Re: report on how kids can't write

[Kimberley Lackey <97372509 -at- WSUVM1 -dot- CSC -dot- WSU -dot- EDU>]

Hello everybody,

I am happy to say somehow I made it through the public school system knowing
exactly what a noun was. I could even diagram my sentences. I am also happy to
say I am one semester away from having a bachelor's degree in english, with a
technical writing emphasis.

After reading your point about being disappointed that 6th graders do not know
that a noun is a person, place, thing or idea, I was reminded of the shock I
experienced in my college grammer class when the professor informed us to
forget everything we learned in school. We were told that defining a noun as
merely a person, place, thing, or idea was inadequate. So, to pass on some of
my recent education, I will share the problem with this definition with you.

The problem with this definition is that it will not allow you to pick out all
the nouns in English. Depending on how you define "thing", you may or may not
include "behavior" in the sentence "I was appalled at his behavior". If you do,
it is difficult to see how you can exclude "behave" in the sentence "I was
appalled at how he behaved." "Behavior" is in any model a noun; "behaved" on
the other hand is a verb. A definition which fails to include words which
belong to the catefory defined or which includes words which do not belong to
that category cannot be adequate.

I am glad that I was taught at a young age how to construct simple sentences.
Yet, I feel a better grasp with sentence structure now that I have the simple
steps necessary to determine what part of speach a word truly is.

Sorry for the length of this.

Kimberley Lackey 97372509 -at- wsuvm1 -dot- wsu -dot- edu