Trojan Nation Welcomes Newest Member

Congratulations to JV Baseball Coach and Garner alum TJ Nelson and his wife Misty on the birth of their son Rayne Crocker Nelson who was born on Saturday and is 7 lb 9 oz and everyone is doing well!

Congratulations again the Nelson family on their newest edition!

Trojans Have Good Showing at Wrestling States

1st Round

130 - Nick Rodrigues (Lake Norman) Decision 10-6 over Anthony Chiles (Garner)
285 - Tyler Maher (Garner) Fall 2:39 over Devon Moore (East Mecklenburg)

1st Round Consulation

130 - Daniel Mitchell (Apex) Decision 9-5 over Anthony Chiles (Garner)

2nd Round Quarterfinals

285 - Collin Campbell (Person) Decision 7-0 over Tyler Maher (Garner)

3rd Round - Quarterfinal Consulaion

285 - Tyler Maher Fall 2:56 over Raquan Edwards (Parkland)

4th Round - Pre-Semi-Final Consulation

285 - Marcus Miller (Pine Forest) Fall 4:04 over Tyler Maher (Garner)

Tyler was one round from placing. Both wrestlers did an outstanding job at States and the Trojan Nation is very proud of them

Anubis FWA

Having a bog shaker as you get decruited

Office slang is always an inventive source of new language and this piece in The Daily Telegraph gives some really good examples of new words and phrases.

Among my favourites are:

Cashanova (a blend of cash + Cassanova) : a person who brings in money to the business through using his charm
To be decruited (an application of a different prefix to recruit): to lose your job
Bog shaker (a compound of the slang word for toilet and shaker): an emotional breakdown in an office toilet cubicle.

For ENGA3 it's always helpful to have up to date examples of new words and an idea of the processes that lead to their creation. As Kerry Maxwell explains on the Kerboodle videos about new words and lexicography, lots of new words and phrases rely very heavily on existing patterns of word creation, as well as on existing words and phrases, so it's no surprise to see credit munch (a cheap meal) appearing as a response to credit crunch.

Ben Udlaidh with Turner

Cave on the coast

Trojans Fall in Overtime to New Hanover

WEB CAST.

Again Friday night came down to a game of runs in the sectional finals as the Trojans traveled to New Hanover on Friday night looking to win their first sectional final since 1998. However, the Trojans couldn't pull it out as they lost 62-59 in overtime.

The game started off with New Hanover starting the game on a little spurt to take a early lead, however the Trojans answered right back as Stephon Drane scored six points in the first quarter, with Garner down two and four seconds left in the opening stanza, the Wildcats make a quick basket, but Garner point guard Emanuel McClain went coast to coast and hit a floater to end the fist stanza and pull the Trojans even at 12-12 as the first quarter came to an end.

After a first quarter plagued with team fouls, New Hanover had committed just two team fouls while Garner committed seven team fouls including the first technical foul of the season on Coach Eddie Gray.

But, despite the foul situation, the Trojans evened the game back up and even pulled ahead as Gavin Wilson scored eight second quarter points to give the Trojans a 26-23 lead at halftime.

The third quarter belonged to Garner as the Trojans were able to work the ball inside and get the New Hanover big guys in foul trouble. Another big key to the third stanza was the Trojans finally found their outside shooting.

After not making a three in the first half, Garner explode for four third quarter three point baskets including three of them by Gavin Wilson and one by Donald Johnson. As a result, Garner had a 47-42 lead after three.

That lead would grow to as many as eight points in the fourth quarter, but New Hanover refused to quit, even when both their star big guys fouled out in the fourth quarter. The Wildcats forced several Garner turnovers as the Trojans became timid with the ball on offense and allowed the Wildcats to tie the game.

With time running out in the fourth, New Hanover had a shot to win the game with a three from the corner, but the shot went begging and we were heading to overtime tied at 54.

Garner seemed to have the edge in the extra session, with both big guys out for New Hanover, however Garner had foul troubles of their own as Stephon Drane and Dominique Reed both had four fouls.

Garner did hit a the first basket in overtime to go up by two, but New Hanover would scored the next four points to take a two point lead. Garner was able to get a blocked shot by Wilson, but on his rebound, Gavin Wilson was called for a technical foul, to give the Wildcats two shots and the ball.

Freddie Jackson hit one of two of the technical shots to give New Hanover a four point lead. Garner made a defensive stand and came down court and got a three pointer to bank home from Donald Johnson.

On the ensuing inbound pass, the Trojans got a steal and had several close shots to take the lead, but the shot by Malcome Sloan went begging, and as Coach Gray beached the officials for a foul, Garner found themselves still down by one and had to foul.

New Hanover made both shots and took a three point lead with just four seconds left. Garner got the ball and the shot my Emanuel McClain went begging and the Trojans lost a thriller 62-59.

Garner (18-9) finishes the season with their second consecutive conference championship and the first sectional final appearance since James Mays played for the Blue and Gold.

New Hanover (20-7) will advance to the regionals in Greenville next Friday night.

Congratulations to Coach Gray and the Trojans for an outstanding season!

Scoring:
GARNER: G. Wilson 21, D. Johnson 16, S. Drane 10, D. Reed 7, E. McClain 5, D. Dorsey 1.
New Hanover: F. Jackson 21, C. Daley 14, D. Thames 12, M. Gibbs 7, D. Rodgers 5, J. Lewis 2.

