April 19, 1775.  Simon Winsett and his two brothers, Samuel and John, all of them Lexington militiamen, have marched to their cousin’s house by Spy Pond near Menotomy, Massachusetts Colony.   Their intention is to fight the British column that is retreating under heavy fire through Menotomy (present day Arlington) toward Cambridge and Boston.  Stopping by the cousin’s house to eat something before continuing on to Menotomy, they find that Mary, their cousin’s wife, is bedridden and that her disobedient daughter Prudence has wandered off.  Fearing that Prudence might fall accidentally into the pond (her grandfather had drowned there), they go searching for her: Samuel and John traveling the path along one side of the water and Simon the path along the other side of the pond.  It has been established earlier in the novel that Simon is disrespected by his family and is an outcast in the community.  His fighting the redcoats this day has been a concerted attempt to win favor.

 

"Rendered Mute"

Pages 358-362

 

           Samuel and John had sent him off to search this side of the pond while they walked the path paralleling the other side, reasoning probably that if Prudence had taken the path Simon’s way they would have seen her. Leave him waste his time investigating on the slim chance that she had crawled into some little nook of vegetation. Maybe that had been their thinking, more than their wanting to get rid of him. Whichever was true, he didn’t care. His day’s accomplishments had pretty much quashed his need to be resentful.

     The qualities that he had demonstrated no enemy of his could successfully deny. Any man that called him a scheming no-account would be seen for what he was, a peaching liar! Why, therefore, should he be angry about this assignment? Why not take advantage of it? Enjoy the sun’s warmth, Simon. Listen to the waterfowl. Look at the reflecting water. He would continue to push away low-hanging branches where burrows of earth and thickening moss might lay hidden. He would do that, knowing he wouldn’t find anything. Not a raccoon or any other wild animal certainly, which would be instantly gone upon hearing his approach. It didn’t matter. Samuel and John were right in their thinking. Let them find her. Let them receive Mary’s gratitude.

     He came upon where he and his brothers had forced their way onto the path. What lay ahead was new. Conceding the slim possibility that Prudence could have strayed this far and beyond, he would search more carefully, yet continue to enjoy his surroundings.

     Hearing the noise of nearby waterfowl, he stepped off the path and stood at the top of a steeply inclined bank, the terminus of a narrow inlet. Black-billed ducks, searching for food, were paddling through tall reeds. Perhaps old Jason Winsett had fallen in here. What made brother John such an authority about this, or anything else he claimed he had an answer for? John’s bluster and bantering ways, and the gullibility of fools! Why was it that he alone saw John for what he was?

     Simon, you’re bitter, he chided.

     What of it?

     He expected to hear at any moment a shout of discovery, a “Simon, we found her!” but, then, maybe not. More likely they would be thinking, Let old Simon wander about while we bask in Mary’s joy. John’s thinking anyway.

     Rather than voices he heard the distant pop of musketry. From Menotomy. A bit west of the town, he judged. So, the regulars had finished their rest at Will Munroe’s tavern and were about to catch hell. And he and his brothers had missed their chance to be a part of it. He thought it funny that they had walked five miles and might not have a thing to say for it tomorrow but that they had searched for a disobedient child.

     Simon came to where creek water emptied into another cove. Evergreen branches hid much of the little gully. Heeding his responsibility, he stepped off the path. Planting his left foot on a twisted root, he raised the lowest pine branch.

     Almost immediately he saw white leggings. A heartbeat after he beheld the grim face of a British soldier.

     Shock waves radiated beneath his flesh. God Almighty, was his first thought.

     “Stand easy! I be yer prisoner!” the large figure exclaimed.

     “What the hell!” Simon responded.

     “I naught be ‘avin’ me musket, see? I naught be wantin’ t’fight!”

     “All right, then,” Simon answered. God in heaven!

     “‘Ere. ‘Ave a look.” The soldier raised his hands above his shoulders. Simon noticed that he was big, and young, close to John’s age. A grenadier, he thought. Strong, and because he had gotten here so soon, damned swift!

     “I’m comin’ in,” Simon said, drawing back a second branch to see where he could place his left foot. “Don’t be tryin’ nothin’.”

     “Don’t be afeared o’ that. I’ll be stayin’ right ‘ere.” The soldier was seated on what looked like a flat-surfaced rock.

     Simon jumped; the branches recoiled. Straining to see, Simon remained stooped. Should have ordered him out! he thought. Stupid!

