In the continuing saga of "what weird things did ps teach my children in the name of 'balanced literacy'?", ds told me today that his teacher gave him a great tip: it's ok to read 'do not' as 'don't.' *facepalm* In case you are confused WHY I am taking issue... dd was reading a Dr. Suess book. The page read: "Do not drop the mop in glop!" Sure.. you could read 'don't' in this book... but the implications for more mature poetry... ACK. Getting plot/settings/character stuff is great, but if you lose the voice of the author, then you certainly don't get the full affect of what was written. Here's an example using the lovely poem by M. Frye: "Do not stand at my grave and weep, I am not there, I do not sleep..." With the perfectly acceptable contraction method ds learned: "Don't stand at my grave and weep, I'm not there, I don't sleep..." We're going to work on some nonsense syllables to start his school year, I think. He reads well, honestly, but I SO wish I would have taught him reading myself. Dd is doing well, but summer vaca has set her back to a bit of guessing. Same book, the word is "tin", which she sounds out. Then she says to me earnestly, "can I just say cookie sheet?"
Totally agree with you, Meghan. The laid-back attitude most ps have towards literature etc is one of the reasons I'm starting HS this year. Had to laugh at the way you changed that poem from "do not" to "don't"...it makes such a difference...but I'm wondering if those same teachers would be able to tell the difference. On a side note, watched the movie "True Grit", in which no one says "don't or won't" or anything like that. No abbreviations at all, they all said "I do not" and " I can not"...was quite amusing, that sort of language
But what's really sad is that the teachers saying this don't get it! I have a dear friend, former ps teacher, taught first grade for umpteen years, who sees many flaws in the system, can't go back. But she told me that if my sons "substitute" comparable words when learning to read, it's okay because it shows that he's "getting the idea." Um, no. It's not. *I* tell my boys that they can choose the words they think are best when they are the authors. In the meantime, if they are reading something someone else has written, they may not change the words. Changing words changes the meaning and the intent of the content. <sigh>
COMPLETELY agree with you. "Do not stand near my decomposing body and cry. I am absent from the situation, I am not enjoying REM in a recumbent state." Kind of a fun exercise Maybe I'll see how many other poems I can completely mangle by using the 'close enough to understand' method...
LOLOLOLOLOLOLOL my decomposing body...hahaha...and cry instead of weep.. That was awesome! Gosh, really if u put it like that, imagine what the world of literature would look like! Hahahaha That was funny
LOL Funny thread!! I took a class in college on how to teach kids how to read. It was a looong time ago. Anyway, they taught us to teach in the manner you are describing. I don't know how it is practiced in schools today, but it was my understanding that substituting one word for another based on meaning was okay for beginning readers because meaning is the most important thing in reading. As skills progress the substitutions should go away. While I wouldn't correct don't for do not in a beginning reader I wouldn't let my child substitute cookie sheet for tin:lol::lol:
Meghan - the literary aspects you are getting at there are referred to as assonance (the literary repetition/rhyme of a middle vowel sounds of words) and elements of anaphora (repetition of the beginning words of a phrase/line) and epistrophe (repetition of the end words of phrase/line) and of course the overall tone of the piece. This results, in my opinion at least, and a type of hiding of information from the student. I see this in many different ways from my college students, from when to use a comma up through vocabulary, and it is a type of academic dissonance that is leading our students on an academic downslide.
That reminds me of this: http://history.icanhascheezburger.com/2011/07/27/funny-pictures-history-in-dolby/ (this one is "she blinded me with science") and: http://memebase.com/2011/07/25/memes-joseph-ducreux-shant-depart-depart-depart/ (this is Amy Winehouse "they told I should go to rehab, and I said No No No) These are funny comics where the modern vulgar language is replace with more loquacious, elevated vocabulary, like you would have seen in the past. The fun part is trying to make the connection!
I completely agree with you on all but one point: What REALLY annoys me isn't the resonance of words, it's the loss of artistic imagery and the complete negating of poetic forms. If I struggle for weeks on iambic pentameter, I would hope my audience doesn't turn it free form on me by replacing my word choices (and that certainly isn't the hardest poetry form out there to write imho!). Writing poetry is a labor of love- even more than regular writing, it requires an incredible attention to each individual word choice. It's bad enough to consider one's work (and motives...) dissected by an audience of scholarly professionals. Even worse: if someone replaces my word choices and kills the form, my vision for the poem is NOT going to translate at all. And as we all know, the rhythm of a poem can be instrumental to the entire feeling conveyed. Anyway... sorry for the soapbox there! We are all on the same page I'll definitely check out those websites!!