Narrative Text

Softball Rosters Announced!

The Garner Softball Coaching Staff released the 2010 roster today and below you will find the roster. Garner looks to repeat off last season's success that saw the Varsity team win the Conference Tournament for the first time and along with a 23-5 record, the Lady Trojans advanced to the third round of the State Playoffs.


JV

Armstrong, Sydney
Beck, Michaela
Canipe, Erica
Fleming, Emily
Foster, Jordan
Gill, Kristen
Kirkland, Amber
Light, Marina
Nicley, Cailyn
Powell, Kristen
Rogers, Kayla
Schultz, Shavonne
Tran, Jessica
Watson, Regina

VARSITY

Armstong, Jenna
Barbour, Shea
Burton, Anna Marie
Campbell, Breanne
Carroll, Ashley
Daeke, Morgan
D'Arco, Alyssa
Gower, Christina
Hamrick, Kasey
Powell, Mary Scott
Smith, Raven
Stewart, Kimmie
Stewart, Madison
Strickland, Meghan
Warner, Halie

The Lady Trojans will begin their season on Tuesday when both teams travel to Trition High School. The JV game will begin at 4 and the Varsity at 6:00.

Revision help

Beth Kemp's site is a really good source of revision help for the ENGA1 exam and she has recently updated the frameworks pages, which can be found here.

ENGA1 Language & Mode quick revision task

Last year we put up some short extracts of texts from different modes for students to do a quick analysis of, and this year we'll do the same. If you need to refresh your memory of the Mode Continuum then click here.

So, with each extract what we're after are the following:

1. Where would you place this extract on the mode continuum?
2. Why?
3. What language evidence can you produce for your decision?

Please post your answers as comments to this blog post. There'll be feedback given, but sadly no Haribo anymore.


The first extract this year is taken from the ICE-GB corpus which I'm now working with as part of my new job, and it's an extract from a football commentary on the radio. Ignore any underlining as that's not important here, and it's worth adding that the micropauses are indicated using <,> in this extract. Also it's just one speaker:

Click on the image if you want to make it bigger (as Ashley Cole might have said to his sexting "victims". Not really...).

Outer Loop Sports Show Back on the Air

For the 4th consecutive week, the Outer Loop Sports Show is on the air. This week, J. Mike, D. Clay and Chris talk about playoff basketball, have a thought or an idea for a topic? Send a email to outerloopsports@gmail.com and your email could be read on the air!

To watch the video, just click HERE.

Enjoy!

The dangers of descriptivism

Descriptivist linguists tend to do what the label on their tin says: they describe the language they see and hear around them. They don't make value judgements about correct or incorrect English, but talk about what's grammatical and ungrammatical, what's standard and non-standard. But from the abuse they sometimes get you'd have thought they were ramming dodgy grammar and youth slang down our throats every day and forcing us to speak non-standard.

So, spare a thought for Professor Maurice Martinez at UNCW who endeavoured to teach his students a thing or two about what he called "Black English". We all know that the people who post comments on newspaper websites don't tend to be a representative cross-section of society (unless that society genuinely is full of rabies-ridden reactionary mouth-frothers), but some of the comments about Martinez's lessons are an interesting insight into how the minds of knee-jerk prescriptivists function. But it's also good to see some of his students getting on the case and responding with some well-argued justifications for the kind of work their professor is doing.

Have a look here if you'd like to see more.

Plenty of words for your honk

A level English Language students often complain that they don't get as many trips out of college or school as Literature or Drama or Classical Civilisation or even lowly Geography students. And this is probably true. But you get so much more excitement in your lessons as payback. For example, who could not get excited about relative clauses and present perfect verb phrases? Exactly.

Anyway, now there is a chance for you to go on a proper English Language outing and it might even be fun. This man - Alex Horne - is doing a stand-up comedy show around the country all about his attempts to get a load of made-up words into the dictionary. His website explains a bit more about it as does this post by MacMillan Dictionaries lexicographer, Kerry Maxwell, but the basic idea is that he has decided to plant "linguistic seeds" and see if they'll grow into widely-used terms. The words and phrases are here, along with explanations of how he wants them to be used (which word class they are and what they mean in context), but some examples are honk for money, games as a term of derision a bit like some people use "jokes" ("that's proper games that is", or "you're games") or the one that seems to be catching several people's imagination below:

mental safari (to go on)
idiom (slang). When someone goes mad for a few moments or gets ridiculously tongue tied, or does a series of rash acts. Over the past year it seems, Harry Redknapp has been on a mental safari, prior to his return to Fratton Park. Original and rare invention.

 
He appears in London towards the end of April and you can get more info from his website.

H9 > H8

That lethal combination of text messaging and young people has aroused the attention of several newspapers who are running stories on what they see as the latest developments in text language/netspeak. And the latest development is - wait for it - that parents are now using lots of textspeak themselves and that the youngers are finding this horribly embarrassing and creating new ways to express themselves to keep what they're really saying under wraps. It's revolutionary stuff, err... not.

The Mirror has a story here explaining some of the new text slang and one excellent example, which I will use from now on to annoy my own children, is H9, a term that is stronger than the letter & number homophone blend H8 (Hate) because 9 is one more than 8. Gettit? It's great, just like the bit in Spinal Tap with the amp that goes up to 11:(which you can watch here if you want to) it's one louder than an amp that goes up to 10. There's a bit more here too on a web news story.

