The Language of Power: Beyond the Grammar Workbook

In the article by Jill Flynn: Flynn discusses her experiences in the classroom. ( Using the colon to showcase an important part of the sentence) She explains how it is something you can never really prepare for until you are actually physically there and doing it. She expresses how in her first study she was observing a new teacher who wanted to teach with an emphasis on “The Language of Power”. Although, his language of power in particular was based upon Standard English, emphasizing it as the language geared towards success. Although his perspective focuses on this being the language toward success, he taught with respect for other cultures and languages and willingly accepted them in his classroom setting. His way into the language of power was by teaching standard English, but also incorporating other cultures. (Use of a subordinating conjunction by connecting two related statements) He explained the importance of standard English by exemplifying that this will be the language used when they apply for college applications and will be used in more formal settings, but it does not mean that ones culture of native language is not as significant or important. This teacher showed the importance of certain forms of language in different settings. Overall, the students participated in oral projects and were asked to speak or perform with a certain dialect. This is one of the many great ways the Language of Power can be incorporated into the classroom and is valued the same way Standard English is.

Throughout this course, I have learned that along with grammar there comes culture. People come from different backgrounds and value different things. Having a common ground with students can be a difficult task to accomplish, but the way in which this teacher went about incorporating the language of power with other cultures and languages was a really beneficial way for the students to learn about not only grammar, but also language. When I become a teacher I want to make as much of an effort as possible to give my students the opportunity to experiment with different languages.  I plan to have my students participate in a daily free-write at the beginning of class. This would be a time for my students to write in any dialect they choose to, even abbreviations from texting would be fine. I just want to allow for my students to have some freedom with their writing.  I also have to keep in mind that I will have common core rules to follow when teaching my students and using Standard English remains to be a component of teaching. Learning how to incorporate Standard English and other cultures, and then combine them into one lesson plan would be a really efficient and creative way for students to get to learn standard English skills but also learn about other cultures. I just want to become more than just a teacher, but an educator. I want to be someone that can bring my students new ideas and questions about the world around them and maybe even change some students perspectives on the language and standard English. Overall, I just want to make a difference like anyone else in the world, and the way I intend on doing so is by creating a no judgment atmosphere where my students can learn, change and grow.

The two patterns that I highlighted are forms of grammar that I feel I use the most often. I do not ever feel as if I am forcing myself to use those patterns, but more often than not they occur in my writing almost effortlessly. I have been working to step outside of my comfort zone a bit more by using different forms of punctuation and sentence structure, although I still do not feel 100% confident with all the forms of grammar we have learned about. The forms of grammar that I am not so confident about are verbs and sentence structuring. Sometimes I feel as if it is a puzzle that I cannot quite figure out. I love using the dash and am learning to add it to my writing more often. I also enjoy using AAAWWUBBIS and am looking forward to experimenting with it more in my writing. I think all of the forms of grammar that I have mentioned are extremely important. They provide balance in writing and allow us as writers to experiment with new structuring and practice becoming better writers. I am still working on that and I think I will be for quite a long time, but these have really opened up my eyes to all that can be done and changed within one sentence.

Pidgin (Language of Power Project

Haley Tugaw

March 9^th, 2015

English 326

Language of Power Essay

The Demise of Pidgin in Classrooms

            The language of Pidgin has been prominent in Hawaiian culture for over 100 years, and has even been included in classrooms. Pidgin has caused a disagreement in classrooms regarding the language being spoken. Many teachers struggle with incorporating both Pidgin and Standard English into the regime of their classroom dynamics. Although, other educators are taking a stand and choosing to take this debate a step further by incorporating Pidgin into their lesson plans. These teachers have chosen to respect Hawaiian culture and customs by implementing respect regarding the language in the classroom setting. Some educators are choosing to challenge the idea of traditional, Standard English by supporting the students who are fighting and resisting the suppression of Pidgin in classrooms.

            In prior years teachers who did not see the value of Standard English suppressed Pidgin. This led to student’s feelings discouraged and embodied feelings of being a lesser individual within the classroom setting (Ching 2011). Students were feeling as if teachers were pulling them away from their heritage by forcing them to speak in Standard English and completely disconnect from Pidgin in the classroom setting. The students, sad and resentful, felt out of place at school(put adjectives after the subject in order to provide emphasis and draw attention to the details). This led to students feeling invaluable in the classroom setting. After years of suppressing students for their culture and language, educators began to start implementing and accepting the idea of Pidgin in classrooms (Ching, 2011).

Ching, Stuart. "Cultural Memory in the Classroom Public Space." The English Journal 101.1 (2011): 89-90. JSTOR. Web. 09 Mar. 2015.

I am focusing my paper around the idea of Pidgin in classroom settings and how teachers can show worth and value to these students languages. Also, focusing on how students were suppressed for their language and/or resisted the pressure to conform to Standard English and lose track of their home language. I have only the first page written of my paper and have only included one of my sources into the paper, but I plan to address how teachers have welcomed Pidgin into classes and teachers have even made lesson plans and grammar quizzes about Pidgin! I also want to address how the language has evolved since it was oppressed and potentially add a case study like scenario! I have chosen to use Pidgin because I feel like it is an often forgotten form of English that is even prevalent in the United States. 

