professors when they say that when they receive students from high school they have to suffer with teaching them "the basics" because of the entirely inadequate public education system. Also, I'm not a high school instructor.
EDIT: The Harry Potter series is a great example of a contemporary piece that lends itself exceptionally well to current educational curriculum.
@LlamaNamedOsama - Some great insights, I've went ahead and saved them. It's not everyday that one gets literary analysis at Team Liquid. I like your interpretation about Satan the best.
On December 21 2010 14:05 TheCabDriver wrote: I can't believe people would come in this thread and argue about the quality of your school or about how you should be angry that a teacher gave you a break.
HOLY FUCK.
Yeah, I kind of just wanted to give some context as to why my teacher let me write about SC (and not have this blog be a one-liner).
On December 21 2010 14:05 TheCabDriver wrote: I can't believe people would come in this thread and argue about the quality of your school or about how you should be angry that a teacher gave you a break.
HOLY FUCK.
Did you read the OP? His teacher doesn't *give the class breaks*.
She gives them free As when they earned Fs, and she pushes essays back for weeks on end. She also has no control of the classroom.
The fact that this teacher isn't keeping the students responsible probably relates to the reason why synapse doesn't give a shit about his English class.
But yeah, the StarCraft thing is cool too. He just prefaced it with something that some of us considered worthwhile to talk about.
However, it is reverberated in many college professors when they say that when they receive students from high school they have to suffer with teaching them "the basics" because of the entirely inadequate public education system.
What your saying is right, but I think you're conflating the inability to understand literature with the technical inability to write correctly (proper grammar, essay structure, etc.).
The two, while correlated, are not directly linked.
imo the standards of grammar are held too rigidly, and secondly people are not reading enough. If students can be encouraged to really enjoy literature without being pressured to learn the finer points of grammar, they will read more, and their grammar and natural understanding of language will improve alongside it.
Language is ever changing. I don't see why we can figure out your/you're verbally from context but suddenly find ourselves in a titter just because this was written on a blog. People should be allowed to experiment with language. That means everyone, not just the Colombia english alums who produce new york 'art'.
But then again maybe that's why I have such shitty grammar.
However, it is reverberated in many college professors when they say that when they receive students from high school they have to suffer with teaching them "the basics" because of the entirely inadequate public education system.
What your saying is right, but I think you're conflating the inability to understand literature with the technical inability to write correctly (proper grammar, essay structure, etc.).
The two, while correlated, are not directly linked.
However, teachers in high school definitely do not teach us how to write essays properly. Pretty much stick with the 5 paragraph structure until you finish high school. Then, first day of college "yeah forget all that bullshit they tought you. That was just to make it easier to grade".
school was never about learning or getting a good education. if you want a real education, i'd recommend dropping out. the real world is a far better teacher.
nobody really cares if you can properly understand literature (lol whatever that is), or write about it eloquently. nobody. and you dont need to write a ton of papers or read shit to think critically about things either. that is just a lie told to you so you would do your work.
if i were a teacher id probably give out all a's to my students, whether they showed up or not. what does giving them a c or failing them do for anybody? i could guarantee i got more out of classes ive failed than students who got a's in them, so it is obviously not about learning.
its cool you get to write about what you want to. i just wrote a 22 page paper on the prompt ''why do you believe what you believe''. it was the best and easiest thing ive ever written, because i actually got to explore something. fuck writing about what the white whale symbolizes, like i give a fuck.
Can we really say that Paradise Lost is sympathetic to Satan, by virtue that he is given all of the good parts like Blake says, when a common sentiment among 17th century poets was that they needed to get away from this eloquent language, and get away from poetry in order to get closer to God? I mean when we look at Herbert we see him turning away from poetry so that he can get intimate with God, and we can see Marvell turning away from human kind and trying to create some kind of post-human space within his poems, and shouldn't we then look the same way towards Milton-- that this expressive and eloquent language that Satan gets is not so we can look towards him with sympathy or whatever but more that as we begin to cast away language and poetry we get closer and closer to divinity? When Milton wants to end Paradise Lost with a sort of hoping look towards the future, when he returns to regularity in his lines rather than his radical caesura placement or his expressive substitutions, couldn't it be said that he is looking towards a future where we can get away from poetry and away from language so that we can eventually return to this intimate space with God?
The importance of teaching literature in schools is that it helps teach you how to think critically and analytically. A good way to think about literature is that a bridge and a brilliant sonnet are alike in that they are both masterfully constructed and well engineered but different in that a bridge is actually useful to society. You will never be able to rocket into outer space or cure polio with a poem no matter how good it is-- but it gives us something to do until the hearse gets here.