There's nothing really new about all of this: young people (and all sorts of other groups of people) will always develop new ways of talking to each other  in order to conceal their activities from those who want to listen in. Slang's history is often connected to criminality and concealment as much as it is connected with lexical innovation and fun.

The whole debate about text slang and young people's literacy skills is picked up again here on The Sun's web forums with some interesting points about celebrities and a dumb culture that doesn't appear to reward intelligence.

Narrative Text

So we can conclude that the generic structure of a narrative text is :
• Orientation (the beginning or introduction) introduces main characters, setting and time.
• Complication ( middle ): the problem happens among the characters.
• Resolution (ending) : the problem is resolved.
A narrative text usually has moral value.
• A specific participant, sometimes can be individual
• Uses many action verb (material processes) and also verbal and mental processes
• Often uses past tense
• Uses many linking words related to time
• Uses dialogues so the tense can be possibly changed
• Descriptive language is used to create imagination in the mind of the readers

Trojans Roll to Round 3

WEB CAST.

Garner was back at home on Friday night looking to get to a point that last year's squad couldn't, round three of the state playoffs, and after a slow start, the Trojans found themselves in the sectional finals with a 75-51 win over Scotland County.

Both teams started off slow, but after the first three minutes of the game, Garner had opened it up a little big and grew the lead to five points after the first quarter 18-13. Gavin Wilson came out hot in the first quarter as he had 10 first quarter points en route to a game high 20 points.

Scotland County couldn't get anything going on offense as the Trojans shut down their play maker, Mo Covington. After Covington hit a three to start the game, he was held scoreless. He was coming off a 22 point performance on Monday night.

Garner continued to take advantage of their height advantage as they took a 39-22 lead to the locker room. Scotland County (15-12) second year head coach, Mike Ritchie, must have lit a spark in his team at halftime as his team came out and made a little run to start the third quarter.

However, Garner quickly found their step as they went on a 15-5 run to pretty much put the game out of reach as Stephon Drane took control in the third quarter with 7 points in the third stanza, and after three, Garner had a 58-36 lead.

The Fighting Scots never quit and continued to try and chip away, but the Trojans just could not miss and ran away from the Scots 75-51 to advance to the sectional finals on Friday night.

Garner (18-8) will travel to New Hanover High School for the sectional finals on Friday night at 7:00. New Hanover was a 68-64 overtime winner over Pine Forest on Wednesday night.

If you can't make the game, the Trojan Sports Network will have the game!

SCORING:
Scotland County: D. Clark 17, I. Robinson 15, L. Browne 6, B. McMillian 6, M. Covington 3, T. Mcrae 2, L. McIntyre 2.
GARNER: G. Wilson 20, D. Johnson 19, S. Drane 13, D. Reed 11, D. Dorsey 6, E. McClain 5

Trojan Track at the State Meet

Congratulations to Michelle Bailey and Daryl Saunders for their accomplishments at the State Indoor Track Meet on Saturday.


Michelle place fourth in the women's 1600 meter run in a highly competitive race. She also finished sixth in the girls 1000 meter run running a personal best time of 3:05 and finish a respectable 10th place in the 3200 meter run with a time of 11:57.

Daryl Saunders finished in second place in the boys high jump with height of 6' 4" . In a jump off between the defending state champion..

Great Job Trojans!!!!

Trojans Survive Round One

WEB CAST.

Many times you hear the saying, "survive and advance" and that's just what Garner did on Monday night in the first round of the State Playoffs as they downed a scrappy Greenville Rose squad 81-63.

In the past couple of games, Garner has come out of the gate on fire, but on Monday night, the Trojans came out flat and as a result, Rose took a 5-0 lead to start the game, but Garner wouldn't die, as yet again, the fantastic trio came around. Gavin Wilson and Stephon Drane put Garner on their back and led the Trojans to a 23-13 lead after one.

However, the Rampants just would not die as they went on a run of their own to cut the Garner lead to single digits over halfway into the second quarter, as the Trojans scored just 12 second quarter points, which allowed Rose to make a comeback and pull to within one at 35-34 going to the locker room.

The third quarter went back and forth as the Rampants built a four point lead in the third, but Garner came storming back as Stephon Drane took over for the Trojans with 10 third quarter points, however, even Drane couldn't put Garner ahead as the two teams were tied at 54 after three.

In the fourth quarter, the Trojans continued to pound Rose, who were playing with just nine players due to injury and Garner got the Rampants into some deep foul trouble. Since Rose was in foul trouble, the Trojans pounded the ball inside to Drane and Dominique Reed, but the Trojans also got some break way's off their full court press and point zone defenses.

With Rose down and time running out, the Rampants decided to foul, and Garner went to the line where in the fourth quarter, they were 14/17 from the line and for the game were 31/35 (88%). The free throws allowed Garner to pad the lead and the Trojans pulled out the 81-63 win.

Garner (17-8) will advance to the second round of the playoffs where they will face the Fighting Scots of Scotland County High School who come in as the number two seed in the Southeastern Conference.

The Scots (15-11) defeated 71st 53-48 on Monday night in their first round game. The Scots will visit Trojan Coliseum for a 7:00 tip off, the game can be heard LIVE on GarnerTrojans.com beginning at 6:30.

