Alison: I think your experience is the rule rather than the exception. The 
people I have taught with in public schools appear never to have heard of 
MLA style, so, of course, they do not teach it. They have these formalaic 
rules, such as how many sentences go in a paragraph, how many paragraphs 
make an essay, where the thesis statement goes (like you indicated), etc. I 
find it all tedious and counterproductive...writing should be fun, creative, 
ongoing, and across the curriculum. Unfortunately, most public school 
teachers write very little; and when they do, it is stylized and 
uninteresting if not downright poorly executed. Helene


>From: Allison Rose <[log in to unmask]>
>Reply-To: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar              
><[log in to unmask]>
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: Re: Rubric for Grammar for Education Majors
>Date: Tue, 22 Nov 2005 01:11:20 -0500
>
>I didn't hear about MLA style until I got to college; to me, whatever
>formats my English teacher gave me were the ones I used, and if s/he didn't
>give me any, I used my own personal system. I felt a right dunce when I get
>to college and realized everyone in the English dept. was using the same
>style but me and that they all seemed to be experts in it. I really wish my
>English courses in high school had better prepared me for what my college
>professors expected and expect of me.
>
>I was also very surprised to find out (after my high school teachers 
>finally
>were through with me) that not all thesis statements come at the beginning
>of the introduction; it actually makes more sense sometimes (gasp!) to put
>them as the last sentence in the introduction. I was a bit disappointed in
>my high school teachers, although I was introduced to some great 
>literature.
>
>I would also see formatting errors as errors having to do with visual
>aesthetics, where the title is placed, where other information such as the
>student's name is placed, what font is used, what size font is used, etc.
>
>Allison
>
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