However, it is reverberated in many college professors when they say that when they receive students from high school they have to suffer with teaching them "the basics" because of the entirely inadequate public education system.
What your saying is right, but I think you're conflating the inability to understand literature with the technical inability to write correctly (proper grammar, essay structure, etc.).
The two, while correlated, are not directly linked.
However, teachers in high school definitely do not teach us how to write essays properly. Pretty much stick with the 5 paragraph structure until you finish high school. Then, first day of college "yeah forget all that bullshit they tought you. That was just to make it easier to grade".
ffdestiny, your passive employment of "reverberate" as a verb is awkward if not entirely wrong (and this comes from someone who has no ill will towards the passive construction). What you mean is that college professors iterate and reiterate that students entering higher education from the public education system are often painfully dumb with regards to structuring their arguments and even composing a sentence on mechanical, syntactic, and prosaic levels. The fact that many students drool their way through literary analysis and seem to care so little only exacerbates the problem, but by that point the student is as comfortable receiving a C+ as the professor is in giving it.
The five paragraph essay structure is a function of laziness for the professor as well as the student. The professor, be they at the college or high school level, often loses their hope or interest in their students' brightness after approximately five years and wing their lectures from then on, the lectures being obligations for the prof but institutional foreplay in comparison to the school's publishing demands.
At a high school level, even if you're lucky enough to have a teacher who has even a modicum of investment in literature or poetry, these teachers often realize that a small fraction of their class (if they're lucky) give half a fuck. Because this teacher can't logically fail every student who doesn't care, who can't read, who can't write, and who won't improve, especially if these students are interested in college- or University-level education, the teacher often sighs and gives out ad-hoc decent marks. If they didn't, the teacher's life would get substantially worse (because if all the students fail, it's assumed that the teacher is to blame, and if the teacher comes across like a hard-ass, then the students will check out more than they already have).
Look, guys, literature is fundamentally about what it means to be a fucking human being. For any piece of poetry or any one story, short or novel-length, let alone a whole corpus of both, there are not only the author's intended meanings - responses to environmental and cultural assumptions and conditions themselves formed from other pieces of literature - but there are assumed meanings that figure into situation of the message within that literary work. All literature finds itself at the crossroads of numerous ideological, historical, and theoretical locations, finds itself involved in the politics of representation, finds itself fucking shaping the language by using it, consciously or un-, and the importance of reading literature involves the engagement of modalities beyond your immediate perception and then the understanding of how these new modalities interact with other modalities.
To claim that historical and scientific texts provide the capital-T Truth is extreme positivism, if not outright sophism, and there exist infinitely more spacious accounts outside the deleterious restrictions of historiography (high school e.g. Slaughterhouse-Five) and natural science (high school e.g. Brave New World's invocation of science's general lack of an ethical dimension). Whether or not human perception has differed in over two millennia (like why Francis Bacon characterizes the Earth as a female that must be dominated or how history is composed and subject to human interference) is an argument that itself necessitates the reading and rereading of numerous texts, many of them literature.
Literature is not about learning proper grammar (although a poor grasp of proper grammar, usage, or argumentation is inexcusable in collegiate literary analysis) and is definitely not about manipulating people through stylish, specious arguments (although the more one reads and writes, the better their style and grasp on tone in language gets, but I'm told this is something difficult to teach and learn, especially to someone who doesn't want to read at all). Literature is also definitely, definitely, definitely not about 'appearing smart'; I am almost embarrassed that people think this and that the consequent assumption is that anyone who reads is putting on a facade.
In sum, someone took a horrible yet standard course in World Literature (which is a shame, because nowhere else will one get a better chance to explore the power and complexity of novels and poetry), and the world is worse off for it.
+1 to everything jon arbuckle said. I was lucky to have a school with an amazing English program, we abandoned the stupid Shaffer method by junior year, and those subjects were always my favorite classes.
If my professors did that, I would feel cheated of all the money I paid to go to school.
I'd prefer it to be the hard way, which makes things easier later on.
Edit: Saw you were in high school. Well, good luck having that same privilege in college. And if you so happen to go to a college or have a professor like that, I would suggest transferring or dropping the class ASAP.
On December 21 2010 12:15 sc2lime wrote: I feel like anyone can be that nice but the way I see it is that your teacher isn't doing you a favor by letting you not achieve your full potential to get you ready for further education. The way I see it, she is getting away easy by not doing enough efforts to get you to learn and you ruining your chances of education.
/pessimist
High school isn't education. Literature classes have always been bullshit, I've never learned a thing from them - not even essay writing.
Then you didn't go to a good high school. This is in response to the original post too.
