Many people feel various negative emotions when they see the word grammar. Some people think grammar is hard. Some people think it is boring. Others just want to avoid it. If you have carefully read online news websites you have probably seen the evidence of grammar gone awry. At Salt Lake Community College (SLCC) grammar’s image is getting a makeover. At SLCC the staff are professionals. They are learning to deal with their grammar anxiety through a grammar phobia workshop. Think of it as therapy for their grammar woes.
The Center for Innovation and Profession Development is a new organization of SLCC. Under its auspices, Deanne Arvizu manages the Staff Development Office. Her office is all about teaching the staff skills that go beyond the scope of their ordinary duties.
Last month, there was an in-person, interactive video conference event named the Grammar Phobia Workshop. The workshop took place on the Taylorsville Redwood Campus and was interactively broadcast to the Miller and South City campuses. 47 staff members registered for the workshop. Participation in the workshop was voluntary. Staff members could also watch the workshop from their work computers live or see a recording later.
When asked what the workshop was meant to accomplish Arvizu said, “We want to help our employees, and assist them with their needs, as far as their grammar is concerned.”
The workshop was led by Dr. Stephanie L. Dowdle Maenhardt. She is Associate Director of the SLCC Community Writing Center and Associate Professor of English at SLCC. One opening example she gave of the importance of grammar was the sentence, “Let’s eat grandma,” as apposed to “Let’s eat, grandma.”
After the obligatory dictionary definition was briefly discussed the group got to the meat of the topic. The workshop got under way with a review of the history of grammar and grammar texts. After the history lesson there was talk of how grammar is a social construct. After that weighty material was digested the participants were given respite in the form of some funny pictures of grammar mistakes.
After the giggles stopped the workshop moved on to how to use semicolons. Dowdle Maenhardt got much of her material from Mignon Fogarty’s Grammar Girl Podcast and she gave credit were credit is due. Next, the workshop discussed how to use I.E. versus E.G. The workshop began to wind down with an online grammar game. The website address is savethecomma.com/game/. There was some discussion about using commas. The atmosphere of the workshop was casual and friendly.
If you want more friendly information about grammar, pick up Mignon Fogarty’s books “Grammar Girl’s Quick and Dirty Tips for Better Writing” and “The Grammar Devotional: Daily Tips for Successful Writing from Grammar Girl.” Also, “Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation” by Lynne Truss is popular on its topic.
This workshop is one example of many educational opportunities being offered to the staff of SLCC. You can get more information online at slcc.edu/staffdevelopment/.