***Coach Mays and the Lady Trojans traveled to Ashley High School on Monday night, and came up short vs. the Sreaming Eagles, losing 42-38. Congratulations to Coach Mays and the Lady Trojans for an outstanding season!***

Outer Loop Sports Show Presents Third Episode

This week on the Outer Loop Sports Show, the guys talk about the Coaching Carosual that has gone on in football, about basketball conference player of the year's and other hot topics, click below to view the show!

Outer Loop Sports Show: Feb. 17, 2010 from Outer Loop Sports Show on Vimeo.

Two Trojan Wrestlers Going to State!

Congratulations to Anthony Chiles and Tyler Maher who will be going to the State Wrestling meet on Friday, February 26th and Saturday, February 28th in Greensboro.

Below are the results from the wrestling over the weekend, Congratulations to the two Trojan Wrestlers!

1st Round

103 - Dennis Gustafson (Hoke County) Fall :16 over Timothy Jones (Garner)
112 - Zak Watts (Scotland) Fall 1:45 over Damian Harrell (Garner)
119 - Malcom Williams (Smith - E. E.) Fall 1:36 over Isiah Cain (Garner)
130 - Anthony Chiles (Garner) Decision 8-4 over Juan Rodriquez (South View)
135 - Matthew Canady (Cape Fear) Fall 2:25 over Marchus Carter (Garner)
140 - Collins Creech (Smithfield-Selma) Fall 1:07 over Steven Lombana (Garner)
152 - Aaron Quinones (Smithfield-Selma) Fall 4:31 over Christian Townsend (Garner)
215 - Daniel Keith (Pinecrest) Tech Fall 16-4 over Vincent Mollo (Garner)
285 - Tyler Maher (Garner) Fall 2:15 over William Farnell (Smithfield-Selma)

2nd Round

103 - Timothy Jones (Garner) win with a bye
112 - Damian Harrell (Garner) Decision 5-4 over Kieran Hunt (Britt-Jack)
119 - Michael Lippincott (Pinecrest) Fall over Isiah Cain (Garner)
135 - Marchus Carter (Garner) Decision 15-10 over Curtis Washington (Laney)
140 - Tyler Manship (Brit-Jack) Major Decision 12-1 over Steven Lombana (Garner)
152 - Christian Townsend (Garner) Major Decision 11-1 over Brandon Carbone (West Johnston)
215 - Vincent Mollo (Garner) Fall 2:48 over Leo Gonzalez (South View)

3rd Round

130 - Anthony Chiles (Garner) Decision in OT 7-5 over Ben Ewald (Scotland)
285 - Tyler Maher (Garner) Fall 1:57 over Storm Stevens (West Johnston)

4th Round

103 - Bailey Hoke (Laney) Fall :49 over Timothy Jones (Garner)
112 - Malik Harris (JH Rose) Major Decision 18-2 over Damian Harrell (Garner)
135 - Anthony Venero (Clayaton) Fall 4:48 over Marchus Carter (Garner)
152 - Anthony Gonderdman (Lumbertson) Decision 9-5 over Christian Townsend (Garner)
215 - Alex Norkett (Cape Fear) Fall 1:53 over Vincent Mollo (Garner)

5th Round

130 - Anthony Mauro (Ashley) Decision 9-5 over Anthony Chiles (Garner)
285 - Tyler Maher (Garner) Fall 1:07 over Corey Raven (South View)

6th Round

130 - Anthony Chiles (Garner) Decision 5-1 over Schyler Wagner (Laney)

7th Round

130 - Anthony Chiles (Garner) Fall 2:09 over Jeff Zukowski (Smith - E. E.)

8th Round

285 - Deven Riles (Seventy First) Decision 5-3 over Tyler Maher (Garner)

Basketball Playoff Bracket Announced

One night after winning their 6th Conference Tournament Title in school history, Coach Gray and the Garner Trojans learned their fate and who they would match up with in the NCHSAA State 4A playoffs which begin on Monday night.

Garner will be the number one seed from the Greater Neuse River Conference and by virtue of winning the conference, the Trojans will have at least two home games in the playoffs.

The Trojans will be home in the first round to face the Greenville Rose Rampants who come into the playoffs as the number four seed out of the Mideastern Conference, the Rampants are 9-15 on the year.

Garner and Rose will tip off Monday night at 7:00 from Trojan Coliseum and as always, if you can't make the game, you can Listen Live Beginning at 6:30 as the Trojan Sports Network will have the game for you!

The winner of the game will face the winner of the Scotland County/71st match up. You can view the full 4A Boys Bracket by clicking HERE.


--------

Congratulations also to Coach Mays and the Lady Trojans as they will once again be back in the state playoffs. The Lady Trojans finished as the number five seed out of the GNRC and will have to travel for their first round game on Monday night.

The Lady Trojans will face Wilmington Ashley at 7:00 from Ashley High School on Monday. Ashley finished the season with a 20-3 record and are the number one seed in the Mideastern Conference.

The winner of the game will face the winner of the East Wake/71st game on Wednesday.

Good luck to the Trojans on Monday night!


Cappolla's Pizzeria and Grill

Trojans Bring Home Conference Championship

WEB CAST.


Friday night turned out to be a milestone night all around Garner as the Trojans completed a season that many believed would be a rebuilding year prior to the season, however, when the final buzzer sounded on Friday night, the Trojans had defeated East Wake 85-62 to bring home the first Conference Tournament Championship since 2006.

