Booking Through… Weekly Geeks!
By Kristen on May 8, 2008 in Booking Through...
In addition to Booking Through Thursday, I will include a bit of an overview concerning the latest Weekly Geeks challenge…
But first, here is this week’s question…
One of my favorite topics!! Grammar!! This could easily turn into a long, rambling post about the beauty of grammar and my love affair with it, but I’ll try to contain myself.
As I’ve mentioned before, I was fortunate to teach high school English for fifteen years. The first half of my time in the classroom was spent teaching A.P. Literature — very enjoyable and very exhausting.
So, the last part of my career I spent teaching… grammar and expository writing! I was initially suprised at just how much I loved the analytical side of writing. My linear students (math lovers) approached grammar as a formula or puzzle and seemed to enjoy the break from the murky waters of interpreting complex literature.
One of my favorite “attention getters” was asking students where to place a comma in the following sentence:
Woman without her man is nothing.
You can imagine the discussions that ensued!!
So, not surprisingly, I have many, many grammar books on my shelves! I actually miss teaching grammar a bit, so I recently signed up for Tutor.com. So, there is my love letter to grammar…
Now, on to the latest Weekly Geeks challenge — we were asked to create a network of reviews in the lit blogosphere! So, Saturday I posted a list of (albeit quite informal) reviews that I have written the past few months. Happily, I then received a bunch of links to other reviews from other blogs, which I promptly linked to my own reviews.
Now “promptly” was only possible because I had a nice, relaxing weekend at home with few obligations — and I am thankful for this! The one minor downside of this challenge is that it is initially time-consuming… but ultimately well-worth it. One of the major upsides of this challenge is the exposure I had to so many well-written, insightful, articulate reviews that have now encouraged me to raise the bar on the quality and thoroughness of my own reviews (as hopefully seen in this week’s Sunday Salon and Wednesday Review).
I also met a widget named “Mr. Linky” (check out the bottom of Wednesday’s review) which will make this challenge much easier in the future. So, thank you to Dewey! You prompted me to make my reviews a little bit better…! I’m already looking forward to this Saturday’s challenge — even though I won’t see it until I return home from the cabin on Sunday.
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I love grammar books. So I was thrilled with this prompt. I loved amswering this!
I too like the linky thing and going to add to my review posts! Only drawback it works for one post at a time!
gautami tripathy | May 8, 2008 | Reply
What a coincidence! I meant to add a “thank you” to you, Gautami, (in this post) for giving me a heads up when you had linked my review to one of yours. I didn’t do this for others who sent me their reviews — I added their link, but didn’t alert them — and now wish I had… Thank you!
(I wish Mr. Linky would find a way to automate it to all posts, too!)
Kristen | May 8, 2008 | Reply
I love your little attention getter. If I ever get to teach like I have always intended to I am completely stealing it because I love love love love love it so much. I love it so much I can comment on nothing else, it has expanded my whole consciousness.
Megan | May 8, 2008 | Reply
Thank you, Megan! I wish I could take credit for thinking it up, but I will certainly take credit for passing it along!
I got it from one of my professors at Hamline University (can’t remember which one…).
Good luck becoming a teacher, too! I had many wonderful years in the classroom — never boring…
I loved referring to this exercise whenever one of my students would try to convince me that run-ons or comma splices were just his or her “style” of writing — it was a great reminder of what can happen to our meaning when we “choose” to break the rules!
Kristen | May 8, 2008 | Reply
You’re welcome.
And thanks for providing the second mention of tutoring.com I’ve seen today. That prompted me to go sign up, too. Unfortunately, they didn’t have openings in the subjects I passed their tests for. I’d take other tests, but I looked at the list and it looks like they have no openings in any subjects right now. I guess there’s not much tutoring requested over the summer. Maybe in the fall! I think it’d be so much fun to tutor online.
dew | May 9, 2008 | Reply
Dew — I had the same experience w/ Tutor.com, but I figure next fall we may get lucky!
Kristen | May 11, 2008 | Reply