I could tell you the orbital period of Mars (687 days).
I could tell you The Red Planet's equatorial diameter (6,792 km).
I could tell you how many moons Mars has and their names (two, Phobos and Deimos).
But for some reason I have a hard time wrapping my brain around some of the words and phrases discussed in Rhetorical Grammar by Martha Kolln.
This week, I discovered that there are other humans on this cold and dusty planet that are in charge of the same task I am; gather intelligence regarding THe SCrAWl CENter. One of the things us humans were tasked with was reading a chapter out of a strange book provided by the alien instructors that live and work here. This book discussed foreign words like headword, countable and non-countable nouns, determiners, and indefinite articles to name a few. When the aliens addressing us started discussing these strange words, at first I thought they had forgotten to adjust their dials. Then I quickly realized that THESE ARE ACTUAL WORDS AND THINGS.
What is interesting about this is that as a person who has functioned for 25 years, I have been writing and effectively using these rules and tactics for most of my life but I hadn't known what they were actually called. Remembering this makes the word classes discussed by Kolln a little less intimidating.
Later in the week, I was able to observe another session in THe SCraWl CENter. Only, this time it was with a friendly alien by the name of COurTNey. This session was rather interesting because unlike previous sessions I've observed, COurTNey didn't actually read the other alien's scrawl. She had just discussed the assignment requirements with the alien in heavy detail. This tactic allowed the alien to leave with an in-depth outline on where to proceed from there. COurTNey was also able to provide info on citation practices. (Even aliens have to cite. Plagiarism is an INDEFENSIBLE offense on Mars, apparently.)
In another session, (also with COurTNey) a fellow alien was having a difficult time coming up with more ideas to address in a piece of scrawl she was working on. She wasn't meeting the required page length. This alien didn't have an assignment sheet but once COurTNey started questioning her about the scrawl in front of her, ideas started flowing. COurTNey asked her questions about her past and alien student was able to see what ideas stuck. She was able to leave the session with a bullet list of talking points.
This week in the SCraWl CENter was full of surprises and I'm looking forward to the other peculiar happenings in this unknown and undiscovered place.
Hi, Michelle!
ReplyDeleteYour first encounter with Kolln is reminiscent of my own. It felt strange to be reading about things I already understood, but had zero ability to articulate. What eventually soothed my soul was that I began to understand that I didn't need to memorize every bit of Kolln. (Hurray!) Instead, I just needed to figure out what are the most common issues that pop up in student writing that would be the most beneficial to chat with writers about. From there, I then concentrated on figuring out exactly how I would explain this stuff to writers. It made everything feel like a much, much more manageable task!
See you in class tomorrow!
mk