Re: Ah yes, Artificial Stereotyping.
I had to check back on that one myself -despite a) having done a fair bit of classroom teaching since my retirement from being a literacy specialist and b) having an 'A' level and a large chunk of my degree in Eng Lit.
Because it isn't something anyone should need to bother about with, if not for the fact that it's part of that same "Wow words" bollocks.
Example,
"Suddenly, Francine shot the politician".
"Suddenly" being an adverb. And it's fronted because it comes before the verb it describes.
But the point to it is that in the Behaviourist inspired world of curriculum design UK style it's an element of their model of "impactful" (I think the word is actually in a curriculum document somewhere- certainly in training materials) writing.
Being very much a Behaviourist model of literacy teaching, everything has to be taught from mechanical, testable components rather than the messy, intuitive, subjective, real life activity that is literacy. It's also easy and cheap to publish then sell training materials to hard pressed teachers at inflated prices. Teachers are under pressure for the kids to get ticks in boxes, so must use this stuff in the prescribed manner.
It suits politicians because it is testable and measurable - whether it adds up to decent writing is another matter. IMHO it creates an army of clone Zombies - every kid churning out the same rubbish to get the marks. And by the way, the same goes for the focus on "Phonics". Totally Behaviourist in method. Easy to teach, easy to test, easy to design programmes, easy to sell, both financially and politically- because it seems logical - even if it doesn't match how we actually read.
And, to briefly draw this back to "Artificial Intelligence", it seems to me that the approaches I've read about also seem quite Behaviourist in the underlying thinking- I may be wrong.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
