Paul E. Doniger wrote:

> Richard, et all,
>  
> My students are just as (more?) likely to respond: "Okay, the parts 
> about Huck lying WERE pretty good. I remember when he GOT caught by 
> that woman, Mrs. Loftus, because he DIDN'T [perhaps without the 
> apostrophe] know how to thread a needle." And these are mostly smart 
> kids who have gotten a decent education in a good school district.

This looks like an uphill battle to me. You're trying to enforce a 
convention that is pretty counter-intuitive, especially considering that 
the English verb system is often taught as little more than a 
two-dimensional, time framing mechanism.

> I've tried all these methods, and I've reminded them that literature 
> always occurs NOW, etc., etc., etc. I mark their papers with constant 
> reminders (and I make them LOG my comments and use those logs in their 
> portfolios), but there are still only a few who have started to change 
> how they write about literature. Obviously these methods aren't having 
> much of an effect. 

But it doesn't occur NOW. That's the point. It doesn't occur at all. 
It's just a story imagined. See it as a story, not a series of events 
bound in past time - just like a film - it can be rewound and 
experienced again and again, in the here and now. (In fact, it also 
happens in the future, in exactly the same way. Spooky.)

> Any other ideas?

Role play and report: one group of students act out ~ or up ~ an episode 
from work while others write it up telegraphically in real time. A third 
monitors and "corrects" to enforce the convention, which is, after all, 
arbitrary.

The arbitrary nature of it is probably a major problem. You may be 
appealing to logic, but they find none, but trust you because you're the 
teacher.

>  
> Thanks,
>  
> Paul

Omar

To join or leave this LISTSERV list, please visit the list's web interface at:
     http://listserv.muohio.edu/archives/ateg.html
and select "Join or leave the list"

Visit ATEG's web site at http://ateg.org/