Introducing... Skittles!

This is Skittles, our new kitten.  Javamom brought him back from Oklahoma for us.  (She took this picture, too.)  He is friendly, patient and playful.  I didn't think I would enjoy a cat this much.

LTW Journal 9/29 (Addendum)

(Part of an ongoing series detailing our Lost Tools of Writing adventures.  Previous posts here.)

Update:  Grammar Girl to the rescue with a down-to-earth article on parallel construction!  I knew I was making it harder than it was.  Grammar Girl rocks.

I am getting in a little practice myself before my next teaching attempt.  I thought I would try again with the original thesis and proofs:

Boromir was not a fit Ringbearer
Frodo was a fit Ringbearer
Wise authorities chose Frodo

First I need to fix that last proof so it lines up properly.  Grammar Girl quoted Sesame street: "One of these things is not like the others, one of these things just doesn't belong..."  I got confused looking at these sentences, but Aravis happened to be nearby.  She is insanely good at grammar.  This illustrates both a curse and blessing of homeschooling.

The curse is not knowing enough on some subjects to "be the teacher".  Often, the homeschooling mother ends up learning along with her students.  (When I taught Aravis grammar, the answer key was my best friend.)  The blessing is that by a certain age their affinities emerge and, never having had their enthusiasm quashed by institutionalized competition*, they begin passionate independent studies.  Eventually, they are able to help younger siblings in ways the mother never could.  Along the way the younger sibs embrace their own affinities and *they* start passionate independent studies.  Life becomes a joyous celebration of all the things God placed in the world for us to know.  I love learning.

Anyway, Aravis patiently explained that the first two sentences contain predicate nominatives-- a predicate that renames the subject.  The third sentence does not.  We either have to rename the wise authorities, or make Frodo the subject and rename him, or add Boromir as the subject and rename him.

(I should probably have Aravis teach the Elocution portion each time.)

Wise authorities were fit choosers.  (yuck)
Wise authorities were fit judges.  (hmm)
According to authorities, Boromir was a  bad choice. (complicated)
Boromir was a bad choice.  (too similar to first proof)

Or maybe we could take the predicate nominatives out of the other two sentences:

Boromir had bad qualities
Frodo had good qualities
Frodo had the confidence of the Council and Fellowship

It still seems like the subjects ought to be the same.  Otherwise, how to line them up in a sentence?

Boromir should not have tried to take the Ring from Frodo for three reasons.  Boromir had bad qualities, Frodo had good qualities, and Frodo had the confidence of the Council and Fellowship.

I don't know.  It still looks complicated.  If we could change the subject of #1 to Frodo, it might work.  But that first point is important, and Frodo has nothing to do with Boromir's bad qualities.

Still thinking...

*I am not against competition per se.  I think it is a useful tool in the learning toolbox.  However, I believe it is wrong to apply it arbitrarily across a system.

LTW 9/29

(Previous LTW posts)

Today we got bogged down again.  It started off well, though.  We reviewed the parts of speech and gave a nod to other notables of grammar.  Mariel gleefully remembered all her modifiers.  Aravis joked that we ought to add Lynne Truss to our list of essential grammar-tools.

Then we learned the definition of parallelism.  Still good.  Aravis quoted Strunk and White, and I asked what Paula La Rocque might say about it.

Strunk and White:  "Omit needless words."
Paula La Rocque:  "Choose the precise word."

Then we smugly pulled out the practice essay issue and main proofs:

Thesis:  Boromir should not have taken the Ring from Frodo.
1st Proof:  Boromir was not a fit Ringbearer
2nd Proof:  Frodo was a fit Ringbearer
3rd Proof:  Wise authorities chose Frodo

We could not get these three proofs to do the parallelism thing.

Honestly.  They would not cooperate.  The reason seemed to be that the proofs each had different subjects.  We tried to switch the sentences around so Boromir was always the subject, but that did not work.

At this point, I realized I was in over my head.  I was sure there was a way to make this thesis and these proofs work, but I could not see it. 

Finally, we decided to use the sub-proofs from Proof 1 (Boromir was not a fit Ringbearer) as the main proofs, since they all had Boromir as the subject.  Now our outline looked like this:

Thesis:  Boromir should not have tried to take the Ring from Frodo
1st Proof:   Boromir was spoiled
2nd Proof:  Boromir was obsessed
3rd Proof:  Boromir was unsupported

Here is the introductory paragraph:

"Boromir should not have tried to take the Ring from Frodo for three reasons.  Boromir was spoiled, obsessed and unsupported."

Looking at this now (late at night, in the quiet), I think it would work better if it said, "Boromir was spoiled by his father, obsessed with Gondor, and unsupported by Aragorn." 

Do you see the parallelism?  It is the repetition of the same parts of speech in each proof.  We got it in there, if rather simply.  And this is just the practice essay.  We will probably change it again on Monday.  We work on it together as a teaching tool-- then the kids apply the same process to their real essays.  I am very thankful for it, especially since I am learning along with the kids.  We figure out what might be a problem when we try a new concept on the practice essay. 

I did not give the kids any homework.  I feel like this new concept muddied the waters a bit.  I want to review and take another shot at parallelism in the practice essay on Monday before having them work on their actual essays.