Comments on: Hyperlinks Might Be Adjectives (1)

By: Melissa

Melissa — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 22:34:12 +0000

I think this is a very unique way to explore hyperlinks. Has this been shown to students? Any reactions good/bad? My Multi-Modal class did a human simulation of a hyperlink. In a hallway, we were placed in a straight line. Our professor would start at the first person reading some type of made up sentence. Then after reaching the third person, he would make that person a link and skip a few people in line to go to the linked page. Then he might jump back to the third page and so on. I like new ideas that get students out of their seats!

By: Dan Magyar

Dan Magyar — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 21:53:56 +0000

I think a fourth sentence without a hyperlink would be good addition to the example.

As a reader, I would try not to assume the link is part of the sentence. How do I know the link was added by the author?

If I was to make that assumption, it would not be part of speech but of context. (Let me know if context is a part of speech.) Similar examples could be other sentences in the paragraph or pictures on the page.

By: Gail Desler

Gail Desler — Sun, 15 Feb 2009 17:04:53 +0000

Bud, your advice to not apply simplistic labels "entirely too strictly," takes me back to when my daughter was studying a practice list of possible SAT vocabulary words. The list was a hard copy her English teacher had provided, complete with pronunciation(s), definitions(s), and part(s) of speech. After explaining to my daughter that memorizing the part of speech might not be good use of time since, depending the context, "parade," for instance, could be a noun, adjective, or verb, I rethought how I taught parts of speech to my 5th grade students. From then on, we had a parts-of-speech challenge as part of DOL. Working with pencil and paper, students teamed to transform the word of the day into as many parts of speech as the rest of the class would accept as correct usage. They "got" parts of speech. Would love to revisit this 5th grade exercise, probably via a wiki, with students using hyperlinks to make visible the word context. Thanks for a fun topic:-) Gail Deslers last blog post..Picturing Words

By: Bud Hunt

Bud Hunt — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 04:43:22 +0000

Richard pointed out another important way in which hyperlinks can function as adjectives. (Sometimes.) That’s a clue for what comes next.

Lots of great thoughts here, y’all. I think there’s power in talking about language and its function – and I also think that the overly simplistic labels that we use for words can get us into trouble if we apply them entirely too strictly.

But sometimes they’re helpful.

By: Bud Hunt

Bud Hunt — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 04:39:19 +0000

Carla, What an excellent way of thinking about it – by reversing the terms. Simple and elegant. Love it.

By: Carla Beard

Carla Beard — Sat, 31 Jan 2009 15:00:09 +0000

The way you have this structured, hyperlinks could also be adverbs. What if we reversed the analogy the next time we teach parts of speech: adjectives are *like* hyperlinks that alter our understanding of a noun or pronoun? Adverbs are *like* hyperlinks that alter our understanding of verbs, adjectives, and other adverbs? Would that help students understand that reading and writing are both interactive, digital or not? Hmmm ... Carla Beards last blog post..From the e-mail inbox

By: Angela Stockman

Angela Stockman — Sat, 31 Jan 2009 13:34:31 +0000

Kinda sorta totally off-topic, I guess, but I have to say this: you've just shared an interesting approach for clarifying the purpose of hyperlinking. This is a conversation I have often with the teachers and the kids I know, so I appreciate. Thanks! Angela Stockmans last blog post..Widening Your Literature Circles on the Web

By: hyper(con)text: an allusion is a link, but a link is not an allusion « Higher Edison

Fri, 30 Jan 2009 23:02:16 +0000

[...] it from a link. Bud Hunt set up a sweet grammatical thought-puzzle the other day, asking whether hyperlinks might be adjectives. The jury’s still out on that one (you can still join in a lively debate on meaning, [...]

By: Dave

Dave — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 22:21:16 +0000

At first glance, it makes sense – hyperlinks are adjectives, they describe/clarify. OK, cool. Now what? It’s hard to see you going in any direction from here except for trying to teach hyperlinks using the “hyperlinks = adjectives” method, and I don’t think this analogy would make sense on a beginner level…it’s more of a thought exercise for advanced users.

By: The Grammar of Hyperlinks

The Grammar of Hyperlinks — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 01:44:26 +0000

[...] the time I wasn’t convinced (more likely I didn’t understand , but in this post he offers some good examples of the [...]