     “There be a little bank ye can sit on.” The soldier pointed. “Ye’ll see better in a bit.”

     Reaching with his right hand, Simon found the mossy surface.

     “Just be knowin’. I naught be intendin’ no ‘arm.”

     Simon sat on the bank.

     Silence.

     Simon was able to see the man’s features.

     “I coulda charged ye just now.”

     “I know.”

     “But I didn’t, see. I naught want t’fight.”

     Simon nodded. Had he sensed that?

     “That’s why I ran.”

     Like the wind! Simon had to ask. “How … how did y’get here so fast?”

     The soldier stared. Turning his head a bit, he listened to the far away sounds. Of a sudden he laughed.

     Sensitive to mockery, Simon flushed.

     “That? I be in this ‘ole ‘ours now.”

     “How’s that?”

     “When we be marchin’ past ‘ere in the dark, I be tellin’ me sarge I be havin’ t’drop a loaf, see? He didn’t like hearin’ it so I said in me best toad-eatin’ voice, ‘I’d not be wantin’ ye havin’ t’be smellin’ me backsides all the way t’Concord. Be back in a blink, I be.’ Got into some bushes, kept goin’, never looked back.” Watching Simon, the soldier grinned. “Not too comfortable ‘ere. Bloody stiff I be. Bloody ‘ungry, too. But I did drop me loaf!” The grin stayed.

     Simon wanted to smile.

     “You’re tellin’ me you deserted, early this morning? And you’ve been here ever since?”

     “I be mindin’ now maybe tis a mistake.” He sighed. He stared down his left leg.

     Seeing as how he had been discovered, yes, it had been a mistake. A big mistake!

     The young man touched his left knee.

     Simon had a second question. “Why did y’desert?”

     “Because … I don’t be wantin’ t’ …” He looked off. “I hate me life!” The grenadier’s eyes bored.

     “Why?” Simon asked after a reasonable silence. “Why do you hate your life?”

     The soldier glared. “I be a miner, not a bloody soldier!” He grimaced. “Least, I was a miner, ‘til the cough d’got me. Then what t’do? Work’n the fields? No ‘irin’. So I put on me stock, see. Floured me ‘air. Sold me soul t’the Sarge ‘n’ Lieuten’nt Hull!”

     “And now you’ve deserted.”

     The soldier scowled. “You against that?”

     “No. I want t’know why you chose today. Why not before? How long y’been in Boston?”

     “A lot a questions, rebel.”

     “I’m … curious.” Simon hesitated. “I don’t mean no offense.”

     The grenadier stared at him for several seconds. “Suspect not.” He flexed his left knee, grunted, extended the leg.

     Simon waited.

     “We come down from Canada, the 4th Regiment, last December. Too cold there. Bloody cold in the tents ‘ere. Then we moved into the new barracks. Like bein’ in a bloody gaol. ‘Ow t’get out? Some did; some from the 10th got caught! Not me! Figured I’d better wait.”

     Simon was taken by the soldier’s courage. Not too long ago he had considered leaving the family farm to start a new life in Connecticut. This was different. To have struck out blindly in a foreign land!

     “But … you must’ve had a plan!” Simon exclaimed.

     “Right. Like I said. ‘Please, sarge, I gotta go,’ hide in the bushes, run. That was me plan.” He winked.

     Simon laughed.

     Seconds passed.

     The soldier said, “The trouble ‘ere be I don’t be knowin’ what t’do.”

     “How’s that?”

     “I’m . . . afeared.” He looked away. “Ye be ‘earin’ that?”

     Simon listened to what was now fierce combat.

     “I’m affrighted t’be showin’ meself.”

     “I would be, too.”

     The soldier nodded.

     “What is it you want?” Simon asked, anticipating the answer.

     “I want t’be goin’ someplace, away from ‘ere. Go where I can work, be me own master!” He looked at his rolled up coat, wedged beneath his bent right knee. “Far away from that!”

     “Travelin’ about, lookin’ like y’are, talkin’ the way y’ do, that would be difficult.”

     Slivers of light were streaking through the branches.

     “All this while, I be sittin’ ‘ere thinkin’ and thinkin’. Comin’ up with nothin’. Maybe I should just give meself over.”

     “No!”

     Startled, the grenadier looked at Simon strangely.

