I need to be a little more conscientious about writing here, I think. I’m having a wonderful adventure as an adjunct at Local U., and I don’t want to let the experience pass by without having written – and thought – about it here. It’s very easy for 15 weeks to fly by; before we [...]
Entries from September 2008
September 24, 2008
Grammar Wednesday
For Auntie:
THEN is most often used as an adverb that indicates time or order.
I’ll finish the laundry then start cooking dinner.
She ran through all the ice cream, then she turned her attention to the chocolate chip cookies.
THAN is most often used as a conjunction used to indicate comparison:
She is prettier than I am, but I [...]
September 23, 2008
Someone Care to Explain THIS to Me?
You all set me straight about the basketball (though I really DO think that Spaulding should figure a different way of getting the point across), so I thought you might have some wisdom regarding this little oddity;
Yes, indeed, Friends and Neighbors – they’re WATERING the ARTIFICIAL field over at Local U. What’s up with THAT?!
September 22, 2008
Monday Blahs
Holy crap.
I have a class that meets on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays at 8:10 in the morning. It seems that this is far too early for the average college student, because they are all essentially zombies.
Today was the worst.
We’re getting into the “learning to critique your own and others’ writing” phase of the course, and I [...]
September 19, 2008
Things That Make Me Go “Wha…?”
I’m listening to NPR on my way home from class this morning, and there’s some senator or other talking about the financial free-fall that our economy seems to be taking, when he says:
The government’s intention is to go in there with a quantity of liquidity and securitize those assets.
Securitize?! Is that even a WORD?! Ignoring, [...]
September 18, 2008
Grammar Wednesday…
…a day late. Sorry, Everyone; Mrs. Chili is having what we in the northeast call a “wicked busy” week, and I completely forgot about Wednesday until it wasn’t Wednesday anymore.
My focus for this week is more a style issue than a strictly grammatical one. My question is this; what it it about this generation of [...]
September 16, 2008
My Kind of Math
Tonks is taking calculus and, as a consequence, is calling Mr. Chili fairly regularly for help with her homework (Bowyer freely admits that he’s not familiar with calculus). I love listening to my husband’s half of those conversations; it’s as if he’s speaking an entirely different language. I suppose, in a very real way, he [...]
September 15, 2008
The Final Project
My literature class at TCC delivered their final projects tonight, and it was a hoot.
Several semesters ago, I decided to forgo the typical final exam assessment in my literature classes favor of giving the students the opportunity to demonstrate their mastery of the work done during the semester in ways that felt most authentic to [...]
September 13, 2008
Grammar Wednesday
On a SATURDAY!
Fermat (who either doesn’t have a blog or didn’t include the link) sent a comment on Wednesday’s Grammar Wednesday post asking this:
Mrs. Chili,
I would like everyone’s opinion on this. Because school is back in, the city has posted large signs of a bright yellow school bus. On the bus is printed “School’s back. [...]
September 10, 2008
Grammar Wednesday
Because I’ve been busy this week, Grammar Wednesday is being brought to you today by the folks with a sense of humor over at English Fail. These were some of my recent favorites:
This doesn’t really surprise me; I have kids who spell things the way they say them all the time (the most common example [...]
