Blog Post #6

This NES chapter was really plain. While it did tell us about all different aspects of writing, I didn't feel like I had not been shared this information before. It also did not say anything about application. While this is the first class I've had in college to actually address being a future educator, I feel like these are just simple sections a teacher may copy and paste onto a sheet and hand to their student.

In fact, the section about complex versus compound sentences seems verbatim to what I learned in freshman year of high school (albeit slightly less confusing). We spent weeks writing papers and identifying "DC, DCIC" and other variations thereof (otherwise known as dependent clause, dependent clause independent clause).

Also, on page 97, I found it to be completely unhelpful when in 9.5, it says "A good piece of writing..." all the way to the end. Not only does it start off completely subjectively, it also says to explicitly not address the prompt directly. I find that bad advice. A student often needs to readdress the prompt in the thesis to make it clear; how can one do so without paraphrasing? At this point in our English careers we get much more vague prompts to fulfill, but middle school students are not comparing Confucianism and Hinduism in Ramayana; instead, they are writing papers on "Great Americans" or current cultural events--without restating the prompt, a teacher might lose complete track of what they are grading.

This entire book does not address grade level expectations. Though available on many common core websites and state education websites, how could I know to address misplaced and dangling phrases differently with 12 year olds compared to 18 year olds. There are such differences between these groups and I find the lack of organization difficult.