     Surprised also, Simon knew his outburst required an explanation. He recognized as well that the soldier had stopped talking like a prisoner. “If you do,” Simon said, disturbed by the second thought, “the first angry militiaman that sees you will shoot you. Or you’ll get swapped for one of ours.”

     The young man grinned. “Don’t be wantin’ that.”

     “So, … what are you plannin’ t’do?”

     “Aye, there’s the rub.”

     Simon knew how the soldier might accomplish it. Provided he, Simon, helped! Because of what his life had been he was tempted. Tempted and threatened. Rendered mute, beside this humorous, pathetic redcoat, whose name he didn’t know, who wanted him to speak.

Teaching -- Memories

 

Memories are an indication of a life well or ill spent.  Give your heart and soul to what you do and you will be rewarded.  Appreciative school children give back.

 

One morning just before lunch recess I found a twenty dollar bill lying next to a leg of one of the student desks.  One boy had not yet left.  He saw me pick up the bill.

 

“What are you going to do?” he asked.

 

“I’ll take it down to the office.  Maybe the person it belongs to will report losing it.”

 

The next day I asked the school secretary about the twenty dollar bill.

 

“Two boys came by this morning and got it.”  I asked their names.  One was the boy that had seen me pick up the bill.  The other, somebody I didn’t know, claimed to be the student that had lost the money.  The principal suspended them.  I said nothing about the incident to my student upon his return.  His parents had no doubt punished him.  He had been suspended.  Why pile on?

 

Several months later I asked for a couple of volunteers to score and time keep a girls B-team basketball game on one of the outdoor courts.  Because I was the coach of the A-team, which would be playing in the gym, I could not do it.  Nobody offered to help.  At the last minute my student that had been dishonest volunteered.  He did the job well.  I was touched. 

 

One incoming eighth grade group of students had the reputation of being difficult.  The girls, especially, were uncooperative.  Forewarned, many of the teachers chose to be stern disciplinarians.  “Here are the rules.  Woe unto you if you break one!”  I went the other way.  I was open to them.  I tried to recognize and respect their needs.  At the end of the year members of two of my classes contributed money to buy me a pair of jeans, a shirt, and nifty shoes.  I remember particularly one incident.  On consecutive days a girl notorious for not telling the truth lingered to talk to me after the end of class.  The final day she stayed too long and asked me to write a note to excuse her impending tardiness.  I wrote something like “Sarah left here at 10:46.”  She told me that the note wouldn’t do.  She’d get in trouble.  I told her that I couldn’t lie; I hadn’t detained her; she had decided to be late.

 

“What should I do?” she asked.

 

“Tell the truth.  Mr. B---- is one of the fairest teachers on the faculty.  Tell him.”

 

Mr. B---- spoke to me that afternoon.  He was surprised and pleased.  I was pleased also that she had told the truth and pleased that he now viewed her differently.

 

One year fairly late in my teaching career I was teaching two GATE (gifted and talented education) classes.  One was an English class, the other an American history class.  Students eligible to take such classes had to have scored 130 or above on a school-administered intelligence test.  School policy (or maybe the policy of the principal at that time) did not allow any student to take two GATE classes taught by the same teacher.  A mother of a very bright student insisted that her daughter be placed in both of my GATE classes.  The principal refused.  Not the least intimidated, the mother sat conspicuously outside his closed office door.  Time passed.  The principal relented.  The mother had been one of my prize students the second year I taught at the school.  (See my “teaching” post “Getting Better,” Sept, 2, 2014)  I was extremely flattered.

 

Half way through my teaching career I had a student handicapped by cerebral palsy.  He and I would spend lunch recess time “shooting baskets” in my room.  I would hurl a taped, wadded sheet or two of used ditto paper at my desk waste basket from the far reaches of the room.  He would shoot the “ball” five or six feet away.  We had competitive games, replete with hyperbolic, sports announcer-type commentary.    Four or five years later one of his older brothers came into my room during my preparation period.  He handed me a soft, stuffed, reddish-colored, cloth-covered “ball.”  Saying nothing to me, he left.  I realized that my lunch recess friend had died and that his brother had carried out a dying wish.

 

Fairly early during my career one of the boys in my class had been acting out too much.  I spoke with him privately.  He was very unhappy.  His parents were hollering at him constantly.  He was giving them considerable grief. 

 

“What is it they want?” I asked.

 

“A lot.  They want me to do this.  They want me to do that.  They’re so unfair.”

