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Going Comma Crazy
Put nine people, averaging 44.5 years of age, together in a room for three consecutive days from 8am until 3pm. Shut the door and force them to read hundreds of essays written by sixth, seventh and eighth graders. And these nine can find a way to find humor in the situation. It could only be a group of English and reading teachers. Only they could smile and enjoy the situation and manage to emerge unscarred for life.
That's the situation the past few days over at the Plattsburgh City School District's central office where six women and three lucky men have been scoring New York State's English Language Arts annual tests. I was grateful to be invited back to work with my former colleagues from Stafford Middle School. Eight dedicated teachers and Foxy Gagnon, dedicated to a new life of retirement.
After all, these are people who have been practicing most of their lives for this type of activity. These are the people who stay up late at night, long past Letterman's Top Ten List, to continue reading an exciting novel. These are the people who have been spending much of their Sundays surrounded by student compositions, binders and journals.
And just what do we nine find so humorous? Oh, maybe the discussion of the Ferrara Pan Atomic Fireballs that both Michelle and I brought. Or, perhaps the discussion of video vixens from the MTV videos of the Eighties. Or maybe even some of the creative sentences that students can come up with to satisfy the state's desire to know just where every child falls on the important categories of reading, listening and handling the mechanics of writing.
But our time together wasn't without its more serious moments, especially when I became upset over the philosphy of the state when it comes to the use of the comma on the seventh grade test. The scoring manual states, "The comma before a conjunction that links two or more independent clauses is optional."
Optional? Since when? Says who? Are the ELA gurus in the State Education Department in Albany taking it upon themselves to implement changes in long-accepted writing practices? Is the comma now optional in New York, but required in Vermont? And consider that in the eighth grade scoring guide, no such declaration occurs, thus rendering their irrational decisions concerning commas in effect only for seventh graders.
One of my colleagues remarked, "The No-Child-Left-Behind program is leaving grammar and punctuation rules behind."
When I continued to rant about this travesty and threatened to write a blog about it, Kate, our scoring leader, said, "Let your blog be your outlet and be quiet!" I think it was said tongue in cheek. Her quip drew more laughter from my colleagues, who are obviously thrilled to be working with me again.
And what about spelling? According to the state, sometimes it counts and sometimes it doesn't. And if the spelling errors are repetitive it's okay and understandable and should not bring extra penalty to the student. One teacher remarked about the future, "Will we really need to know how to spell?"
In a world filled with text messages, instant messages and chatrooms, correct spelling is looked down upon. When I first began IMing, I was ridiculed by fellow chatters because I didn't use computerese. I always would write in complete sentences with correct punctuation, capitalization and spelling. You never would catch me trying to lol, brb or bbl.
All ELA teachers today face a tough challenge in teaching standard English writing skills to students who are growing up in an informal English world.
So there we sit for three straight days, English teachers Kate, Marjorie, Nancy, Michelle, Karen and Andy and reading teachers Judy and Scott, along with a retired guy in a little curly ponytail. And amidst the seriousness of assigning number values to a student essay, we manage to find moments of humor. We manage to leave with smiles on our faces.
But three days, 21 hours, is enough! My eight colleagues can't wait to get back to their students. And they can't wait to remind them that every comma has a place, except for certain grades upon certain occasions. In a world with all kinds of teenage pressures, we need to rescue our young from the uncertainty of the world of commas before they go comma crazy.
Comments
Do kids diagram sentences in English classes anymore??
(Foxy's note: Welcome back, Scott! In a nutshell, NO. Even as far back as the mid-1970s, English teachers stopped teaching many traditional skills. I kept teaching writing rules and punctuation until my very last day in 2005. Alas, students of today do not know how to diagram a sentence. I bet you can, though, Scott!)
Posted by: Scott Dosztan "SMB" | February 15, 2007 9:40 AM
OMG, I can't blv the nurve of today's education sistom. This, behavior, would have not been, tolerated when I went to skool. I am just thankful, I had teechers like Foxy, and Mr. Z.
ROFLMAO!!!!!
Posted by: Kern | February 9, 2007 7:33 PM