Nouns have jobs.

It is very characteristic of my students to mix up the parts of speech of words, oral and written.  For example, did you know "foresight" is a preposition? As in, "I got some banging popcorn foresight the movie with my girls on Saturday."

Or, did you know "blonde" can be not only an adjective or noun, but also a verb? As in, "Miss Jaaaalensiis did you blonde your hair more? Like you know, add more gold paint?" 

The fact that there is so much confusion with parts of speech in every day conversation makes me apprehensive to begin this week's lesson on identifying the jobs of nouns in a sentence.  If getting my students to formulate oral sentences properly is this hard, I can only imagine getting them to diagram written sentences is going to be like pulling teeth.  Any ideas on how to sufficiently explain to an eleven year old who thought the word "vegetable" was a verb that nouns are more than just "people, places, or things," and are actually subjects, complements, and objects of prepositions? 

Suggestions welcome!  

Gotta love the Glitz and Grammar of teaching middle school, right?  ;)

It's OK...

It's OK...

... to have every intention of waking up extra early to workout, yet still set a second alarm knowing that you will never actually wake up at 5:00 AM before a full day of school. 

... to always grab two plastic forks when you go out to eat. You know... so just in case you drop your fork while eating your Chipotle salad, you don't have to get up.  

... to lay your clothes out the night before like you used to do in grade school. Hey, before the sunrise I'll take any shortcut I can get! 

... to cheer for the Terps from the couch.  Wish I could have been at the game last night, but screaming at the television set had to suffice. The players could probably hear me anyway, though.  #beatDUKE

... to unsecure (<--is that a word?) your tweets right before tweeting at a celebrity in hopes they retweet you. 

... to be unsure of a negative prefix for "secure." De-secure? Make un-private? Unlock?  Remove security? This is going to bug me.  

... if "retweet" is considered a word, I deem "unsecure" acceptable as well. 

... speaking of prefixes, it is totally OK to be over the moon ecstatic when, in the middle of a vocabulary lesson about affixes, a student discovers, "Hey, Ms. Y, I just can't believe prefix has a prefix! How weird is that." 

Just love it when my students pay attention to the lesson! 

Word of the Day Wednesday: Ridiculous

Ridiculous [ri-dik-yuh-luhs] -adj.:

causing or worth of ridicule or derision; absurd; preposterous; laughable.

Happy Wednesday, loves. Today the school teacher in me is coming out once again, this time in spelling bee form. Grammar mistakes are easy to make, and spelling errors are just as common.  However, with today's technology it is very simple to correct spelling errors: highlight the word underlined with a red squiggly line, click, and modify. Easy, right? Then WHY oh WHY am I STILL seeing the word "ridiculous" spelled with an "e"??? Am I among a miniscule population that actually spell checks?!


Then again, maybe technology is to blame. I am confident that the auto-correct generation (ahem, my sixth graders) have fallen behind in spelling because of the technology they were raised on that mindlessly corrects errors.  With that being said, I will forgive the handwritten misspelling of "ridiculous," but for those of you who frequently use the word in tweets and status updates, please remember to use your spell check. Or even better, remember that "I" am rIdiculous, and just learn the spelling.


If you are one of the many who commonly misspells this adjective, please do not take offense. Look at this post as a  friendly reminder that I am a crazy person a little spell check goes a long way.


Now that my rant is over (I promised my sister I would lay off correcting people's grammar mistakes, a resolution I will attempt after this post) I am going to pack my bags and leave for Atlantic City for the night!
I'll be back on Friday with a recap of the night's ridiculous events.
;]

Hollywood Glitz n Grammar

Today marked my first day of a year-long internship, Student Teaching in a 6th grade classroom at Hollywood Elementary School.  

Right now it is close to 6:00 PM and I am ready for bed.

I was up before the Sun this morning, and remembered during my half-asleep shower (I nearly drowned) that I didn't iron the dress I wanted to wear for my first day of school.  I had two options: take the time to iron the dress or choose another outfit. I loathe ironing. If I could eliminate one chore from the rest of my life, ironing would be it. The dress I planned to wear was purchased in Barcelona with this precise day in mind; it was a short sleeved, two toned dress - white from the waist up, khaki from the waist down - with a pencil skirt form that hit at just the right spot above my knees. Decently conservative, yet highly fashionable. The perfect dress for a Student Teacher.  


Obviously, I couldn't choose another outfit. I bit the bullet and plugged in our cheap no-name iron and unfolded the miniature ironing board kept in the depths of our laundry cove. 15 minutes and a mildly sweaty brow later, I came close to a victory and ironed out most of the wrinkles. 

Completely dressed, although only partially blow-dried (unforeseen ironing took precious time away from hair-doing), I got in my car to drive the 7 minutes to school. And then I spilled my coffee onto my freshly pressed skirt. 

I remained surprisingly calm and walked into the school with poise and coffee-stained confidence.

Soon enough I was making introductions to 40, that's right, FORTY, sixth graders, half of whom were taller than me. Quite a shift from my small summer class of 18 six-year-olds. 