 

I told him rather forcefully that they had the right to expect certain things from him.  I suspected that he believed they didn’t love him.  I said, ”Do what they ask.  See how they react.”

 

A week later he was happy.  “Things are much better,” he told me.  He stayed that way most of the rest of the year.

 

Little things.  A girl, a C student, wrote in my yearbook: “You made me want to learn.”  A much picked-on seventh grade boy that I had tried to protect during the second year I had taught at the school appeared maybe twenty years later in my classroom during our school’s annual May open house. He was there with relatives.  A cousin of his -- or maybe his nephew – was one of my students.  He wanted to say hello.  Years after I retired, a sales clerk in a department store in Eugene, Oregon, looked at my wife’s credit card.  She remarked that she had had an English teacher once named Titus.

 

“Oh?  Where was that?"

 

“You wouldn’t know the place."

 

“Where?”

 

“California.”

 

“What city?  My husband was an English teacher.”

 

“That couldn’t be.”

 

“What city?”

 

“Orinda.”

 

“My husband was your teacher.  Why is it that you remember him?”

 

“He’d have waste paper shooting contests.  He played games with us.”

 

(Late during my career I had two principals that insisted that “time on task” was everything.  Not a minute of class time should be wasted.  My contention was that a little bit of play at the end of a period when necessary work had been completed raised student morale, which, in turn, heightened motivation to learn)

 

And one very serious thing. 

 

I coached boys and girls afterschool sports teams for a number of years.  I eventually limited my coaching to girls, mostly eighth grade, basketball.  Near the beginning of that stretch of time I had difficulty putting together a team.  Most of the athletic girls that year, displeased with their physical education teacher/coach in the seventh grade, decided not to play any afterschool sport.  I knew of three girls who did want to play basketball.  They were not socially connected with the boycotting group.  They were skilled players.  (All three would receive basketball scholarships from division one colleges)  There was also a fourth girl – I will call her Harriet – who was new to the school.  Early in the fall the three girls had befriended her.  She was athletic but not basketball skilled.  These four attended my first practice.  I told them after the practice that they would have to recruit other girls to play, that I would need at least three additional players.  Otherwise, I would coach the seventh grade team.  Three additional girls came to the next practice.  One was fairly athletic, the friend that accompanied her was not, and the third girl, lacking skills, just wanted to play sports.  We had a team.

 

The schools in our league played a short schedule of games – no more than ten.  The season ended with a championship tournament.  We won the tournament.  In the next-to-last game of the tournament Harriet chased after a ball that was going out-of-bounds.  She fell into the wooden bleachers and injured her leg.  That evening I visited her parents.  Her father, an FBI swat team leader, was irate that the host school had allowed the bleachers to be so close to the court.  I listened to him vent; eventually, his temper eased.  Several weeks passed.  The girls wanted to play more games.  Why not? I thought. I added two seventh grade players to our team and scheduled six games against teams outside our league area.  We won five of them.  Afterward, we were invited to play in a tournament hosted by a private school.  We won our first two tournament games.  The next morning a terrible event happened.

 

One of the three skilled girls, Debbie, whom I had as a student, told me that just before the school day had started a car had stopped at the curb in front of the school and an adult in the car had told Harriet to get in.  Debbie was afraid that something bad had happened to Harriet’s father.  About twenty minutes later I received a call from the school secretary.  Harriet’s father had died of a heart attack.  Harriet wanted to talk to me and would call the office during my preparation period.  I hung up the phone.  Debbie and a friend of hers were watching me intently.  I looked at them and nodded.  They burst into tears.  I gave them hall passes to go to the girls bathroom.

 

Harriet called.  She needed to talk.  She had always been afraid that her father might be killed in the line of duty.  She had witnessed at a previous school how a girl had been affected by her father’s unexpected death.  Harriet had noticed an immediate strangeness in how the girl affected and her friends related.  She didn’t want that to happen to her.  Her friends would surely treat her differently.  She did not want to be pitied; she did not want to be viewed as a victim.  Later that day I talked to several of her teammates.  I could see strain in their anticipation of how they would need to comport themselves.  That night we played in the championship game – without Harriet -- and lost.

 

The next day I arranged to take all of the players to Harriet’s house.  They joined her in her bedroom while I talked with her mother and aunt.  Harriet’s mother told me later in the year that this act had helped Harriet considerably.  I am certain that her teammates -- giving their loyalty, solace, and strength – gained as well.

