Wanda,
Your post left me in awe--how can I sign up for your class?!!  How wonderful
to make your points with so much fun and without putting down other
teachers.  I salute you!
Joanne
----- Original Message -----
From: WANDA VANGOOR <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Wednesday, May 31, 2000 7:38 AM
Subject: Re: Horrors before a long weekend.


I, too, get the frightened "But my high school teacher said never to begin a
sentence with..." reaction early on in the semester.  I usually  respond
with "Well, let me tell you something about my family."  (They are totally
confused at this point.)
Then I  tell about how we trained our children never to talk to strangers.
I string it out and ham it up a bit, following one or other of the girls
right through high school and college, noting when they somehow or other
realized they could talk to a policeman or a doctor or...and then became
confident enough approach a good looking boy in their algebra class...and
finally  respond to a stranger at a singles bar.
The class, of course,  gets caught up in the anecdotes and laughs at the
right places.  Over and over I say things like "And we never changed the
rule--and they never broke the rule."  By the end of all this they are
totally ready to hear the punch line: "They never broke the rule because the
rule never was 'Don't talk to strangers.'  The rule was 'Never get yourself
into something that you can't get yourself out of--whether it's a
conversation, a car, or a committee.'"
I end it all by saying "Your high school teachers know about standardized
tests;  they know that more than half of the 'fragments' on those tests are
simply subordinate clauses, and so  they teach you to recognize certain
words that are danger signals .  When they tell you not to begin sentences
with them, what they are really saying is (here I pause briefly,
questioningly).  Almost every time students will respond, "Don't talk to
strangers," after which I say "And that means?"  And someone will say "Don't
get yourself into anything you can't get out of."
I"ll praise them and start the lesson on how to get out of sentences that
start with subordinate clauses.
It's hammy--but it works--on several levels: it does not denigrate their
former teachers, it introduces them to "college level" writing, and it gives
them an example of symbolism and allegory I can use again later when we get
to figurative language!