Week 6 Blog Post: Joshua Zaborowski

When reading Delpit it really opened my eyes up to a whole new world. It showed me the negative stereotype that “ghetto” and “Ebonic” language dialects receive. What I enjoyed most about this article was the fact that Lisa Delpit didn’t just complain about the situation, but instead explored what was causing this problem and how to fix it. The example I found intriguing was the one concerning her daughter Maya. Delpit didn’t realize the seriousness of this issue until it was in her own household, this isn’t saying that her daughter had a problem or anything it was just the start of her research. Throughout reading this article I found it eye opening concerning the correlation between a child’s native tongue and their self-esteem. I had never seem to noticed that the children I went to school with that had the least self-esteem were indeed the ones who had speech problems or spoke a different dialect of English. This being said I was encouraged as a future teacher to make this problem go away. It was refreshing to see somebody take initiative and find a way for students and children to incorporate their home language into the English language. Culture is a very important aspect in life for people and being able to combine that along with learning will allow for a better success rate. All we future teachers have to do is make it fun, flexible and welcoming. If we can succeed at this then we will be onto a better and brighter future not only for education, but culture and youth’s self-esteem.

For this blog’s revisions instead of re-writing out the whole paragraph above, I am going to be picking a sentence then switching into one of our sentence patterns of the week. This way it is much easier to follow my changes and for reading purposes as well. The first revision I believe that could be made from my original response is as followed: “What I enjoyed most about this article was the fact that Lisa Delpit didn’t just complain about the situation, but instead explored what was causing this problem and how to fix it” could be changed to I enjoyed that this article was a problem to resolution piece of writing. [Changing a long sentence into a much shorter one] Another revision I believe that would suit well for this week’s sentence patterns would be to emphasize the word “culture,” so to do this I made the following change:”… their home language into the English language. Culture is a very important aspect in life…” changed into their home language into the English language. Culture. A very important aspect in life. [Incorporating one word sentences] This allows for the word I want to emphasize stand out a great deal more. A pattern I could include without changing anything could be the sentence: Maya learned a new dialect. [Simple sentence] This would be good to include when I bring up Maya in my original response because it includes a little more information, but doesn’t go off topic. The next revision I would like to make for the response up above is changing the third sentence into a compound sentence, and here is how it would be done. I enjoyed reading about the articles problem, but also the solution to fixing the problem. [Compound sentence] For this revision I took out some words and added a few to make it a compound sentence; this adds some sentence variety and allows me to work on the patterns of the week. These were the 4 main sentence patterns I wanted to concentrate on because they were the ones I included the least in my response or didn’t include at all. When looking through my original response I didn’t add any more long sentences or complex sentences because they occur a few times throughout. Overall, for this post I wanted to concentrate on the patterns I don’t use to often and in addition I found it difficult to include some of these patterns when revising my own work. The reason being is because when I read over my own work it sounds perfectly okay in my head, but when I read it out loud I can see the areas in which these patterns would make sense to insert into. 

Week 5 Blog Post

In this week 5 blog post, I will be concentrating on mostly just two of the patterns of the week. The main two in which I will be practicing the most is using [Complex Sentences with the dependent clause coming after] and [Use of a repeated word, phrase, clause or sentence for emphasis or stylistic effect] I will still however, be touching a little on patter one; [Complex sentence, but with the dependent clause occurring first] The reason being is because I noticed in my writing I usually have the depending clause occur first, so I would like to work on it coming second (add more different types of flow to my writing). The first pattern I will be playing around with is pattern number three. For this pattern I am using lyrics from a popular song currently; Dark Horse by Katy Perry featuring Juicy J, the lyrics are as followed: “This love will make you levitate, like a bird, like a bird without a cage…If you choose to walk away, don’t walk away.” [Use of a repeated word, phrase, clause or sentence for emphasis or stylistic effect] In this example Katy Perry uses a repetition of two phrases; both “like a bird” and “walk away” to cause emphasis on her message for which is stating. She doesn’t want the man she is talking about or too, to walk away and to stay with her. This is a great example of repetition and how it can be effectively used. The next pattern I would like to focus on is pattern number one.         For this example I have a sentence that is from Shakespeare class last semester. After she found out the truth, she decided to take her own life away. [Complex sentence, but with the dependent clause occurring first] The reason this sentence has the dependent clause coming first is because the word “After” is the clause coming first, and in the independent clause is the second part of the sentence and it’s a sentence that doesn’t need any support to be an actual sentence by itself. Moving onto the final pattern for the week; this pattern I want to include more in my writing. Keegan got suspended from school, after he got in a fight with the two kids on the playground.   [Complex Sentences with the dependent clause coming after] This is a sentence I took from a writing prompt in class from English 302 last semester. The reason I want to include this pattern more often in my writing is because I never put the dependent clause “after,” I am always using pattern number one. This pattern included more evenly with pattern number one allows for my writing to my diverse and create different flow patterns.  