East Wake (10-16. 6-11) was hoping to spring the upset, because East Wake could only make the state playoffs by winning on Friday, but Garner was not going to let that happen as the Trojans began the game on a 13-1 run and East Wake first year head coach Darin Stinson was forced to call two time outs in the first quarter to try and stop the bleeding, but nothing would cool the Trojans off in the first quarter as they raced out to a 20-5 lead after one.

In the second quarter, it was more of the same as the Trojans big three in Stephon Drane, Donald Johnson and Gavin Wilson got rolling, and really exploited East Wake as Garner used their quickness and size to make life tough for the Warriors and as a result, Garner had a 39-16 lead at halftime.

East Wake tired to make a run in the second half, and did eventually seize the momentum as a pack Trojan Coliseum saw the third quarter sway back and forth, but Stephon Drane put the Trojans on his back and carried his team to the fourth quarter as Drane poured in 11 third quarter points to give Garner a 59-42 lead going to the final stanza.

The fourth quarter was filled with big plays on both sides as each team was able to get the crowd rocking, but in the end, Garner was able to hit the free throws down the stretch as once again it was Donald Johnson hitting from the line as he was 8 of 10 from the line in the fourth quarter alone, and for the game he was 10 of 13.

As the final seconds ticked off and the buzzer sounded the Trojan students flooded the floor to swamp the Trojans as Garner celebrated the 6th Conference Tournament Championship of the Eddie Gray era with a 85-62 win.

Garner will be the number one seed in the State Playoffs which will begin MONDAY night at 7:00 against a team yet to be announced. The bracket will be released Saturday and once the opponent it known it will be passed along!

Friday night was also a milestone for the Trojan Sports Network as the premiere high school broadcast network celebrated the 100th broadcast in network history! The Trojan Sports Network broadcast team would like to express thanks to all of the Trojan Nation for their continued support of the Trojan Sports Network!

Scoring:
East Wake: K. Williams 21, A. Ray 13, Antwan Payton 11, Antonio Payton 9, D. Davis 4, Q. Langen 3.
GARNER: S. Drane 23, D. Johnson 22, G. Wilson 18, D. Reed 9, E. McClain 6, M. Powell 4, D. Harris 4.

Indoor Track Competes in State Meet Saturday

After the cold and winter weather has played havoc on the Indoor Track season, the Indoor Track season will come to an end on Saturday with the State meet and there will be a couple Trojan Athletes competing for State Championships.

Michelle Bailey and Daryl Saunders will be competing in the State Meet on Saturday at the Eddie Smith Indoor Arena on the campus of UNC and the 4A meet is scheduled to start at 4:30 p.m.

Michelle Bailey in the Women's 1600m run, 1000m run and 3200 meter run while Daryl Saunders will compete in the Men's High Jump.

Good luck to both Trojans on Saturday!

Accepting help

‘9 out of 10 climbers’, seven weeks on…

Trojans Run Their Way into the Conference Finals

WEB CAST.

Garner and West Johnston met for the third time this season on Wednesday night at Garner's Trojan Coliseum and once again it was another back and forth heated contest with neither team giving an inch, however, much like the other contest the two teams have played this year, the game was a game of runs, but in the end, Garner's run would last longer than West Johnston's tired legs as the Trojans came away with a 79-65 win over the Wildcats.

Each team was playing their third game in as many days, however West was unable to rest their starters during the first two games this week due to both games coming down to the wire, but early on, Garner was killing themselves as West Johnston continued to turn the ball over, but Coach Gray's squad was unable to convert points off those turnovers as the Trojans were have a stretch of sloppy play of their own, and after the first quarter, Garner had a 16-9 lead.

In the second quarter, Garner managed a little run to get ahead by eight, but West Johnston came storming back thanks to the play of Mark Parker who scored five second quarter points to pull West to within four at halftime at 32-26.

But, as you looked at the first half score sheet, neither team really had much to write home about as the leading scorer in the first half for West Johnston was Mark Parker with eight and for Garner, Emanuel McClain also had eight for the Trojans.

Both teams came out much different clubs in the second half as finally some of the Trojan regulars found their shot as Stephon Drane and Gavin Wilson led Garner in scoring in the third quarter with 7 and 8 respectively and after three Garner lead by only three as West Johnston hung close, 45-42 Trojans, after three.

In the games final stanza, the Trojans were able to run past the Wildcats with the fresher legs as Garner's Stephon Drane exploded in the fourth with 11 fourth quarter points to finish with a game high 24 as Garner went on a big 15-5 run to put the game away. Garner placed four players in double figures as they came away with the 79-65 win.

With the win, the Trojans (15-8, 14-2) will move on to Friday night's Conference Championship game where they will meet the East Wake Warriors (10-15, 6-10), who upset Knightdale 61-48 in the other semi-final on Wednesday night.

Since Garner is the number one seed in the Tournament, both the Girls and Boys Championship games will be played at Garner. The Girls will play first at 6:00 followed by Garner and East Wake at 7:30.

Scoring:
West Johnston: M. Parker 20, B. Jacobs 16, S. Dance 7, C. Fredrick 7, T. Davis 4, T. Colton 3, A. King 2, J. McNeill 2
GARNER: S. Drane 24, D. Johnson 19, G. Wilson 19, E. McClain 10, J. Moye 4, D. Reed 3.