I'm going to need a Mega-Phone for the other side of the room to hear me. 

Despite my stressful morning, and despite the initial terror that ran through my veins at first sight of the 5'10" eleven-year-old approaching me at 7:35 AM, I was very impressed and pleased with my first day. 

My Desk! Along with the cute teachery gifts my mentor gave me! 

The students were surprisingly well-behaved for sitting in the same seat for 5 out of the 6 and a half hours of the school day while their teacher preached to them rules and expectations and they organized their desks. 

I think my favorite part about 6th grade is going to be the English curriculum (duh). I am so excited for the novels we get to read, and a grammar lesson is required by the county each and every day. Woooo! 

Ms. D (my mentor): "These are your grammar journals. Who can remind me what grammar is?"

Lil' Diva: "It's when you make corrections because you make lotsa mistakes."

Big Guy: "You know like periods and commas and question marks and stuff."

Boyyyy I can't wait to get my hands on these grammar books.  

All in all, it was a great first day. My head may still be aching a little too loudly, my feet may be blistered, and my eyes may be ready to shut, but I am still excited to see what Day 2 of Student Teaching has to bring. I know I'm going to fall in love with these kids.

Bring on the Glitz & Grammar, Hollywood ES! 

Today I helped some CYC summer campers water the garden. We noticed one of our first crops popped up - about 3 teeny-tiny green tomatoes. 

Me: "Do you think these tomatoes are ready to eat?"

Missy: "Ha-ha! Ms. Alensis you're silly... tomatoes don't eat!!"

Touche, little one. 

Thank you, Commons Maintenance.

The South Campus Commons maintenance staff is terrific.  Whenever a resident of SCC needs a repair, the resident simply fills out a maintenance request online and a staff member is (usually) knocking at the door within the next 24-48 hours.  (I learned that if it is an imperative repair, note on the request form that it is a "health risk" for a repairman to be at the door in less than 24 hours. For example, a shot glass falls down the garbage disposal creating a scary monster sound echoing from the depths of the sink every time you try to get rid of some food particles? Health risk. Who knows what sharp, lethal, shards of glass could shoot up and puncture your eyeball at any given minute?!)

Have I ever mentioned that Katlyn and I are residents of the handicapped side of the apartment? Our handicap- accessible shower has no bath, and is virtually an extension of the grimy linoleum floors with an extra drain and a transitional shower head. Imagine the fun adventures we have cleaning. When we came back from our short summer break, I noticed some mold growing where the bathroom floor meets the "shower" floor. HEALTH RISK!!!!!

Needless to say, Maintenance responded to our request for our condition to be taken care of within hours. The repairman left this note on the comment section of the Work Order:

"Clean it off and paint it." It was accompanied by a strange, large, pretentious-looking smiley face. 

Excuse the poor cell-phone quality photo. My camera cord is M.I.A.

Katlyn and I debated the seriousness of this comment. It is hard to decipher whether or not smiley-face-accompanied penmanship is sarcasm or not. Was he telling us to get off our Commons high-horse and take care of it ourselves as any other apartment leaser would do? As if. 

No, no, this was yet another example of how poor grammar can go terribly wrong.  When we checked the bathroom situation, we noticed the floor was cleaned, and painted. Simple case of a verb-tense mix-up.  Silly repairman forgot how to use the past tense, apparently. He almost fooled us into thinking he wanted the floor cleaned and painted in the FUTURE. Phew. And to think I almost got really upset with our lovely SCC maintenance team. 

As much as I hate a grammar mishap, I'd hate to clean black bathroom mold even more. 

A Grammatically Incorrect Hallmark Holiday.

I'm confused.  Today is the day we are supposed to celebrate our Dads and all the hard work, love and inspiration they instill in us.  It's a day we grill outside and heighten Hallmark sales. But we are supposed to be celebrating all dads, right? Not just one? 

All the cards I pick up, all the tweets I read, all the annoying "to the best Father in the entire world!" Facebook statuses say "Happy Father's Day." (If I'm being honest, most Facebook statuses eliminate the use of apostrophe altogether.) Sure, you're celebrating YOUR dad, but the day is dedicated to all 700,000,000 of them. My point? ... Shouldn't the greeting cards say "Happy Fathers' Day" to imply that the day belongs to more than one father? Maybe it would be more correct to eliminate the apostrophe and therefore any possession, so that the day is just labeled and not owned?

Options as I see them:
"Happy Fathers Day" = Happy day named for the plural form of Dad
"Happy Father's Day = Happy day that is yours only, Dad.
"Happy Fathers' Day" = Happy day that belongs to all the dads in the world. 

Maybe I'm wrong, but I don't really think so.  In order to make all fathers possessive of this third Sunday in June, the apostrophe should be after the 's' not before. Maybe I'll just avoid the phrase altogether and avert the possibility of incorrect grammar. 

I hope everyone enjoys today, whether you are celebrating it singularly or plurally. 

Happy Day, Dad! xoxoxox