 

I am thankful I chose not to work in a different profession.  Teaching brought out the best in me.  Although I made mistakes, I benefited people.  I was rewarded for it.  I am one of thousands of retired teachers able to say that.  I fear that today’s teachers twenty years later will not be able to.  Corporate leaders and complicit politicians seek to establish conformity in how and what public school children are taught.  “Efficiency,” they maintain, “enables high achievement.”  (Never mind that all the testing they require and the new curricular material they mandate reap substantial profit)  Eliminate the “bad” teachers and hire young teachers who will “get with the program,” they maintain, and the problem of American public education is solved.  I do not agree.               



Teaching -- The Dull Stuff

 

Last April a high school history teacher with 40 years of experience in public education unloaded on his Syracuse, New York, school district.  With much passion Gerald J. Conti declared: “I have truly attempted to live John Dewey’s famous quotation (now likely cliché with me, I’ve used it so very often) that ‘Education is not preparation for life, education is life itself.’ This type of total immersion is what I have always referred to as teaching ‘heavy,’ working hard, spending time, researching, attending to details and never feeling satisfied that I knew enough on any topic. I now find that this approach to my profession is not only devalued, but denigrated and perhaps, in some quarters despised.   … ‘data driven’ education seeks only conformity, standardization, testing and a zombie-like adherence to the shallow and generic Common Core, along with a lockstep of oversimplified so-called Essential Learnings. Creativity, academic freedom, teacher autonomy, experimentation and innovation are being stifled in a misguided effort to fix what is not broken in our system of public education …”

 

“My profession is being demeaned by a pervasive atmosphere of distrust, dictating that teachers cannot be permitted to develop and administer their own quizzes and tests … or grade their own students’ examinations. The development of plans, choice of lessons and the materials to be employed are increasingly expected to be common to all teachers in a given subject. This approach not only strangles creativity, it smothers the development of critical thinking in our students and assumes a one-size-fits-all mentality more appropriate to the assembly line than to the classroom. Teacher planning time has also now been so greatly eroded by a constant need to “prove up” our worth … that there is little time for us to carefully critique student work, engage in informal intellectual discussions with our students and colleagues, or conduct research and seek personal improvement through independent study. We have become increasingly evaluation and not knowledge driven” (Hannagan 1)”

 

In my school district (Orinda Union School District) at the time that I taught (1960-1991), veteran teachers were valued especially for how well they had learned to teach.  Like Mr. Conti, any teacher worth his salt pushes himself.  He learns by being innovative and by not being afraid to make mistakes.  Eighth grade English teachers have always had to teach the dull stuff: rules of capitalization and punctuation, parts of speech, standard word usage, and correct sentence structure.  The challenge has always been to make it palatable and useful.  Early in my teaching career my students scored well enough each year on the near school year-ending, California-mandated, standardized assessment test.  Their success seemed to me, however, artificial.  Teaching students when to capitalize “mother” and when not to, expecting them to identify adverbs that modify adverbs, and insisting that they know the difference between a direct object and an indirect object seemed like instructing dogs to “sit” and “lie.”  I wanted my students to utilize what I taught!  Motivating them to learn and put into practice all that I taught them indeed requires “creativity, academic freedom, teacher autonomy, experimentation and innovation.”  My school district did not stifle me.  It did not cause me to look over my shoulder.  It allowed me to stretch myself, benefit my students more, and experience great satisfaction.  I am very grateful.

 

I would like to tell you how I instructed.  Please imagine yourself to be a normal eighth grade student in my classroom in 1990, not excited about learning dull subject matter but having enough pride in yourself on most days to persevere.  At the end of the school year this is what you might recall.

 

###

 

Capitalization and Punctuation

 

Lots of drill.  Oh my!  Our teacher wanted us when we write dialogue to recognize spoken sentences within narrative sentences.  Don’t use a period before a “he said.” Ever!  Use a comma, question mark, or exclamation point, depending on what the spoken sentence requires.  Confused?  Here are some examples:

            “I saw your brother yesterday,” he said.

            “Did you see my brother yesterday?” he asked.

            “What a great game!” he shouted.

My teacher, Mr. Titus, never wants to see this:

            “I saw your brother yesterday.” he said.

Or this:

“I saw your brother.” he said.  “At the game.”

We have to understand that end punctuation marks (periods, question marks, and exclamation points) are used at the ends of sentences.  That includes spoken sentences!  If a “he said” interrupts a spoken sentence, I have to mark the interruption with commas, before and after.