Teenagers love teachers who are pushovers because kids don't actually want to do any work. They don't recognize the importance of getting a good education (and apparently your teacher doesn't care enough about giving a good education); they'd much rather just fool around.
Saying that you're happy that your teacher doesn't actually make you do anything just shows how immature you are. And honestly, I don't blame you; your teacher should be holding you responsible for this material. Students are too young to care.
Surely you have some teachers that properly educate you though? (And hopefully you don't completely despise them for not letting you dick around in class or drop any Fs you guys get on quizzes?)
Quote from Wiki:
The Bergen County Academies (sometimes referred to as Bergen Academy or BCA) is a magnet public high school located in Hackensack that serves the high school population of Bergen County, New Jersey.[2] The school was conceived by the late Dr. John Grieco. The current principal is Russell Davis; Raymond Bath is the Academic Dean; Dr. David Ostfeld is Admissions Chair. [3] The Academy is recognized by U.S. News & World Report as one of the best high schools in the United States.[4] Newsweek considers Bergen County Academies to be an "elite" high school,[5] while Bloomberg Businessweek cites Bergen County Academies as New Jersey's best high school.[6]
I've learned far more in math and the natural sciences through my own reading / studying than my school classes. My history classes have never taught me anything I didn't already know (my dad is a historian, so yeah). As for Lit - I really despise the whole "literary analysis." Maybe if the literature curriculum involved learning to write with style / eloquence rather than reading old classics and answering questions, I would pay a bit of attention. Not that I have anything against reading good books, I just don't see how literary analysis has any part in a non-english-major curriculum.
You quoting an article about the general success of your high school obviously doesn't properly represent the class you're particularly speaking about. (You also just said that your high school is good but you can learn everything better on your own >.>) We're talking about you not having a good English class and a good English teacher. You need one that doesn't let you walk all over her. Or else of course you're not going to take the class seriously and not learn anything.
You're not learning from that class because you're not expected to... because your teacher lets you get away with anything you want.
I am not saying that my high school is "good" by my own standards, but rather by others' perception of high schools in general.
But yes, my current lit teacher indeed does not teach us anything. My point, though, is that literature classes have never taught me anything. What am I supposed to gain through analyzing poetry or reading a book and remembering the plotline? Please, enlighten me.
I think you should print out this quote and come back to look it in about five years and you can laugh at how immature you were
However, it is reverberated in many college professors when they say that when they receive students from high school they have to suffer with teaching them "the basics" because of the entirely inadequate public education system.
What your saying is right, but I think you're conflating the inability to understand literature with the technical inability to write correctly (proper grammar, essay structure, etc.).
The two, while correlated, are not directly linked.
However, teachers in high school definitely do not teach us how to write essays properly. Pretty much stick with the 5 paragraph structure until you finish high school. Then, first day of college "yeah forget all that bullshit they tought you. That was just to make it easier to grade".
ffdestiny, your passive employment of "reverberate" as a verb is awkward if not entirely wrong (and this comes from someone who has no ill will towards the passive construction). What you mean is that college professors iterate and reiterate that students entering higher education from the public education system are often painfully dumb with regards to structuring their arguments and even composing a sentence on mechanical, syntactic, and prosaic levels. The fact that many students drool their way through literary analysis and seem to care so little only exacerbates the problem, but by that point the student is as comfortable receiving a C+ as the professor is in giving it.
The five paragraph essay structure is a function of laziness for the professor as well as the student. The professor, be they at the college or high school level, often loses their hope or interest in their students' brightness after approximately five years and wing their lectures from then on, the lectures being obligations for the prof but institutional foreplay in comparison to the school's publishing demands.
At a high school level, even if you're lucky enough to have a teacher who has even a modicum of investment in literature or poetry, these teachers often realize that a small fraction of their class (if they're lucky) give half a fuck. Because this teacher can't logically fail every student who doesn't care, who can't read, who can't write, and who won't improve, especially if these students are interested in college- or University-level education, the teacher often sighs and gives out ad-hoc decent marks. If they didn't, the teacher's life would get substantially worse (because if all the students fail, it's assumed that the teacher is to blame, and if the teacher comes across like a hard-ass, then the students will check out more than they already have).
Look, guys, literature is fundamentally about what it means to be a fucking human being. For any piece of poetry or any one story, short or novel-length, let alone a whole corpus of both, there are not only the author's intended meanings - responses to environmental and cultural assumptions and conditions themselves formed from other pieces of literature - but there are assumed meanings that figure into situation of the message within that literary work. All literature finds itself at the crossroads of numerous ideological, historical, and theoretical locations, finds itself involved in the politics of representation, finds itself fucking shaping the language by using it, consciously or un-, and the importance of reading literature involves the engagement of modalities beyond your immediate perception and then the understanding of how these new modalities interact with other modalities.