Trojan Wrestlers Heading to Regional's

Congratulations to the following wrestlers who have advanced to the Regional's which will be held at UNC-Pembroke. The wrestling will begin around 5:30 Friday night and will conclude around 9:00 on Saturday.

103 - TIMOTHY JONES
112 - DAMIAN HARRELL
119 - ISIAH CAIN
130 - ANTHONY CHILES
135 - MARCHUS CARTER
140 - STEVEN LOMBANA
152 - CHRISTIAN TOWNSEND
215 - VINCENT MOLLO
285 - TYLER MAHER

Garner Baseball Rosters

Garner Baseball Rosters.

If you are not on the current email list email coach Goffena at dgoffena@wcpss.net

Baker, Jake
Brown, Hunter
Fisher, Jesse
King, Jackson
Pleasant, Jackson
Powell, Matt
Bailey, Brett
Norris, Will
Perry, Colin
Torruella, Connor
Walters, Brett
Brown, Steven
Doak, Robert
Hawley,Matt
Hulmes, Alec
McCreery, Scotty
Newbry, Jared
Stephens, Taylor
Strickland, Skylar
Walker, Austin
Woodall,Levin
Sanders, Aquail
Schmidt, CJ
Austin, Carrington
Ellington, Jake
Faucette, Jake
Galavotti, Anthony
Gilman, Terry
Jeffries, Vince
Lamb, Michael
Lee, Trever

Balanced Effort Sends Garner to Conference Tournament Semi-finals

WEB CAST.

Garner had no problems taking care of SSS in the opening round of the Greater Neuse River Conference Tournament on Tuesday night as they dominated SSS from the opening tip to defeat the Spartans 80-50 to advance to the second round tomorrow night at home against West Johnston. The Trojans played 13 players tonight and they all scored at least one point.

The Trojans got things going early as off the opening tip, Emmanuel McClain found Donald Johnson on the right wing for a three and Garner was off and running and began the game on a 8-0 run prompting SSS Head Coach, Dwight Carter, to call a timeout.

However, the timeout did little to slow the Trojans down as Johnson continued his hot shooting scoring 8 of Garner's first 11 points. Garner continued pacing along in the first quarter, the following a timeout, the Spartans had six men on the floor resulting in a technical foul which Garner hit 1 of 2 from the line as they raced out to a 23-5 lead after the first quarter.

In the second quarter, Dominique Reed, made his presence known as he scored six of his 10 points in the second quarter to give Garner a 41-16 halftime edge.

The Spartans tried to cut into the Garner lead as they held the Trojans to just 16 third quarter points, however, SSS could only muster 13 points and the Trojans had a 57-29 lead after three.

In the games final quarter, the Trojans rested all their starters and got some of the other players some time on the court and it was a seamless transition between the players as Garner continued their rapid pace on offense as they came away with at 30 point win to advance to the second round of the Conference Tournament.

Garner (14-8, 13-2) will be back at home tomorrow night at 7:30 as they take on West Johnston who defeated Southeast Raleigh on Tuesday night, 50-40.

Scoring:
SSS: J. Watson 14, L. Williams 8, D. Thorne 7, S. Turner 6, J. Rawlings 6, W. Spragins 4, G. Green 3, B. Barnes 1.
GARNER: D. Johnson 21, D. Reed 10, G. Wilson 8, J. McClain 8, M. Koscielny 7, S. Drane 6, E. McClain 5, D. Hall 4, N. Wyrick 4, C. Holt 3, D. Harris 2, J. Moye 2, M. Powell 2, D. Dorsey 1.

UPDATED GNRC Men's Bracket: Semi-finals to be played on Wednesday night AT GARNER

6:00 - (6) East Wake vs. (2) Knightdale

7:30 - (4) W. Johnston vs. (1) GARNER

Varsity Girls Fall vs. Knightdale

Coach Mays and the Lady Trojans were on the road Tuesday night in the first round of the GNRC tournament as they took on the Knightdale Knights at Southeast Raleigh High School.

Garner had already defeated Knightdale once this season on the road at Knightdale, however, the Lady Trojans fell short tonight in the opening game of the conference tournament 65-60. However, Garner could still make the playoffs barring a lower seed winning the conference tournament.

Forest Hills Barber Shop
Joey Jackson, Owner
877 Hwy 70 W
Next to Garner TV & Appliance
772-2855

Language development - revision help

Here are some (hopefully) useful links to material on children's language development (AQA A ENGA1 or AQA B ENGB3).

• This is a clear and helpful summary of Roger Brown's 1973 research into children's stages of development.
• Here's a summary of Jerome Bruner's key ideas about interaction and language development
• Some very good stuff on Patricia Kuhl's work on language development (no, I hadn't heard of her either, but it's interesting stuff)
• And some good stuff on Piaget, Lenneberg and Theory of Mind

All of these are from this blog, which I wasn't aware of before, but is well worth a look at.

Let's get retarded...

...or rather, if you're the Black Eyed Peas and worried about not getting your single played "Let's get it started". The word "retard" has come under scrutiny in the USA with the debate about its offensiveness or otherwise gaining a political dimension recently. In this Washington Post article (a great style model for an AQA A Language Intervention or an AQA B Media Text) Christopher Fairman traces the word's history and the arguments about its use.