            “I saw your brother yesterday,” he said, “at the game.”

            “Did you see my brother,” he asked, “at the game?”

Learning to punctuate dialogue was a bit challenging because it was new to me.  It was kind of interesting.  So also was knowing that commas are needed to isolate one-word responses like “yes” or “heck” that begin sentences.  You also have to separate anywhere in a sentence what our teacher calls nouns of direct address.  Figuring out where to put the commas was kind of like doing a puzzle.

“Don’t close that door, Mark.”

“Dad, pass the butter.”

“Stop singing, stupid, if you know what’s good for you.” 

 

Mr. Titus put our names in the sentences we had to capitalize and punctuate.  What he had us say and do in the sentences was funny.  Shy, polite Kenny was a bully ready to kick butt.  Popular, bubbly Hazel was so shy she hardly spoke.  The class brain was stupid.  The class jock was a coward.  We all looked to find our names and read what he had us saying and doing before we started doing any of the sentences.  This is kind of like what the sentences looked like. 

 

            please don’t hit me you bully carl jenkins cringed if you do he said I’ll tell mr. carbunkle

            I’ll do whatever I want kenny jones growled see that you give me double your lunch money tomorrow he ordered

            unhand that little wimp it was the class hero jonathan turner unhand him this instant or I will smash thrash and render you unconscious

            yes please do samantha mason said I plan to invite him to my party which is this thursday and I don’t want him damaged I need him to bake cupcakes you can come too kenny if you promise to be nice

            hey baby how about you invite me the school lover jake johnson said get a load of this he flexed his right bicep

            wow I certainly will Samantha gushed be still my heart

 

After we got pretty good doing the sentences, Mr. Titus assigned us to write a brief short story scene that used a lot of dialogue.  We had to use at least once each of the following to show that we knew what he had taught us.

 

            Noun of direct address

            One word response at the beginning of a spoken sentence

            An appositive phrase

            A series of words or phrases

            A spoken sentence interrupted by a “he said”

            A spoken sentence that asks a question.

            A spoken sentence or expression that is an exclamation

 

Later in the year, Mr. Titus assigned us to write a three to four-page short story scene.  He also had us write about an autobiographical experience.  We had to use dialogue in both assignments.

 

Proper Word Usage

 

After capitalization and punctuation we learned what Mr. Titus called standard usage.  Take this sentence.

 

            The boy (run, runs) fast.

 

Not even a dummy would choose “run.”  It doesn’t sound right.  How about this sentence?

 

            Each of the high-achieving students (expect, expects) a high grade.

 

Most kids would choose “expect” because it also sounds right, but the correct choice is “expects.”  Before we got into subject/verb agreement and learned why “expects” is correct, Mr. Titus gave us a 20 sentence quiz that looked much like these sentences.

 

1.     I haven’t (did, done) that.

2.     I have (laid, lain) here for three hours.

3.     That girl in the red dress speaks (good, well).

4.     None of the goats (was, were) raised by that farmer.

5.     Sally baked the cake.  I (brought, brung) it to class.

6.     That ugly kid is friends with Jack, Carl and (I, me).

 

When we were finished with the quiz, he told us to write in the upper corner of our papers the number of correct answers we thought we would have.  I wrote “18.”  Then he gave the correct answers.  Here are the answers for the example sentences above.

 

          1.     done; 2. lain; 3. well: 4. was; 5. brought; 6. me

 

I got 12 sentences right, not 18.  Nobody did as well as he or she thought.  The odd-numbered sentences had easy word choices.  The even-numbered ones weren’t so easy, even though we thought so.  Our teacher drew two circles on the blackboard.  They pretty much overlapped.  He labeled one of the circles “conversational.”  The other circle he labeled “standard.”  He said that where the two circles overlapped is where what sounds right and what rules determine to be correct give you the same answer.  He said that because most of our parents are college educated and we learn to use words by what we hear, the overlap between the two circles is fairly large.  It would not be with students in the Los Angeles school where he taught his first year of teaching.  He said that “conversational usage” is what you are accustomed to hearing and what you yourself use in normal situations.  “Standard usage” is determined by specific rules.  It is used by educated people whose profession or social status requires it.  It was his duty to teach us standard usage.  He didn’t mean that we shouldn’t use conversational usage when it was appropriate to do so.  But we needed to know the difference between the two usages and be able to use standard usage when it was needed (like on standardized tests, but, more importantly, when we needed to demonstrate in real life situations an educated command of the English language. 