To claim that historical and scientific texts provide the capital-T Truth is extreme positivism, if not outright sophism, and there exist infinitely more spacious accounts outside the deleterious restrictions of historiography (high school e.g. Slaughterhouse-Five) and natural science (high school e.g. Brave New World's invocation of science's general lack of an ethical dimension). Whether or not human perception has differed in over two millennia (like why Francis Bacon characterizes the Earth as a female that must be dominated or how history is composed and subject to human interference) is an argument that itself necessitates the reading and rereading of numerous texts, many of them literature.
Literature is not about learning proper grammar (although a poor grasp of proper grammar, usage, or argumentation is inexcusable in collegiate literary analysis) and is definitely not about manipulating people through stylish, specious arguments (although the more one reads and writes, the better their style and grasp on tone in language gets, but I'm told this is something difficult to teach and learn, especially to someone who doesn't want to read at all). Literature is also definitely, definitely, definitely not about 'appearing smart'; I am almost embarrassed that people think this and that the consequent assumption is that anyone who reads is putting on a facade.
In sum, someone took a horrible yet standard course in World Literature (which is a shame, because nowhere else will one get a better chance to explore the power and complexity of novels and poetry), and the world is worse off for it.
I agree with mostly everything here (well written as well). However, literature is about finding the correct grasp of grammar usage; in fact, read enough Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, or George Eliot, and you'll be inundated with so much remarkable grammar use, you'll never know how to get out of it and go back to the bad habits.
And yes reading does make you smart; in fact, I would go along with your argument about high school and make those damned kids actually invest time into reading and transferring what they learned into words, instead of the obtuse five-paragraph structure.
Also, from the Oxford English Dictionary: reverberate, v. "intr. Of sound: to resound, re-echo. Also fig.: (of reputation, news, etc.) to be much mentioned or repeated; (also) to have consequential effects."
Ex 1. 1872 W. Black Strange Adventures Phaeton xvii. 236 "The roar of the stream reverberating through the woods."
Ex 2. 1958 W. S. Churchill Hist. Eng.-speaking Peoples IV. x. iii. 47 "Cobden and Bright's thundering speeches against the landed classes reverberated through the nation."
On December 21 2010 12:15 sc2lime wrote: I feel like anyone can be that nice but the way I see it is that your teacher isn't doing you a favor by letting you not achieve your full potential to get you ready for further education. The way I see it, she is getting away easy by not doing enough efforts to get you to learn and you ruining your chances of education.
/pessimist
High school isn't education. Literature classes have always been bullshit, I've never learned a thing from them - not even essay writing.
Then you didn't go to a good high school. This is in response to the original post too.
Teenagers love teachers who are pushovers because kids don't actually want to do any work. They don't recognize the importance of getting a good education (and apparently your teacher doesn't care enough about giving a good education); they'd much rather just fool around.
Saying that you're happy that your teacher doesn't actually make you do anything just shows how immature you are. And honestly, I don't blame you; your teacher should be holding you responsible for this material. Students are too young to care.
Surely you have some teachers that properly educate you though? (And hopefully you don't completely despise them for not letting you dick around in class or drop any Fs you guys get on quizzes?)
Quote from Wiki:
The Bergen County Academies (sometimes referred to as Bergen Academy or BCA) is a magnet public high school located in Hackensack that serves the high school population of Bergen County, New Jersey.[2] The school was conceived by the late Dr. John Grieco. The current principal is Russell Davis; Raymond Bath is the Academic Dean; Dr. David Ostfeld is Admissions Chair. [3] The Academy is recognized by U.S. News & World Report as one of the best high schools in the United States.[4] Newsweek considers Bergen County Academies to be an "elite" high school,[5] while Bloomberg Businessweek cites Bergen County Academies as New Jersey's best high school.[6]
I've learned far more in math and the natural sciences through my own reading / studying than my school classes. My history classes have never taught me anything I didn't already know (my dad is a historian, so yeah). As for Lit - I really despise the whole "literary analysis." Maybe if the literature curriculum involved learning to write with style / eloquence rather than reading old classics and answering questions, I would pay a bit of attention. Not that I have anything against reading good books, I just don't see how literary analysis has any part in a non-english-major curriculum.
You quoting an article about the general success of your high school obviously doesn't properly represent the class you're particularly speaking about. (You also just said that your high school is good but you can learn everything better on your own >.>) We're talking about you not having a good English class and a good English teacher. You need one that doesn't let you walk all over her. Or else of course you're not going to take the class seriously and not learn anything.
