Shadowlands †The Story Behind One of the Greatest Christian Authors †English Essay

Shadowlands – The Story Behind One of the Greatest Christian Authors – English Essay Free Online Research Papers Shadowlands The Story Behind One of the Greatest Christian Authors English Essay Shadowlands. – C. S. Lewis, the celebrated Oxford professor, fervent Christian and childrens author, meets Gresham, American divorcee, poetess and mother. She comes to England as a fan, seeking out the admired author. He is intrigued by the bright and impetuous American. They become friends and they have a marriage of convenience to satisfy some immigration difficulties for her but then she becomes ill with cancer and Lewis, realizing his love for her, marries her again, this time in a religious ceremony. They enjoy a couple of years of happiness and then she dies. But it is not as simple as this plot. The film describes and leads the viewer to one of the most important of life’s questions. Does our suffering mean anything? The question that everyone asks himself at the worst moments of his existence, when we tend to think that we were the last person that would suffer the misfortune of the death of our loved ones. It is due to our love for other people that we suffer when we are abandoned for one reason or another. Therefore, we should think that it is not only a matter of the pain what we suffer but also the period of happiness we live or have lived. These states of mind, spirit and soul have and will always go together or at least continuous, one after the other; and assuming this irrevocable truth we ought to ask ourselves if we prefer to lament the pain of loss or give thanks that it was you and not your beloved relative or friend who lived the loss of the other. We are here to live, to experience everything: hate and love, illness and health, life and death because if we never encounter the negative sides of the world we would never appreciate as much as we do now its positive face. Research Papers on Shadowlands - The Story Behind One of the Greatest Christian Authors - English EssayMind TravelThe Masque of the Red Death Room meaningsThe Effects of Illegal ImmigrationComparison: Letter from Birmingham and CritoWhere Wild and West MeetHonest Iagos Truth through DeceptionHarry Potter and the Deathly Hallows EssayCapital PunishmentPersonal Experience with Teen Pregnancy19 Century Society: A Deeply Divided Era

What Makes Grammar a Timeless Subject to Study and Teach

What Makes Grammar a Timeless Subject to Study and Teach Grammar has long been a subject of study- as a companion to  rhetoric  in ancient Greece and Rome and as one of the seven  liberal arts  in medieval education. Although the  methods  of studying grammar have changed dramatically in recent times, the  reasons  for studying grammar have remained essentially the same.   One of the most sensible answers to the question of why grammar matters appears in a position statement on the teaching of grammar in American schools. Published by the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE), the report is refreshingly free of educational cant. Heres how it begins: Grammar is important because it is the language that makes it possible for us to talk about language. Grammar names the types of words and word groups that make up sentences not only in English but in any language. As human beings, we can put sentences together even as children- we can all do grammar. But to be able to talk about how sentences are built, about the types of words and word groups that make up sentences- that is knowing about grammar. And knowing about grammar offers a window into the human mind and into our amazingly complex mental capacity. People associate grammar with errors and correctness. But knowing about grammar also helps us understand what makes sentences and paragraphs clear and interesting and precise. Grammar can be part of literature discussions when we and our students closely read the sentences in poetry and stories. And knowing about grammar means finding out that all languages and all dialects follow grammatical patterns. (Haussamen, Brock, et al. Some Questions and Answers About Grammar, 2002.) Note: The full report, Some Questions and Answers About Grammar, can be found on the website for the National Council of Teachers of English. Its well worth the read for anyone interested in English grammar. Additional Perspectives on Grammar Consider these explanations from other experts in English and education on why grammar matters: On  the utility and importance of  the study of Grammar,  and the principles of composition, much might be advanced, for the encouragement of persons in early life to apply themselves to this branch of learning... It may indeed be justly asserted, that many of the differences in opinion amongst men, with the disputes, contentions, and alienations of heart, which have too often proceeded from such differences, have been occasioned by a want of proper skill in the connexion and meaning of words, and by a tenacious misapplication of language. (Murray,  Lindley. English Grammar: Adapted to the Different Classes of Learners, Collins and Perkins, 1818.) We study grammar because a knowledge of sentence structure is an aid in the interpretation of literature; because continual dealing with sentences influences the student to form better sentences in his own composition; and because grammar is the best subject in our course of study for the development of reasoning power. (Webster,  William Frank. The Teaching of English Grammar, Houghton, 1905.) The study of language is a part of general knowledge. We study the complex working of the human body to understand ourselves; the same reason should attract us to studying the marvelous complexity of human language... If you understand the nature of language, you will realize the ground for your linguistic prejudices and perhaps moderate them; you will also more clearly assess linguistic issues of public concern, such as worries about the state of the language or what to do about the teaching of immigrants. Studying the English language has a more obvious practical application: It can help you to use the language more effectively. (Greenbaum, Sidney, and Gerald Nelson. An Introduction to English Grammar, 2nd ed., Longman, 2002.) Grammar is the study of how sentences mean. And that is why it helps. If we want to understand the meaning conveyed by sentences, and to develop our ability to express and respond to this meaning, then the more we know about grammar, the better we will be able to carry out these tasks... Grammar is the structural foundation of our ability to express ourselves. The more we are aware of how it works, the more we can monitor the meaning and effectiveness of the way we and others use language. It can help foster precision, detect ambiguity, and exploit the richness of expression available in English. And it can help everyone - not only teachers of English but teachers of anything, for all teaching is ultimately a matter of getting to grips with meaning. (Crystal, David. Making Sense of Grammar, Longman, 2004.) [T]he study of your own grammatical system can be quite revealing and useful, and provides you with insights into how language, your own and others, whether spoken or signed, actually works... With an understanding of how language actually works, and a concise vocabulary to talk about it, you will be equipped to make more informed decisions and choices about grammar and usage, and to tease out linguistic fact from linguistic fiction. (Lobeck, Anne and Kristin Denham,  Navigating English Grammar: A Guide to Analyzing Real Language,  Wiley-Blackwell, 2013.)