 

Thereafter, we learned the rules of subject/verb agreement, personal pronoun usage, adjective and adverb usage, agreement of pronouns with their antecedents, irregular verb form usage, all that dull stuff.  He never let us forget what we learned.  Every test he gave us included stuff we had learned earlier.  He’d be testing us about using irregular verb usage (“went” or “gone”) and we’d also have sentences that needed punctuation and that had subject/verb and “I” or “me” choices.  We really learned that stuff.  I also had fun correcting my parents when they used “I” in sentences when they should have used “me.”

 

Grammatical Sentence Structure

 

At the beginning of the year I expected I’d have to learn more about parts of speech.  “Wait until you have to diagram sentences,” my mother warned me.  Well, Mr. Titus didn’t do that.  He didn’t even use the grammar textbook.  We did learn a lot about parts of speech when we covered standard usage.  Especially nouns, pronouns, verbs, and prepositions.  There was a real purpose in being able to recognize them.  (You have to be able to spot a preposition to recognize the object of that preposition and not get fooled thinking the verb that follows it must agree with it  -- One of the boys is [not ‘are”] here).  Near the end of the school year we got into sentence structure.  He really went into what he called adjective and adverb modifiers.  I’m talking about phrases and clauses, not just one word modifiers.  He started off by giving us what he called a fact sheet.  It listed all the kinds of modifiers.  It looked like this:

 

            Adjective Modifiers

 

Adjectives of various types – The tall boy thanked several girls for baking those cakes.

Prepositional (adjective) phrase – The boy in the kitchen is making too much noise.

Participial phrase – The boy sleeping on the sofa is late for school.  This novel, written by John           Steinbeck, is outstanding.

Appositive phrase – My friend, a good student, wants to write a short story.

Relative clause – Bill, who is a good student, reads many books.

 

            Adverb modifiers

 

Adverbs that indicate the manner, place, time, and frequency of an action

            Bill spoke slowly.   Jack studies here.  Tom took his test yesterday.  Max plays basketball often.

Prepositional (adverb) phrases that provide the same information that adverbs do

            Bill spoke with a drawl.  Jack studies in a quiet room.  Tom took his test before noon.  Max played basketball for a month.

Adverb clauses, indicating manner, place, time, frequency, and reason

            Bill spoke as if he were afraid.  Jack studies where it is quiet.  Tom took his test before the other students came into the classroom.

            Max plays basketball whenever his friends ask him.  Because he was tired, Phil took a nap.

 

He had us do practice exercises that looked like this:

 

            (adj. – number) (adj. – descrp.) girls (adj. phr.) sang (adj. – descr.) songs (part. phr.) (adv. cl.)

Three giddy girls from Chicago sang silly songs written by several friends because they were bored.

 

To break the monotony of doing these exercises Mr. Titus occasionally had us play a relay game.  He divided the class into three teams, nine to a team.  Each team numbered its players.  He put three five by eight file cards on the blackboard tray.  Each card had nine numbers and after each number a specific adjective or adverb modifier.  The cards were identical.  This is how they would look.

 

1.     adjective phrase

2.     adverb-place

3.     adverbial clause –time

4.     participial phrase

5.     adverbial clause-reason

6.     appositive phrase

7.     relative clause

8.     adverb phrase-manner

9.     participial phrase

 

When Mr. Titus said, “Go!” the number one player of each team ran to the blackboard, looked at the modifier written after #1, and wrote an answer.  The next player of each team could not run to the blackboard until Mr. Titus said that the answer written on the board by the previous team member was correct.  This continued until all of the players on one of the teams were finished.  If somebody got stuck and couldn’t write a correct modifier, after about ten seconds Mr. Titus would say, “Help!” and the team captain would take over.  It was fun watching everyone getting excited urging his or her team on and laughing at how the kids at the blackboard acted.  (It didn’t hurt that Mr. Titus gave each winning team member a Brach candy)  I noticed when we played the game for the third time that we all had gotten a lot better writing correct answers.  

 

We got familiar with the different places in a sentence where these modifiers are used.  We learned, for instance, that adverbs and adverb clauses can begin a sentence as well as follow the verb or verb phrase that they modify.

 

            Cautiously, he drove through the fog.  Before the bell sounded, Jim headed for the door.