You're not learning from that class because you're not expected to... because your teacher lets you get away with anything you want.
I am not saying that my high school is "good" by my own standards, but rather by others' perception of high schools in general.
But yes, my current lit teacher indeed does not teach us anything. My point, though, is that literature classes have never taught me anything. What am I supposed to gain through analyzing poetry or reading a book and remembering the plotline? Please, enlighten me.
I think you should print out this quote and come back to look it in about five years and you can laugh at how immature you were
This statement breams with truth.
Knowing that Jake Barnes is impotent doesn't do you any good, but learning how to come to that conclusion on your own is learning to think at a higher level and that will help you immensely in pretty much any endeavor.
Seriously, by the time you've graduated with a 4-year degree (assuming you don't piss away your education), you're not going to believe that you could have ever thought that! :D
On December 21 2010 17:34 jon arbuckle wrote: Never mind, I'm getting involved with this topic.
On December 21 2010 16:20 Comeh wrote:
On December 21 2010 15:59 bbq ftw wrote:
However, it is reverberated in many college professors when they say that when they receive students from high school they have to suffer with teaching them "the basics" because of the entirely inadequate public education system.
What your saying is right, but I think you're conflating the inability to understand literature with the technical inability to write correctly (proper grammar, essay structure, etc.).
The two, while correlated, are not directly linked.
However, teachers in high school definitely do not teach us how to write essays properly. Pretty much stick with the 5 paragraph structure until you finish high school. Then, first day of college "yeah forget all that bullshit they tought you. That was just to make it easier to grade".
ffdestiny, your passive employment of "reverberate" as a verb is awkward if not entirely wrong (and this comes from someone who has no ill will towards the passive construction). What you mean is that college professors iterate and reiterate that students entering higher education from the public education system are often painfully dumb with regards to structuring their arguments and even composing a sentence on mechanical, syntactic, and prosaic levels. The fact that many students drool their way through literary analysis and seem to care so little only exacerbates the problem, but by that point the student is as comfortable receiving a C+ as the professor is in giving it.
The five paragraph essay structure is a function of laziness for the professor as well as the student. The professor, be they at the college or high school level, often loses their hope or interest in their students' brightness after approximately five years and wing their lectures from then on, the lectures being obligations for the prof but institutional foreplay in comparison to the school's publishing demands.
At a high school level, even if you're lucky enough to have a teacher who has even a modicum of investment in literature or poetry, these teachers often realize that a small fraction of their class (if they're lucky) give half a fuck. Because this teacher can't logically fail every student who doesn't care, who can't read, who can't write, and who won't improve, especially if these students are interested in college- or University-level education, the teacher often sighs and gives out ad-hoc decent marks. If they didn't, the teacher's life would get substantially worse (because if all the students fail, it's assumed that the teacher is to blame, and if the teacher comes across like a hard-ass, then the students will check out more than they already have).
Look, guys, literature is fundamentally about what it means to be a fucking human being. For any piece of poetry or any one story, short or novel-length, let alone a whole corpus of both, there are not only the author's intended meanings - responses to environmental and cultural assumptions and conditions themselves formed from other pieces of literature - but there are assumed meanings that figure into situation of the message within that literary work. All literature finds itself at the crossroads of numerous ideological, historical, and theoretical locations, finds itself involved in the politics of representation, finds itself fucking shaping the language by using it, consciously or un-, and the importance of reading literature involves the engagement of modalities beyond your immediate perception and then the understanding of how these new modalities interact with other modalities.
To claim that historical and scientific texts provide the capital-T Truth is extreme positivism, if not outright sophism, and there exist infinitely more spacious accounts outside the deleterious restrictions of historiography (high school e.g. Slaughterhouse-Five) and natural science (high school e.g. Brave New World's invocation of science's general lack of an ethical dimension). Whether or not human perception has differed in over two millennia (like why Francis Bacon characterizes the Earth as a female that must be dominated or how history is composed and subject to human interference) is an argument that itself necessitates the reading and rereading of numerous texts, many of them literature.
Literature is not about learning proper grammar (although a poor grasp of proper grammar, usage, or argumentation is inexcusable in collegiate literary analysis) and is definitely not about manipulating people through stylish, specious arguments (although the more one reads and writes, the better their style and grasp on tone in language gets, but I'm told this is something difficult to teach and learn, especially to someone who doesn't want to read at all). Literature is also definitely, definitely, definitely not about 'appearing smart'; I am almost embarrassed that people think this and that the consequent assumption is that anyone who reads is putting on a facade.
