Wednesday, September 3, 2014

Subjective

A few times already this year, Alyssa has asked for help with her homework. When it's math, I suppress a groan and try to help as much as I can.

But last night…oh, last night. I got to help her with language arts homework and it was so much fun!

I know, I’m having a nerdy moment but bear with me.

She was doing worksheets about pronouns. Pronouns!! Again, SO. MUCH. FUN.

After I beat my head against the table due to the grammatical structure of the instructional sentence (Ending with a preposition? Seriously?) we got to work. For the record, the instructions said, “Read the sentence. Write the pronoun and the antecedent it goes to.” Really. A language arts worksheet had that sentence. I just…I don’t even know what to say.

Alas, she wouldn’t let me get out my red pen and correct the instructions. Instead she laughed hysterically at my antics. I love a child with a sense of humor.

I think the most awesome part of the evening was the fact that Alyssa didn’t really need my help. I’d read the sentences to her and she figured it all out herself. She was obviously perfectly capable of reading the sentences herself but I think she liked me reading them out loud. I also think she just liked us being at the table together, spending some time one on one (or two on one, depending on where Olivia happened to be at that moment.)

I’m pretty sure Alyssa didn’t need my little tutorial about subjective versus objective pronouns but she was kind enough that she didn’t tell me to shut it as I nattered on and on. One of my biggest grammatical pet peeves is when people use the subjective pronoun when the objective is correct.

For example, “Just between you and I, this sentence is SO wrong.” The correct way to say that is, “Just between you and me, this sentence is now correct.” See? Me is the object of the preposition.

Anyway, it was a fun, fun ten minutes out of our night. Once again, I feel lucky to have a sixth grader who seeks my company, who listens to me chatter about grammatical rules, who laughs when I’m being silly instead of rolling her eyes and thinking about how embarrassing I am. I fear that stage is coming but I’m going to hug her tight and try to hold it off for a little while longer.

1 comment:

Julie said...

Ha! Riley told me that I should be an English teacher. I love that we are united in our nerdiness.