I don't know if this is something that the USA has been late to pick up on (a bit retarded, you could say) but retard has been pretty offensive in the UK for some time now. In much the same way that spastic was a term of playground abuse until we were all told off for using it, retard has always been a bit contentious. For example, I'd find it pretty hard to imagine a disability rights group in the UK calling itself the Association for Retarded Citizens. But then again, the expression spaz also hit the headlines a while ago in the USA, a good two decades after a school assembly from my old headteacher reminded us all that it was a bad word. 

In his article, Fairman makes some very good points about the cycles words go through and the euphemism treadmill that turns to generate new terms which - for a short time at least - avoid offence to different groups of people:

The irony is that the use of "mental retardation" and its variants was originally an attempt to convey greater dignity and respect than previous labels had. While the verb "retard" -- meaning to delay or hinder -- has roots in the 15th century, its use in reference to mental development didn't occur until the late 19th and early 20th centuries, when medical texts began to describe children with "retarded mental development," "retarded children" and "mentally retarded patients." By the 1960s, "mental retardation" became the preferred medical term, gradually replacing previous diagnostic standards such as "idiot," "imbecile" and "moron" -- terms that had come to carry pejorative connotations. 

What's also interesting is the parallel Fairman draws with other potentially offensive words such as nigger, queer and gay. And while Fairman is sensitive to retard's offensiveness, his point is that we are grown up enough to show discretion and judgement in how we choose to use terms:

The current public awareness campaign surrounding the use of the word "gay" offers better lessons and parallels for the R-word debate. Advocacy groups contend that the phrase "that's so gay" fosters homophobia and that anti-gay language is directly related to violence and harassment against homosexuals. At the same time, there is recognition that much anti-gay language is uttered carelessly and isn't necessarily intended as hurtful -- as is probably the case with uses of "retard." The Ad Council and the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network have developed a Web site, ThinkB4YouSpeak.com, that, much like R-Word.org, encourages the public to sign a pledge to cease using the phrase. (The slogan: "Saying that's so gay is so yesterday.")

By increasing sensitivity and awareness, the campaign hopes to encourage people to think about the possible consequences of their word choices. Such reflection would presumably lead individuals to censor themselves once they understand that others can be hurt by their language.

Inherent in this idea is the realization that words have multiple meanings and that those meanings depend on the context and circumstances surrounding any particular statement. For example, "gay" is a term of identification for homosexuals, but it also can be used as an all-purpose put-down: "That's so gay." Those using it as an insult don't intend to say "that's so homosexual," nor do they necessarily make the conscious leap that homosexuality is bad. (Indeed, the success of the ThinkB4YouSpeak.com campaign depends on this distinction.)

The class divide

The language that children are exposed to has long been thought to have some kind of influence upon their own lexico-semantic and grammatical development. But more importantly perhaps, the verbal interaction that children have with carers has often been thought to have a huge impact on the pace of a child's language development. A report, commissioned by the educational charity, The Sutton Trust suggests that the impact can be as much as one year's language development on a child by the time he or she is 5 years old. In other words, a child from a poor background - poor in terms of their family's income but poor too in terms of amount of contact time, reading time and time spent interacting verbally - could lag as far behind as a whole year compared to children of wealthier parents who spend more time reading to, talking with and generally interacting with their children.

The results might need a bit of unpicking, but there are some quite stark findings that the researchers, Jane Waldfogel and Elizabeth Washbrook, come up with:

Just under half (45%) of children from the poorest fifth of families were read to daily at age 3, compared with 8 in 10 (78%) of children from the richest fifth of families. Comparing children with the same family income, parental characteristics and home environments, those who were read to every day at age 3 had a vocabulary at age 5 nearly 2 months more advanced than those who were not read to every day.

Similarly, a child taken to the library on a monthly basis from ages 3 to 5 is two and a half months ahead of an equivalent child at age 5 who did not visit the library so frequently.

 Regular bedtimes at 3 and 5 are associated with gains of two and a half months at age 5.

At the end of the summary of their findings, the researchers rate the factors that they have found as more or less responsible for contributing to the gap in test scores between children and decide that the most significant influence is in the category of "parenting and the home environment" (which includes reading to your child, the nature of the social interaction you have with your child etc.) while "material circumstances" (income, savings, pressure of bills etc.) is the second most significant factor.

The full report can be found here, a summary here and a BBC news story about it here. For anyone interested in other studies into the role of interaction and the development of children's language, have a look here at a 2009 blog post about gestures, here for a Polly Toynbee article about Hart and Risley's influential research into American children's language development, and here for a link to the Children of the Code site where Todd Risley is interviewed about his work

Senior Night Sweep for Garner

WEB CAST.

The night began for Coach Gray and his Trojans prior to the game as all of the senior boys and girls basketball players and cheerleaders were honored, along with the Senior Night presentation, Anette Atkinson (class of 1987) presented Super Senior Stephon Drane with a plaque as he was nominated for the McDonald's All-American game, and the nominated must have fired up the Senior as Drane dropped 16 first half points en route to a new career high 32 points to lead Garner past Harnett Central 86-73 in the final regular season game of the season.

Garner started all for seniors, Darne' Hall, Matt Koscinelly, Stephon Drane and Matt Powell and they played well as they paced the Trojans early in the game, however, Coach Gray brought in the regulars and after the first quarter, Garner had a 22-17 lead as they were led by Stephon Drane with 8 first quarter points and at one time, Drane had scored all of Garner's points.