In sum, someone took a horrible yet standard course in World Literature (which is a shame, because nowhere else will one get a better chance to explore the power and complexity of novels and poetry), and the world is worse off for it.
I agree with mostly everything here (well written as well). However, literature is about finding the correct grasp of grammar usage; in fact, read enough Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, or George Eliot, and you'll be inundated with so much remarkable grammar use, you'll never know how to get out of it and go back to the bad habits.
Again, literature will deepen one's grasp of language, and someone who reads and writes more will likely write better. I'm not disputing that, but claiming that "literature is about finding the correct grasp of grammar usage" tends to aid arguments accusing literature of uselessness and irrelevance more than dispute it.
Although prescriptive grammar dawned on the English language before the 19th century, most Victorian authors are addled with commas that by modern grammatical standards interrupt clauses that don't need them. J.L. Austin's plain language philosophy and the advent and application of X-bar theory in formal linguistics has done a lot to redefine how we compose our sentences. Here is as good a place as any to note that synapse used his semicolon properly (which is the only defensible thing synapse said in this topic, I think).
Grammar is always shaped by usage, but if you're a "grammar Nazi," you're a staunch prescriptivist, and you should act like one.
On December 22 2010 00:47 ffdestiny wrote: And yes reading does make you smart; in fact, I would go along with your argument about high school and make those damned kids actually invest time into reading and transferring what they learned into words, instead of the obtuse five-paragraph structure.
Whether or not reading makes one "smart" is open to interpretation - intelligence is situational - but you did not write that "reading makes you smart," you wrote, "it's learning how to be smart, which is the most valuable possession." This is not just smug (and it really is smug) but horrifyingly pretentious. Especially because grammatical familiarity is better fostered by studying linguistics, not literature, and analytical and critical reading from philosophy, not literature. But I do think literature binds these two things into something greater than themselves individually, so that's what I'm sayin'.
Additionally, not everyone who studies literature actually has critical reading skills, analytical skills, grammatical deftness, or maybe even intelligence.
On December 22 2010 00:47 ffdestiny wrote: Also, from the Oxford English Dictionary: reverberate, v. "intr. Of sound: to resound, re-echo. Also fig.: (of reputation, news, etc.) to be much mentioned or repeated; (also) to have consequential effects."
Ex 1. 1872 W. Black Strange Adventures Phaeton xvii. 236 "The roar of the stream reverberating through the woods."
Ex 2. 1958 W. S. Churchill Hist. Eng.-speaking Peoples IV. x. iii. 47 "Cobden and Bright's thundering speeches against the landed classes reverberated through the nation."
I said it was awkward, not wrong, but let's do this. You wrote,
I'm in disagreement with how we "do" high school here in America. We should ultimately make it much more like college and "up" the value of learning over the banality of it. Of course my bitterness is usually eternal.
However, it is reverberated in many college professors when they say that when they receive students from high school they have to suffer with teaching them "the basics" because of the entirely inadequate public education system.
The passive is chiefly awkward because I have to pause to figure out the pronoun's precedent: what is reverberated? how we "do" high school here in America? the banality of high school? your eternal bitterness?
More problems arise when I rewrite this sentence to the active (especially because the active could be one of two things):
*However it is reverberated in many college professors when... = *However NP reverberates NP in many college professors when... *However many college professors reverberate NP when...
Both the examples you provide above (along with the definition itself) use reverberate intransitively, commanding the preposition through for the accompanying prepositional clause (i.e. an object of sound reverberates through a space). You employ the verb transitively, where somebody reverberates something when something happens.
That is not to say that reverberate cannot operate transitively: according to the Oxford English Dictionary, I reverberate something by causing it "to resound or re-echo," but *many college professors reverberate the banality of high school is still sloppy because "the banality of high school" is an object of thought and feeling, not sound. Now, many college professors reverberate my squeals that high school is banal is grammatically correct (but stylistically lame; never type that sentence, for real). Other uses, of reflection or deflection, are chiefly specialized, and don't help you much here.
If you want to add your two cents, like why you quoted the entry for the modern intransitive verb when you, a self-professed grammar Nazi, a real sophisticated braggadocio, used the verb transitively with an incorrect subject referent, I'd be happy to hear you. I haven't had my morning coffee yet.
Wait, wait, wait. Has there been about 6 paragraphs written about the usage of reverberated, which I'm sure was written at a fairly quick pace and with little thought behind it? Come on guys, I think we might be focusing a little too much on word usage now. This is the internet after all.
So, I tend to disagree with jon arbuckle in our stances towards music, postmodernity, and whatnot, but I have to say that he really made everyone else look quite silly here.
