Class today: January 15th

Application day!!
As requested (maybe not directly), today we are going to put your new-found grammatical knowledge to use..  Yes, you can define grammatical terms... Yes, you can diagram the earliest basic structures.. But as you all know, these skills are all on the lowest rung of Bloom's Taxonomy. Yes?
Whereas you must be able to do these skills first, we are now going to move into the WHY??? (This is what you are all starving for in grammar education).

This is going to be challenging, so be open minded and just try!
Take a lot of notes about your ideas and questions!

Therefore, we are going to be examining two of the major purposes for wanting and possessing excellent grammatical skills. This is the WHY?!
1. Writing expression
2. Reading comprehension

You will be reading the following article by Montserrat Dominguez.
1. Read it once completely.
2. Now you will be doing, solely, a "sentence diagramming" read. In this read, I want you to be looking for the "main line" of meaning. This means, in each sentence, ask yourself: where is the subject? where is the predicate? is there an object? is this a transitive verb or an intransitive verb?
3. Once you have figured out the "main line" of meaning in the sentence (in compound sentences, this will be the independent clause).  Is there a subordinate clause before or after the "main line"/independent clause? How is it working?? Is it giving more information about the subject or the predicate??? (Adverbial or Adjectival?)
4. After reading paragraph 1 in this manner, stop and reflect. Ask yourself the questions: How did her style of writing and placement of these components enhance/detract from her purpose? (Now, keep in mind, she is a professional writer.. she has command over grammatical structure.. therefore, she will be purposefully considering the "vehicle" that carries her ideas. Don't jump to it is more difficult because it is beyond just the basic sentence structure)  Really think about the syntax structure.
5. Now, reread paragraph 1 AGAIN. This time you will be doing a "reading comprehension" reading. With this read you are going to need to balance your recognition of the grammatical purpose of the word with the meaning of the word/group of words. Pause slightly after each sentence and think about how this structure informs your understanding. How does finding the "main line" help you comprehend the meaning of the writing.
5. On a piece of paper, write "paragraph 1" and reflect upon your findings. I am not going to micromanage your writing by asking you specific guiding questions to respond to in your reflection. Just do a thorough reflection of both types of readings and your results.

On to paragraph 2...  and so on... make sure you read the "postscripts" in your initial read, but you do not need to include them in your analysis.

"How Can We Not be Afraid" article