The Trojans began to pull away in the second quarter as Gavin Wilson came off the bench to find his stroke as he hit three three point shots as he set a new career high with 20 points as the Trojans had a 48 -35 lead at halftime.

Garner would pad their lead in the third quarter, and used a 19 point third quarter effort to extend the lead to 67-52 after three. But, when the fourth quarter started, Harnett Central hit two big three pointer's and all of a sudden, the lead was cut to seven points at 67-60.

Once that happened, Garner went on a run and finally put the game away the big key to the Trojan success down the stretch was the play inside by Drane and Dominique Reed who finished the game with 10 points, and six of them coming in the fourth quarter.

With the 86-73 win, Garner finishes the regular season with a 13-8 overall record and a 12-2 conference mark. Garner is also the number one seed in the GNRC tournament which will begin on Tuesday with two games at Garner.

Beginning at 6:00, West Johnston will play Southeast Raleigh and Garner will play SSS at 7:30. Other games in the boys tournament will be at Knightdale with Clayton playing East Wake at 6:00 and Knightdale playing SSS at 7:30.

Below, you will find the Boys GNRC Tournament Bracket:

Game 1: (1) Garner vs. (8) Smithfield-Selma - 7:30 at Garner
Game 2: (4) West Johnston vs. (5) Southeast Raleigh - 6:00 at Garner
Game 3: (2) Knigthdale vs. (7) Harnett Central - 7:30 at Knightdale
Game 4: (3) Clayton vs. (6) East Wake - 6:00 at Knightdale

Scoring
Harnett Central: B. Taylor 21, A. Chatman 14, E. Baggett 13, T. Wheelin 7, J. Spears 6, B. McMillian 6, C. Hill 5,
GARNER: S. Drane 32, G. Wilson 20, D. Reed 10, D. Johnson 7, J. McClain 6, D. Hall 5, M. Powell 4, E. McClain 2.

Varsity Girls Win Thriller

Garner and Harnett Central started off slow on Monday night as after the first quarter, the score was 8-6 Harnett Central, but following the sluggish start the two teams found their rhythm, but it would be Garner who would have to get on the comeback trail and they did just that as they climbed back into the game in the fourth quarter.

One of the biggest keys to the Trojan comeback was the outside shooting of Jennifer Steinbach who hit three big three pointers down the stretch as Garner came from behind to avenge an earlier season loss to Harnett Central with a 46-42 win.

Garner finishes the season as the fourth seed in the conference and they will play Knightdale on Tuesday night at either Clayton or Southeast Raleigh. Below you will find the Girls GNRC Bracket:

Game 1: (1) Southeast Raleigh vs. (8) West Johnston - 7:30 at Southeast Raleigh Game 2: (4) Garner vs. (5) Knightdale - 6:00 at Southeast Raleigh

Game 3: (2) Clayton vs. (7) Smithfield-Selma - 7:30 at Clayton
Game 4: (3) East Wake vs. (6) Harnett Central - 6:00 at Clayton

JV Boys Win Thriller

After the weekend layoff Garner showed a lot of signs of rust as they weren't sharp and never really put things together.

The Trojans missed a lot of easy, close range shots, but battled against a very good Harnett Central team. Down by two with under 30 seconds to play, Garner forced Harnett Central into a turnover and got the ball back with 8 seconds remaining.

After a time out the Trojan coaching staff drew a play up, Jarie Hicks got a 3 pointer off and banked it in with just .2 seconds left on the clock.

The win seals hte 2nd straight conference championship for the Trojans as they finish the season at 15 - 4 overall and 12 - 2 in the conference.

Harnett Central 9 27 33 47

Garner 15 27 33 48

Cameron Redd 12 pts

Jarie Hicks

Juwan Moye 8 pts

Rashaun Shaw 7 pts

Automotive Troubleshooting Team are Champs AGAIN!

The Automotive troubleshooting team competed at the NC Auto Expo and took home 1st place for the 2nd year. Students competed on a 2010 Siverado pickup provided by Sir Walter Chevrolet. The problems consisted of a check engine light with it's diagnosis of the coolant temperature circuit, and a measurement and analysis of the front brake condition. Students used precision instruments to measure lateral run out, rotor thickness, and variation.

Team members are: Taylor Pebeahsy, Jamaquez Langley, Andrew Watson, and Daniel Allen.

Congratulations to Coach Jake Stevens and his team!

How to post a SLIDE presentation of PICTURES

Hi guys,
Just in case you don't know how to insert a SLIDESHOW in your blog, follow the instructions:

-Get into WWW.SLIDE.COM

-Click on the yellow icon MAKE A SLIDESHOW

-Once you are in the site, upload 10 images (Click on 'Browse')

-When you have uploaded the pictures, if you want you can customize the presentation with effects, music, etc.

-Click on the green icon SAVE (get a code)

-SAVE slideshow

-And then a page will appear. In this page you will obtain a code (it is called embedded code)

-Copy the code

-Go to your BLOG and create a NEW POST

-Paste the code in HTML and write a title.

-And voilà! Now you have a slideshow presentation in your blog!!!

Be creative!!!!

Marshall Smith challenge success!

Glad to be standing on the last summit of the Grey Corries after traversing them after Orion Face