Who's to Blame?

Hello fellow people of grammar! This week my topic will be about the Trojan War. I had to write this essay for my Mythology class (Do I capitalize the "m" in mythology in this sentence?) about something in the course that has impacted me the greatest. I wrote about the shifting of blame within the story The Iliad; however, this is only the first two paragraphs of my essay. Enjoy!

Who’s to Blame?

            The Trojan War: a marvelously gruesome and excruciatingly long war, began to unfold long before Paris had kidnapped Helen, the most popular belief for this war. The events leading to the Trojan War started long before even Achilles was born. There was a spectacular wedding between Peleus (the mortal) and Thetis (the sea goddess), but one individual was not invited, Eris the goddess of discord—who would want discord at their wedding? Eris is angry for not being invited and shows up anyway; she holds up an apple and claims that this apple belongs to the fairest, and tosses it down the aisle. The expected happens; Aphrodite, Athena, and Hera get into an argument about who is the fairest to claim the apple. Zeus then appoints a shepherd—Paris—to judge the fairest of the three goddesses and they each offer him a bribe, like any true goddess would. The three goddess all give him a tantalizing offer, Hera offers him power, Athena offers him wealth, and Aphrodite offers him the most beautiful woman in the world—Helen. Paris chooses Aphrodite as the fairest and gets whisked away to claim his “prize”, who just happens to already be married. Paris steals Helen and everyone gets upset and eventually the war breaks out. This story brings an odd perspective to the war, who is really to blame for the Trojan War? Is it Paris? Helen? Aphrodite? Eris? In The Iliad there are three characters who talk about blame, Agamemnon, Hector, and Homer—the author himself.

            Agamemnon, the king of the Achaean army, is a complex and interesting character. Although he was previously one of Helen’s suitors, Menelaus won out in the end. The previous suitors of Helen had formed a kind of comitatus (band of warriors) to protect Helen if there be a need. Because his relationship to Helen, you would think he would blame Helen or Paris for the war. “Zeus is a harsh, cruel god. He vowed to me long ago, / he bowed his head that I should never embark for home / till I had brought the walls of Ilium crashing down” (2.131-133). So it’s Zeus’ fault? But Agamemnon throughout The Iliad is seen always blaming the Gods for absolutely everything. When Achilles decides to come back to the war after Patroclus is killed, Agamemnon is still blaming everyone other than himself, “"I am not to blame! / Zeus and Fate and the Fury stalking through the night, / they are the ones who drove that savage madness in my heart, / that day in assembly when I seized Achilles' prize—/ on my own authority, true, but what could I do? / A god impels all things to their fulfillment: / Ruin, eldest daughter of Zeus, she blinds us all" (19.100-106). This is a different tale about the moment when Agamemnon took Achilles’ woman away, which before it was obviously Agamemnon's fault, but now it was entirely Zeus’ and Ruin’s fault. Agamemnon seems to not blame anyone or anything besides the gods for any misfortune that befalls him and the others around him.

          

Conjunction Junction

I finally got to stay in Pullman this weekend, ALTHOUGH my husband had to go back to the Tri-Cities to help his father take down the balcony at his house. I would have been lonely, BUT I had two adorable kitties to play with! Did I ever introduce them to my blog? I don't believe so. Their names are Sherlock and Mori, FOR Moriarty of course. They are only 5 and 6 months old, YET they are going up so fast!

Back to business! Last week we went over S-V-O sentences, which I was really thankful for. I believe I have learned them, SO let me try and rehearse my knowledge. An S-V-O sentence has a subject, a transitive verb, and an object. The verb is transitive because it must take the following object, which will usually be a noun. The other kind of sentences are S-Vi, OR Subject and intransitive verb sentences. The intransitive verb is usually followed by a prepositional phrase or possibly an adverb. For example, "I graduated after my senior year of high school." The word "graduated" would be the intransitive verb, WHILE "after my senior year of high school" would be the prepositional phrase. The last sentence structure that we went over last week was the S-LV-SC. This sentence has a verb that is linking the subject to the subject compliment, which the subject case is usually an adjective or a noun. For example, "The teacher is a queen." The word "teacher" is the subject, the word "is" is the linking verb, and "queen" is the subject compliment. I believe I got all of that down now; I'm so glad we went over it again.

One thing that might be interesting to hear is that I was never taught the acronym FANBOYS, NOR was my husband. I had heard about it from other people who had learned it, AND they said it worked really well for them; however, I have never had a teacher teach it to me. I am sure that I understand conjunctions really well, BECAUSE let's face it I was a conjunction junction girl in my prime.

This week's episode of grammar blog

Hello again!

I've had so more traveling this weekend, except this time I went to Spokane. I had to go for a doctor's appointment, since my eye problem is so "unique" that I can't go to just any old eye doctor; BETWEEN YOU AND ME I think that's a load of bologna. I made up for having to go to the doctor's office by going to the Melting Pot, it's delicious and everyone must go at least once; however, it is extremely expensive.

              
          Back to grammar, this week we talked about prepositional phrases vs particles and also about pronouns. The thing that stuck out the most though is having Barbara describe to me when and when not to use "who" and "whom". No one has ever told me how to use those words, they would just correct me when I used it wrong without giving me an explanation. I finally know how to use them now, it may take some time to become subconsciously correct in my oral speech but I'll get there eventually if I persevere.
            
          It was really helpful to finally give a meaning to word prepositional phrase. We kept discussing them in class before and I knew that some people in the class were confused about them, including MYSELF. Having them finally described and being able to point them out in a newspaper was extremely helpful. It will take some time before I feel confident with them, but I will work hard to ensure that I will.
           
          We also talked about different sentence types, such as SV and SVO. I don’t feel like I grasp the idea of them fully though. I would like to see us spend some more time on them in class, or maybe just explain them again. I felt so close to understanding, but I wasn’t quite there.

So far

I can't believe it is already coming on to week 4 of the semester, time flies when you're having fun right? This semester has been extremely busy for me; my husband had to get more medications and to do that we had to travel to the Tri-Cities about ten million times. Hopefully we can finally settle down in Pullman.

So far in the semester I have learned quite a bit about how to teacher grammar when I become a teacher, and also a bit on how to improve my writing. I never knew how I would teach grammar, never really came to mind, I guess it still seems too (Is this correct? Never really understood when to place a ‘to’ or a ‘too’) farfetched that I will be a full blown teacher in two-three years (Can I use a dash like that?). After reading the story about Dora I had a better sense of what I would be doing when it came to teaching; like I said, I never really had an idea but THEIRS seem really promising. The gist of the method was to make sure to encourage the writer to continue writing, don’t bog them down with what was wrong, and tell them the good stuff. It’s weird how this idea has really changed. WHEN I WAS A STUDENT, I HAD TO PEER REVIEW KIDS AND MAKE SURE THEY KNEW EXACTLY WHAT THEY DID WRONG; WHEN I’M A TEACHER, I WILL NEED TO ENCOURAGE THEM TO BE CONFIDENT WITH THEIR WRITING AND MAKE THEM FIGURE OUT WHAT THEY DID WRONG ON THEIR OWN, AND SIMPLY GIVE THEM TOOLS TO USE TO UNDERSTAND THEIR OWN WRITING. It’s interesting how most teachers continue to just point out what is wrong and discourage children to want to write when there has been studies showing that the methods they are using are not as great as these ones.

I’ve also incorporated the previous pattern of the week into my latest essay in my other class. I never really thought of making a list seem endless, and I would never have dreamed of dropping the word “and” (is it correct to have the quotations around a specific word like this?) from a list; that idea has been beaten into me by all my previous teachers.

Until next time,

Rebecca