Blog 9

First off, do the Oregon Ducks really need another football uniform combination? [Rhetorical Question] Although the Ducks are ranked and sponsored by Nike and have some of the nicest facilities in the country, the pink uniforms on Saturday night seemed to be too much. [Simple sentence with compounded verbs connected with ands] However, I do believe wearing pink was for the good cause of breast cancer awareness. [“However” used in a correctly punctuated sentence] Though the Ducks were supporting breast cancer, they stole the concept from the NFL-and pulled it off with a twenty-four-point win. [Dash to emphasize the last element of a sentence] The twenty-four-point win for the Ducks may seem like a blow out to many, but would it be if you were comparing it to other point margin wins in the past? [Real question and a long sentence of 30+ words followed by a short sentence] To me, not so much.

With all of these ideas in mind, the long trip along with all the money spent was more than worth it when comparing to the alternative of sitting at home. [One sentence paragraph and using than].

Blog 8

This weekend was more than fun for me. Dad’s weekend, two days that usually include the student’s dad in activities, consisted of laying low and enjoying the events that WSU athletics had provided for us [Appositive punctuated with commas]. Although the football game was the highlight of our weekend, my Dad and brothers that attended were staying in our fifth wheel in the parking lot of Walmart. The store Walmart (Redneck’s Paradise according to my roommate) seemed to be the place to be after my brothers and I realized there were close to seventy other campers and RVs [Appositive punctuated with parentheses]. Although my friends and I seem to identify Walmart as the place to go to find some wacky people, it made my family’s weekend full of fun and free entertainment in the parking lot. The parking lot, filled with campers and tailgaters, seemed to get less fun as this Sunday afternoon started to loom on [Past participle]. As the day loomed on, and trailers started to pull out from Walmart, I realized that my dad’s weekend with my family was nearly over. What I did to remove this realization was very fun for my nine-year-old brother, play catch with the football. Even though this was fun and games for most of the time, being the oldest of three younger brothers means that some kind of argument will arise. For example, I had to settle an argument of who can throw the best kind of spiral. The quickest and best throws - the ones that create the nice tight spiral - were not easy for my nine-year-old brother, Mac, who was eager to learn how to throw the football so good [Appositive punctuated with dashes AND adjectives out of order]. Near the end of all the food we ate, the football we watched, and the games we played, it was time for my family to go home. Although most people love the location of small town Pullman, my family dreads that it is nearly a six-hour drive away. Once the fifth wheel was all packed up and we all said our goodbyes, my family was off towards the place that I call home, Vancouver, Washington; home to many of the Westside cougars!  [Appositive punctuated with a colon].

Blog 7

If They’re Darker Than a Paper Bag

Racism, through evidence and investigation, is not a phenomenon in the black culture; it is a reality [5. Long sentence connected to a short sentence with a semicolon]. Bill Duke, the director of the 2011 documentary Dark Girls, used the film to affect the lives of thousands of people based upon the color of their skin. The term racism can be defined as the hatred or intolerance of another race or other races. Because this documentary is based on a century old issue, Bill Duke argues the differences between dark and light skin issues [2. Start a sentence with a because clause]. These issues are expressed through the lives of many darker skinned women by personal experiences and comments that they have heard about throughout their lifetime.

            Although the colors of people of skins have not changed, people believe today that the action of racism has disappeared. The women in this film were chosen as if they were the ones that were the most bullied or discriminated against. One woman noticed that racist comments and occurrences are most common on the playground, THOUGH in the classroom, not as much [4. Use, though, to interrupt a main sentence]. Considering these are the spots she identifies, it seemed that she had been a schoolteacher that had solved lots of issues. One experiment in this documentary had actually shown a little girl in a private room with a counselor of some type. When asked to point to the prettiest or the smartest child, she had pointed to the whitest child; when she was asked to point to the dumb and ugly child, she had picked the darkest child available [6. A compound sentence using a semicolon, the two sentences mirroring each other, with repeated parallel structures]. The child that was obviously under ten years old was able to differentiate the two because of their skin color, white or black [3. End a sentence with a because clause]. Whether or not people have their own opinions or not, racism is an idea that needs to be stopped, especially at young ages and in the classrooms.

            Not only does this documentary share stories from all ages, it follows women who are struggling as a result of discriminating attitudes towards the color of their darker skin.  A girl by the name of Stephanie A. said that she was able to notice the separations in school among girls who were lighter skinned and girls who were darker skinned.  She said that the most hurtful comment that she had ever heard was that she was pretty for a dark skinned girl. Although that may seem hurtful, one woman was told that she had stayed in the oven too long. Even though one comment is no better or worse than the other, these comments are preventing woman from, first, attending school; second, going to work; and, third,  having sexual relations with darker skinned people [7. Semicolon as super comma].  One woman commented on that last piece by saying that some men don’t want to have black babies based upon the ways that there momma’s or sisters were treated.

            Many mothers tell their children, “treat others as you want to be treated.” In this video, the director used others to share their heartbreaking stories to transform our ideas on racism. The goal seemed as if Bill Duke wanted to change the ideas that people believed, racism has disappeared. Due to the hundreds of tears and comments that some of these woman have had and received, Dark Girls seemed to want to make their audience feel bad. Nor did they make you feel comfortable when watching [1. Start a sentence with "nor"]. Almost as if the audience was supposed to go apologize for the actions races have had towards dark people. As an audience member, I felt captured inside the hands of the director after watching this film; as a witness of racism, I felt that the director has blessed me with the capability of understanding racism and understanding peoples emotions through the process [6. A compound sentence using a semicolon, the two sentences mirroring each other, with repeated parallel structures]. The control and power that the director had on his audience was tremendous. Bill Duke’s way of capturing the audience was through the few common themes of sadness and fear. Whether or not his movie was made to make us feel depraved, this 2011 film influenced the lives of many by the voices and cries of the dark girls.