On December 22 2010 05:40 Comeh wrote: Wait, wait, wait. Has there been about 6 paragraphs written about the usage of reverberated, which I'm sure was written at a fairly quick pace and with little thought behind it? Come on guys, I think we might be focusing a little too much on word usage now. This is the internet after all.
I wouldn't be busting any balls in this topic if the guy whose balls I'm actively busting didn't spend a lot of time in this topic lordly tooting his horn as a "grammar Nazi." I'm just calling his bluff.
On December 22 2010 06:08 LazyMacro wrote: I loved my economics teacher for similar reasons. I also know nothing about economics.
Here's a tip - just CLAIM that you know something about economics. Then you will be just like everyone else in the world . (then again, after 3 and a half semesters of undergraduate economics, I still don't feel like I have a good knowledge on the subject - but that just goes to show the depth that economics has)
First, this is pragmatics (study of how language is used), not punctuation (which I corrected earlier) and your post is more Nazi than mine in terms of scope. For example, you first say my employment of "to reverberate" is passive and rather weak, then I post a defense explaining it's used transitively and is a much more "passive" style of usage (as in Winston Churchill's that I quoted) then you go on a dissertation about how essentially you identified it is used as a transitive, thus proving my point from the OED definition originally.
Excuse me, but my original post was a mere remark on the semicolon usage and an explanation/apology later on; the "grammar-Nazi" remark was a bit of sarcasm, as you can attest to yourself I am sure.
Let me go through your response just to prove I am up to par at analyzing as correctly and powerfully as you can:
(The boded words are problematic to your sentence structure and (possibly) make them weaker in terms of intention and delivery. NP = noun phrase, VP = verb phrase, etc.)
Again, literature will deepen one's grasp of language, and someonewho reads and writes more will likely write better. I'm not disputing that, but claiming that "literature is about finding the correct grasp of grammar usage" tends to aid arguments accusing literature of uselessness and irrelevance more than dispute it.
To deepen means essentially to intensify, thus your employment of "will deepen" is awkward here because how can (logically) this sentence work, when literally defined:
Again (however etc.) Subject = literature + Verb = "will be intensifying in the future" plus the prepositional phrase "of language", which is highly incoherent if you ask me because of the inconsistency of the agreement to the verb; it is indeed correct to say, just like my little nod to "reverberate" but if we are getting banal here, I would recommend you use a stronger, more concise sentence structure to exemplify what you really want to say—to rewrite your sentence more concisely, try:
An individual who reads and writes develops skills in language.
Simply put, Subject + (as you wanted to say, but made it unclear, it is an individual who reads and writes to develop themselves, for example) + Verb = to develop (I think this verb fits exceptionally well, considering you are essentially speaking to an individual's ability to develop language skills.) Add onto this, the Object = "language" so essentially, VP = to develop skills in language, with the added preposition "in".
Other problems I noticed in the opening diatribe of your message that is bolded above for reference:
The use of "someone" implies a generality, which in the scope of pragmatics means essentially nothing, it is (at best) an empty word. I steer away from the usage (although it crops up for me all the time), and opt for a more interpersonal employment of "an individual" meaning, the person sitting and reading the screen is not a "someone" but THE "someone" who I am referring.
The usage of "but claiming" is wrong, at least in tense. You either claim, claimed or will claim, since you have employed a "weaker" form of the future tense by the usage of "claiming". I would rewrite it to say "but I claim" to employ the correct tense, meaning the present (as in, you are sitting there writing the post at that time to make a claim).
Another problem, "tends to aid" here you employed a rather confusing VP of (literal meaning) "tending/inclination/possibilities" of "to aid" does that sound well thought out? I believe it is not fully realized. Instead, I would correct that by saying "to help" the argument, you did want to say that it "helps" the argument instead of "tends to aid".
You end with a drawn out prepositional phrase of "uselessness and irrelevance more than dispute it" which obviously is hard to understand given the mere syllabic content of the big words "uselessness" and "irrelevance". For all I know you inserted those words in there to sound a bit more heavy-handed with your knowledge. Obviously that is fine, but it would make more sense (at least pragmatically) to omit the long prepositional, as you essentially said the argument that you are trying to make in the first two sentences of your opening line.
Let me rewrite that opening passage to be more concise:
An individual who reads and writes develops skills in language. This helps them argue effectively against those who find literature useless.
These are a few tips that I can spare for this moment. I likely will not comment on this post again, given the lengths we all have been through. I actually enjoyed your posts Jon, they were very helpful. When one gets to view themselves outside of their sphere, it is ever more encouraging to find possible faults.
This post (my post, right here) is minor quibbling, and I'm somewhat sad that I spent what looks like thirty minutes writing it.
