The Professor and the Madman

What does it say about the English language when more than 1,000 definitions and words were created by a mass murderer and resident in an insane asylum? Hmmm....well, my guess is that portions of the English language are completely arbitrary. I think this aspect is important for our future students to realize because no one single person has all of the answers. Language is a constantly growing thing where new words and new meanings to old words are constantly added to dictionaries. English teachers need to keep up-to-date on their definitions of words and make sure they are using terms in the right context. Because I read this story, my view of the English language being arbitrary was only confirmed.

On another note, the storyline about the character of Minor completely intrigued me. Here was this genius who contributed more than 1,000 words to the Oxford English Dictionary, the most valid dictionary in today's time, who turned out to be too smart for his own good, which in turn made him become insane and start murdering people. To me, that is pure craziness. I guess it goes to show you that sometimes there is a downfall to being too intelligent. In high school, I heard somewhere that anyone with an IQ above 175 would be considered partially insane. Taking this in and analyzing my own IQ, I realized I'm clear and not insane. Whew. It is just interesting how the human brain, a three ounce object, can lead to such greatness, harm, and insanity.

Image Grammar

As I read through portions of Harry Noden's Image Grammar book and recalled his class last semester, I realized that I wrote a research paper over Image Grammar in my sophomore year before I even had the faintest idea who Harry Noden was. In my research paper, I explained how Image Grammar was a good tool to use to help developing writers learn how to deviate from the usual "subject, verb, object" sentences. It also shows the students how professional and famous authors use their writing to create images in their readers' minds, and then instructs the students on how to write in the same way. Writing a research paper about this book, I definitely feel as though I learned a great deal on how to teach and use Image Grammar.

Because the Image Grammar book is an effective teaching tool to assist students in deviating from their usual sentence structures, I feel as though it is important for me to use this in my classroom. The grades I feel would benefit the most from lessons in Image Grammar would be grades seven through nine. Any grade after ninth, I feel would possibly be bored and disinterested in a lesson over Imager Grammar. I could be wrong though. By teaching seventh through ninth graders Image Grammar, I feel as though the students would start to see their writing in a different light. Instead of viewing it as a forced assignment where all the facts must be written directly on paper, maybe the students would start to view writing as a fun assignment where they could use their words to excite their audience and put detailed pictures in their readers' minds.

Pleasure Reading: Ghost World

Recently I decided to venture from my usual text novel reading to read Daniel Clowes' graphic novel Ghost World. I have to say that at first, I found it to be extremely vulgar. The characters used the "F" word on many occasions and there were various sexual references. Looking past the vulgarity of the text though, I could see how these two female main characters could relate to teenagers today. The major theme of the novel was finding one's identity and dealing with change. In the end, Enid, the main character who hates everything about herself and life, decided to attend college and get out of her small town to become a new person. It seemed like a depressing ending, but when she came into the last scene of the comic, the reader could tell Enid was happier.

The movie turned out to have a different motive than the graphic novel. Enid once again was trying to find herself amongst all of her cynical ideas toward the world, but she did so through another, slightly creepy man named Seymore. I did not like how the Director interpreted the story in this way. Also, Enid denied a scholarship to attend college in order to stay at home in her cynical life that she hated. The Director definitely changed the entire idea and moral of the novel by changing the story in this way and it thoroughly disappointed me. Though it was disappointing and different, it still turned out to be interesting and both stories related to young adults, which in turn would relate to our future students.