Compound Sentences Blog #6

Whether or not people believe that terrorism is an issue present today, it has still been a very prominent topic that allows people to look deeper and identify its original historical roots. The definition of terrorism is the use of violence and threats to intimidate or coerce, especially for political purposes. Although this is one definition of terrorism, where exactly do these threats aim? One example or act of terrorism occurred on September 11, 2001 on the homeland of the United States of America. The “taken” 2,983 lives left America at silence when it comes to 9/11, in fact, civilians and experts are not even sure if this country feels safer than it did a decade ago. Michael Chertoff (holder of Cabinet under former President Bush) had the courage to claim that our country is indeed safer, however, it is actually on a traumatic up rise. Kenneth Jost, author of Remembering 9/11, maintains that there is more than just a simple answer at defining the historical roots of terrorism. He insured that all of his readers understand that our country needs to be aware that the "war on terror" has been addressed; yet not improved. [compound sentence with a semicolon]

Granted that researchers and experts show that the United States is safer than a decade ago, terrorist groups are still looking and finding ways to become equal, instill fear, AND intimidate minds of innocent populations. [compound sentence with a comma, FANBOYS] The purpose of this study is to examine how the historical origins of terrorism are still prevalent today through the act of racism. The role of terrorism will be seen through an analysis of equality, through the instilment of fear, AND through the analysis of intimidation. [compound sentence with a comma, FANBOYS] As countries are constantly involved with terrorism and war on terror, participation and specific accounts of response and quick action need to take place in order to change the ways that terrorism is becoming more powerful and affecting the minds of several populations. For example, one way to tone down terrorism would be through the education of racism. [sentence beginning with a FANBOYS] Although acknowledging racist acts do not seem to be a priority when it comes to solutions, the understanding and education of how prejudices and stereotypes can affect international terrorism can help.

Blog #5

Dora Assignment: First Posting

            Although many teachers and young students do in fact agree that learning punctuation is often on a worksheet or a whiteboard exercise, this article gives a different technique in which you can teach a student to understand the process of punctuation. The author of this article has created an imaginary girl named Dora, WHO is a first-grader, to evaluate and understand that punctuations are more than markings at the end of a page. [USE OF WHO]

            As Dora began her writing, she wrote as if her words needed no spacing or punctuation at all. Her words and sentences were written like this, “YERCOMAYERAMOSDARA.” Whether or not people understand this, as the article continued, it was marvelous to look back and realize that this was her starting point. Interestingly, I noticed that the teacher had read and realized that learning to place periods is key, and can potentially provide a window for students to learn about the structures and conventions of their work. Before Dora could get much farther on her work, I noticed that the teacher had questioned her about how the punctuations in her books were related to the words she had written on her papers. This is the first step Dora had learned in her way of progress, so she thought she would try separating her letters. AS DORA HAD LEARNED THIS FIRST STEP IN HER WAY OF PROGRESS, SHE THOUGHT SHE WOULD TRY SEPARATING HER LETTERS. Considering progress was still being shown in her work, I had noticed that the teacher continued to question Dora’s writing compared to the books that she was reading. I BELIEVE THAT BY DOING THIS, THE TEACHER DID A GREAT JOB BY ENCOURAGING AND PROMOTING DORA'S LEARNING HABITS. [COMPOUND VERB] As the teacher would question Dora and use their hands to frame the words in Dora’s story, I noticed that Dora would show significant progress, especially when she would communicate with her classmates at the writing table.

As I noticed that the teacher would help correct Dora by asking her to present her writing and reflect upon it, I also noticed that the teacher did not do things that I maybe would have. For example, I maybe would have actually done the worksheets or the whiteboard exercises to possibly reach out to more students than Dora. WHOEVER came up with the idea to remove worksheets and exercises from school curriculums may have created a large mistake. [USE OF WHOEVER] However, related to Dora, I would have sat down and actually worked with her to show her how to punctuate the end of sentences correctly. Rather than slowly working out one kink at a time (which was very interesting to see Dora’s progress), I would have shown her the correct way to punctuate the whole sentence. While doing this, you can even do worksheets and reflect back to the books Dora has been reading to accomplish the same task. As I said before, it seemed that the teacher had taught Dora one-step at a time. Unfortunately, I believe that this is why it had taken Dora so long to apply the concept of sentence-end-marking. UNFORTUNATELY, I BELIEVE THAT TAKING ONE STEP AT A TIME MAY BE THE REASON THAT DORA TOOK SO LONG TO APPLY THE CONCEPT OF SENTENCE-END-MARKING. As I was reading this article written by Pat Cordeiro, I was realizing that as Dora was learning new concepts, she was sent back to her desk to re-teach herself and elaborate with her other classmates. Although we read this story without actually knowing how long it took Dora to accomplish sentence-end-marking, I would assume that she actually took quite awhile to accomplish this task.

            During the process of Dora’s accomplishment, I did notice that the teacher did provide positive help and techniques to help her. Although the teacher did read to her to show examples where periods need to be placed, and the teacher asked Dora to read her examples as if it were in her head, the teacher taught in ways that I possibly would have done differently. However, I would conclude that the teacher did an excellent job in successfully teaching a student how to punctuate the ends of sentences correctly. 

I need some help finding and/or creating SVO sentences. I also struggled finding some of the #3 POW exercises. So, if any editor is reading this, any help would be greatly appreciated.