On December 22 2010 09:54 ffdestiny wrote: First, this is pragmatics (study of how language is used), not punctuation (which I corrected earlier) and your post is more Nazi than mine in terms of scope.
I don't really consider myself a grammar Nazi, though. I'm just picking at you because, again, if you're going to say you're a grammar Nazi, then at least be a good one (i.e. "act like one"), and because criticizing someone's writing style (even a ghastly style riddled with grade school errors, like "their" for "there" or something) to expose flaws in their argument is generally somewhere between red herring and ad hominem. Just a poor rhetorical strategy.
i.e., If the only thing one can say about an argument is that it's written poorly, then one implies that the reasoning and thought belying the argument is sound.
On December 22 2010 09:54 ffdestiny wrote: For example, you first say my employment of "to reverberate" is passive and rather weak, then I post a defense explaining it's used transitively and is a much more "passive" style of usage (as in Winston Churchill's that I quoted) then you go on a dissertation about how essentially you identified it is used as a transitive, thus proving my point from the OED definition originally.
I mean passive in terms of the passive construction, where the subject and object positions are flipped using (to be) + (participle), e.g.
I misread the dictionary. = The dictionary is misread by me. The dictionary is misread. The dictionary was misread by me. The dictionary was misread..
Whether the passive voice makes a sentence weaker is open for debate, but if used improperly, it can obfuscate an otherwise simple sentence.
Additionally, your quoted OED definition in your previous post is for the intransitive:
Also, from the Oxford English Dictionary: reverberate, v. "intr. Of sound: to resound, re-echo. Also fig.: (of reputation, news, etc.) to be much mentioned or repeated; (also) to have consequential effects."
Both the examples listed involve intransitive use as well - the roar of the stream does not reverberate something, it merely reverberates. But your usage was transitive.
On December 22 2010 09:54 ffdestiny wrote: (The boded words are problematic to your sentence structure and (possibly) make them weaker in terms of intention and delivery. NP = noun phrase, VP = verb phrase, etc.)
Again, literature will deepen one's grasp of language, and someonewho reads and writes more will likely write better. I'm not disputing that, but claiming that "literature is about finding the correct grasp of grammar usage" tends to aid arguments accusing literature of uselessness and irrelevance more than dispute it.
The remainder of your post confuses grammatical error for personal stylistic bias and goes so loony with the "pragmatism" that you boil down and distort the paragraph to mean something other than what it means. Whatever I meant with this paragraph, I certainly did not mean
An individual who reads and writes develops skills in language. This helps them argue effectively against those who find literature useless.
Pragmatism does not mean unsubtle and drab. I mean, come on.
On December 22 2010 09:54 ffdestiny wrote: the prepositional phrase "of language", which is highly incoherent if you ask me because of the inconsistency of the agreement to the verb
"Of language" is the objective genitive of the NP, not a prepositional phrase.
On December 22 2010 09:54 ffdestiny wrote: The usage of "but claiming" is wrong, at least in tense. You either claim, claimed or will claim, since you have employed a "weaker" form of the future tense by the usage of "claiming". I would rewrite it to say "but I claim" to employ the correct tense, meaning the present (as in, you are sitting there writing the post at that time to make a claim).
It's a gerund: "but claiming... tends to aid..."
On December 22 2010 09:54 ffdestiny wrote: The use of "someone" implies a generality, which in the scope of pragmatics means essentially nothing, it is (at best) an empty word. I steer away from the usage (although it crops up for me all the time), and opt for a more interpersonal employment of "an individual" meaning, the person sitting and reading the screen is not a "someone" but THE "someone" who I am referring.
Yes, it's a generality, but I was making a general argument on TeamLiquid in the blog of a twelfth grade student writing a paper for his class about Starcraft. I was not referring to a particular, individual "someone." Even if there is something wrong with "someone" in academic writing, this is still a style issue; there isn't anything wrong with "someone" in academic writing, so it's essentially your personal bias.
I mean, it seems you looked as hard as possible for faults in my writing and went to town on our aesthetic differences (or preferences), and somehow you did miss an actual grammatical error: claiming that "literature is about finding the correct grasp of grammar usage" tends to aidargumentsaccusing literature of uselessness and irrelevance more than disputeit. That's an agreement error. As for your pragmatism, de gustibus non est disputandum.
Just please don't be smug about your grammar. Please.
EPT![[image loading]](http://www.helloliefje.com/wp-content/uploads/starcraft-stadium-kr.gif)
It's frickin hilarious lol 
.
. (then again, after 3 and a half semesters of undergraduate economics, I still don't feel like I have a good knowledge on the subject - but that just goes to show the depth that economics has)