Week #4 Blog Post: Joshua Zaborowski

For this week’s blog post I would like to practice and use all three of the patterns for the week. The reason which I am doing this is; is because my writing could use all of the patterns possible to make it more unique and intriguing to read. I would ultimately like to focus on the rhetorical fragment pattern due to the fact that it could put more tone or emphasis in vital sentences throughout my writings. To start off, I would like to work with the pattern of “compound sentence(s).” The example I am presenting is a sentence I just recently used for my English 339 class. Mookie kept running his mouth, and it caused him to get beat up. [Compound sentence joined with a comma+FANBOYS/Coordinating Conjunction]. To me when I wrote this sentence I didn’t even think twice about it even having a rule or pattern that it followed. However, after going over compound sentences in class it slowly makes me realize that compound sentences are a huge part of my writing; just like the sentence above. The next pattern I would like to address is using a rhetorical fragment. Now since I never really use this type of pattern in my writing I looked an example up online to analyze. I wish you would apologize for breaking my heart. Yet you never will. [Rhetorical Fragment] This example matches the example that was given in our directions; however the only difference is that in this example it is talking about another person as well, not just the speaker itself. Lastly, I would to practice using the “objective-case pronoun.” Just as the last pattern I talked about, I never have used this type of writing that much either. So instead of looking one up this time, I actually wanted to practice it and make one of my own. For this pattern I made up the following example: You want to go to the dance with whom? Or it could be reworded like this; whom would you like to go to the dance with? [Whom used in the object slot] This I believe is a good pattern to include into my writing because it adds a different writing style for my sentences. Now that I have covered the writing patterns for the week; I would now like to address my “Daily Oral Language” exercise example. My exercise was to “Conduct a sentence dictation activity.” A good example to introduce this to the class I believe would be too use a Shakespeare quote because the example from the packet states “Slowly read a sentence written by a published writer to students- then student write down what they hear and attempt to punctuate the sentence...” The quote I would use is “Where art thou now” because it’s a sentence in which students would analyze and have different opinions about. I believe a good gateway for understanding this concept.   

In this blogging post I will be addressing Patterns number 2 and 3: A list without the final "and" OR a list with all "ands" and no commas and use of the reflexive pronoun to refer to someone/something else in the sentence or to show emphasis. The reason in which I want to work on these patterns for the week is because for one I have never really used pattern 3 in my writing at all and it will give it a new technique to spice it up and make it better. Secondly, I’ve never formally used pattern number 2 correctly in my writing. I believe working with these patterns it will give my writing much more depth and seem more professional.

Starting with pattern number 2 here is a sentence that I have taken from English 339 class this semester: The boy was nothing more than a loser, coward, thief and most of all a disgrace to his family. [A list without the final “and” OR a list with all “ands” and no commas] Now this sentence when I was writing didn’t even cross my mind of how it could be written differently because it had been the only way in which I wrote lists. However, now looking back on it here are the two other ways to write it: The boy was nothing more than a loser and a coward and a thief and most of all a disgrace to his family. [A list without the final “and” OR a list with all “ands” and no commas] Or I could have done all commas instead of the “Ands” approach. I believe that in using these two different styles of making lists it will allow for my lists to have more emphasis and meaning because it will stand out to the audience more.

Next with pattern number 3 I took a sentence away from my Teaching and Learning 301 last semester and picked it apart. It is as followed: I see me as being a good role model for my students. [Use of the reflexive pronoun to refer to someone/something else in the sentence or to show emphasis] When the sentence should be structured as the following: I see myself as being a good role model for students. [Use of the reflexive pronoun to refer to someone/something else in the sentence or to show emphasis] After knowing how reflexive pronouns work, it has made my grammar in my writing technically correct. Learning this in class has helped a ton because now my writing can take a step in the direction to becoming even better.