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Marisa Funk
What I’ve Learned First Quarter
While sixth period Language Arts is always a good time, it’s also a fine place to
learn. With friends at my side, I can delve into a piece of literature and expand my love
and knowledge of English. More than anything else this quarter, I’ve learned about note
taking, nouns, and prepositions. Before this class, I didn’t truly didn’t think there was
much more I could learn about these subjects.
In my classes previous to Language Arts 12, my note taking skills consisted of
bullets, dashes, and a little highlighting. That all changed upon receiving the “Form
Classes” nouns packet. First, we learned to highlight only the important stuff specific to
what we were learning – all of it. For example, the first bit of information highlighted in
the packet reads “name of a person, place, thing, idea, event, or the like,” and scribbled
next to it, “Def.” Of course, I already knew the definition of noun, and normally I
wouldn’t have highlighted it. Now I understand that, while I may not need to study
something diligently, it could be essential to understanding my notes on a whole. Writing
notes in the margin (like “Def”) is another new habit I’ve picked up this quarter. Often
when I highlight one or more sentences, I’ll stick a little summary in the margin to save
time when looking for key points. Or sometimes when something is highlighted I’ll jot a
little “?” to indicate when further research is needed. I used to keep written notes and
highlighted notes mostly separate, but now I find that it’s much more efficient sometimes
to have them on the same page. My Medical Anatomy and Math 1050 classes require me
to take hordes of notes. Even though I only pay attention is specific key points, I’ve
become accustomed to highlighting certain things as well. I learned all of these notetaking concepts in the beginning of the quarter, and now they’ve almost become a
compulsive habit of mine.
Going into my senior year, I thought I knew all there was to know about nouns
(just like everyone else in the class.) As we were about to discover, there is a lot more to
nouns than just “a person, place, or thing.” I had heard of common and proper nouns
before – but what in the world were concrete, abstract, collective, and compound nouns?
Well, they’re basically self-explanatory. For instance, a concrete noun is something
tangible, like a rocket or a sweater. Abstract nouns are just the opposite, naming
intangible things – ideas, like happiness, democracy, or creativity. Collective nouns are
simply collections, or groups – like family, or herd. Compound nouns are two or more
words combined and used as a noun, like cruise ship, or housewife. One interesting new
concept I learned was that with the addition of a suffix, a verb could become a noun –
govern becomes government; please becomes pleasure; assist becomes assistant. The
same can be done with adjectives – lumpy becomes lumpiness; free becomes freedom;
real becomes reality. Verbs, adjectives, and nouns can be interchangeable with the
addition of multiple suffixes. Nouns are, obviously, very versatile. While in possessive
form, they may be used as a description (“a day’s work”) or to denote value (“a
moment’s notice”). While most plural nouns end simply with an “s”, others have more
bizarre ways of doing it. Some common inflections are mouse and mice, and child and
children. Other nouns don’t even change when becoming plural, like fish or asparagus.
Probably the most unusual noun inflections are words like octopi for octopus, nuclei for
nucleus, and others of the sort.
Prepositions and prepositional phrases appear to be very confusing at first, but if I
think about them hard enough they make sense. A preposition is a linking word that
usually indicates time, space, or what it is you’re talking about. Most of the time,
prepositions will be referring to “what”. Usually, in a prepositional phrase, the
preposition will come after the subject and modify the noun. All prepositional phrases
include a preposition, a modifier, and an object. For instance, in the sentence “He sailed
upon the stormy sea,” “upon” is the preposition, “the stormy” is the modifier, and “sea” is
the object. As you can see, the preposition comes after the subject (“he”) and modifies
the noun (“sea.”) However, it doesn’t always have to be this way – you can twist up the
sentence in almost any way while still keeping it grammatically correct.
Overall, my senior year has already been one my more difficult years in school.
With a schedule that includes Math 1050, and Honors Physics, I expect nothing less.
English has always been one of my better and easier subjects, though. Learning notetaking skills has aided me a lot in studying, while knowledge on nouns and prepositions
help me in Creative Writing. I’m eager to continue this class, to read books and to learn
more useful skills.