 

Mr. Titus really zeroed in on relative clauses. He showed us that if a relative clause has a certain form of be (is, are, was, were) as its verb, we can delete the relative pronoun (that, who, which) that begins the clause and the form of be that directly follows it and use what is left of the clause as an adjective modifier.

 

            The man who is smoking a cigar knows my brother.  Jack, who is my brother, enjoys football.

            The man smoking a cigar knows my brother.  Jack, my brother, enjoys football.

 

The resulting phrases will be either participial phrases (phrases that begin with a present or past participle) or appositive phrases.  If they modify the subject of the sentence, you can place them at the beginnings of sentences.

 

            Bill, who was smoking a cigar, waved to his friends.     Smoking a large cigar, Bill waved to his friends.

            Jack, who is a very good friend, invited me to his party.     A very good friend, Jack invited me to his party.

 

Mr. Titus gave us a lot of practice adding relative clauses and their deleted forms to simple sentence statements.

 

He also stressed the importance of parallel construction.  When you use “and” or “but,” you have to use the same kind of word, phrase, or clause in front and behind it.

 

            Jack likes big and tall girls.

The cat ran across the lawn and into the street.

The man who reads Steinbeck and whom my sisters think is funny was given an award.

After the clouds gathered but before the rain started, Mother brought her lawn chairs into the garage.

Published in 1967 and read by millions, the best-selling novel was made into a motion picture.

 

After all of this practice, we had to demonstrate that we could write complex, correctly constructed sentences on our own.  Mr. Titus gave us bunches of information about a made-up or real person.
 

Mr. Carbunkle
 

1.     is my seventh grade math teacher

2.     writes weird poetry

3.     is a veteran of the Vietnam War

4.     likes Italian food

5.     drove through a picket fence

 

We had to include all the information about the person in one correctly constructed sentence.  I kind of liked doing this because it was a challenge and because it wasn’t all that hard.  Here is how I would write a sentence about Mr. Carbunkle.

 

My seventh grade math teacher and a veteran of the Vietnam War, Mr. Carbunkle, who likes Italian food and who writes weird poetry, drove through a picket fence.

 

Mr. Titus told us that we shouldn’t always try to write long sentences.  Being clear is what is important.  However, there are times when long sentences are useful.  He also said that when he doesn’t like the sound of one of his long sentences, he looks to see how he constructed it.  Almost always he discovers an error in modifier placement or wrong parallel construction.  He said he likes beginning sentences with participial phrases and that we should try to use them.  He wants us to use everything of the dull stuff that he has taught us in our writing and, when we have to, in our speech.  The more we do this, the more our using it becomes natural.  But we will never get right everything we write on the first try.  Read out loud what you’ve written.  If it doesn’t sound right, you’ve probably used too many words or you might have misplaced or misused one or two modifiers or messed up your parallel construction.  Always go over what you write.  Don’t settle for something that is less than what you can write.

 

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Teaching the dull stuff is essential.  The challenge is getting your students to recognize that it is useful and relevant.  Teaching it takes time and ingenuity, imperatives that teacher-bashing “reformers” refuse to recognize.  Teaching the dull stuff helped me considerably as a writer.  I could not have written the following passage from my novel “Crossing the River” without my knowledge of adjective and adverb modifiers, their placement in complex sentences, and parallel construction.

 

Profit necessitated subservience.  Having failed to achieve it first by use of intimidation and then by economic hardship, King and Parliament had resorted to heavy-handed subjugation.  This redcoat invasion of the country, this desist-or-die attempted confiscation of private property, had inspired armed insurgency. Disdained by Parliament, the aristocracy, and the British mercantile class, these compatriots, these commoners, these Massachusetts toilers this day had attacked militarily the master.  …  Yet they had cheered him [Dr. Joseph Warren].  It was true that he had instructed them, encouraged them, in the end incited them.  He, with others, had brought them to the river that could now be called revolution.  They, knowing full well the danger, had, of their own volition, crossed over (Titus 338-339)!

 

Works cited:

 

Hannagan, Charley.  “Goodbye, Mr. Conti: a Westhill High Teacher's Retirement Letter Hits Home with Students, Parents.”  Syracuse.com.  April 2, 2013.  http://www.syracuse.com/news/index.ssf/2013/04/goodbye_mr_conti_a_westhill_hi.html.  December 5, 2014.  Web.

 

Titus, Harold.  Crossing the River.  BookLocker.com, Inc.  2011.  Print.