Christensen Tea Party Article

            After reading Christensen’s article, I became extremely irritated with the concept of teachers whitewashing students (complex sentence: dependent clause first, followed by a comma and the independent clause to emphasize my irritation with whitewashing). The idea that it is the teacher’s job to whitewash the students especially annoyed me. Purposely wanting to diminish another’s culture is extremely unfair and insensitive to the people within the culture. Another component in the article that rubbed me the wrong way was when Christensen stated Spanish speaking has been banned from classrooms across the country. I never even realized this was an issue or was so common in many states. Christensen completely understands my perspective regarding me not noticing the power standard language has. I would not say it was invisible to me like she said in the article, although I was not as aware of the power of language until after reading the article. Something I was really curious about in the article and something I felt was left sort of foggy, was her comment about needing to teach students why some languages have power and others do not.

            The Tea party activity we did in class was far more communicative about the issues in the article. I felt like when I was just reading about the tea party in the article I did not see the importance as much as I did when we actually interacted as the people in class. When we actually interacted as the people I felt as if my classmates and myself were more aware of the struggles each individual faced throughout their lives. It truly was touching: hearing stories of the traumatic experiences people endured, and also the uplifting stories of people persevering (what follows the colon both describes the trauma the people experienced as well as the strength people embodied). I felt as if everyone was very sensitive and respectful regarding the stories, which made the experience that much more insightful.

            I feel as if one way teachers can be more cautious of the dominant language occurring in classrooms, is by being accepting of students who do have another language that is their first language. An idea I have as a teacher, is when I find out a student does have another language as their first language; I will set up a meeting with that individual. Within this meeting the student and I would create an understanding regarding the language in order to be on the same page and show the student I respect he or she and will do whatever I can to make sure the classroom environment will be as respectful as possible. A challenge, which I feel would be common to have occurred in the classroom, is when students begin to bully another student whose first language is not English. This occurred in my classroom once during my high school experience and my teacher has a conversation with us all and asked how our ancestors who came to America for the first time felt. Then she went on saying that everyone has the ability to be judged because of his or her culture and language, and to respect others the way you would want to be treated. My teacher was a very respected teacher, and I felt as if the students really listened to her after this discussion occurred. I really want to teach an open to discussion-based class. I feel like great ideas and thoughts come from discussion as long as it is in a controlled and respectful environment.

            When researching scenarios and languages, which have experienced this type of scrutiny, I want to really dive into the struggles a specific language has endured. I specifically want to research Pidgin. My family has been vacationing in Hawaii for as long as I can remember and I want to really delve into their culture. Gaining insight about the language of Pidgin would be ideal for this project. Regarding this blog, I felt as if this was the hardest set of patterns to accomplish and work into my writing. I really had to think about where I wanted to place some of the patterns of the week and am not sure how well I incorporated the patterns into my writing, but I tried! I would love to know opinions about whether or not I succeeded so that way I could fix what is not working in my writing.

Sudden Possibilities

            The Error Analysis concept discussed in the “Sudden Possibilities” article immediately describes that Error Analysis was once a way for teachers and society to label someone with a learning deficiency. Although this is ridiculous, teachers today are still judging students. [rhetorical fragment beginning with a coordinating conjunction; used to emphasize my exhaustion] I think it is a great point to address that teachers are often judging student’s writing based upon surface level errors that serve as an annoyance to the teacher. This annoyance can lead to students only focusing on being grammatically correct when writing. I find it very frustrating that teachers can be more concerned with the correctness of how a student is writing, instead of the content at which the student is writing about. I agree 100% with the article stating that error anlaysis must extend much further than having the inability to memorize a rule and then incorporate what they memorized into their writing. Error Analysis should see deeper into the writing and place more corrections upon the content. Having the ability to understand the mistakes the student is making, but then helping them comprehend their mistake is much more valuable. [compound sentence joined with a comma+FANBOYS/Coordinating Conjunction].

            I do not recall experimenting with DOL in my schooling, but I am certainly glad I did not have to do exercises of this sort. [compound sentence joined with a comma+FANBOYS/Coordinating Conjunction]. Examining sentences could be beneficial at some points in schooling, although I do not think correcting sentences consistently is the best way for students to comprehend and understand mistakes made within writing. Beginning a class with the same kind of exercise every day is not beneficial to teaching students about mistakes in writing. Having the same exercise every single day seems to be very excessive in my opinion. It is understandable that teachers would go to these lengths in order to compensate for standardized testing. The pressure of knowing students will have to know how to correct sentences in order to score well on the test is enough stress to make a teacher force these same exercises upon their students daily. Instead of teaching DOL exercises incessantly, I think it would be more beneficial for students to be able to participate in an interactive exercise to help them further understand the subject matter.

            A way in which this can be done and incorporated into a classroom is by using the alternatives to typical daily language exercises. The exercise I have chosen to discuss is exercise 8. Exercise 8 is explained as using slogans from advertisements in the classroom as an example of incorrect spelling and grammar that is used in an interesting way based upon advertisements. I think this would be an extremely beneficial alternative to use in the classroom to help students understand grammar usage better and in a more interactive way. I would choose to use this alternative in my class because it proves to have relevance to student’s lives. Especially if this is being used in a high school classroom, students will find it easier to relate to and understand. By using this activity in my class, I would hope this would enable students to be more aware of advertisements in society. Overall, I would hope to accomplish the goal of students acknowledging the difference in grammar when it is used in marketing and advertising scenarios.

            I chose to experiment with the “fanboys” pattern of the week, because I do use fanboys in my writing but its never intentional, its natural, and I wanted to try using it intentionally. Because of the fact that I tried to use fanboys purposely, I feel as if I did not use it correctly. I attempted to try the pattern out twice and I still am not sure if I properly incorporated the pattern into my sentence. I also wanted to incorporate using a rhetorical fragment at the beginning of a sentence. I often do this in my writing and caught myself starting my sentence with “Although” without trying to, so I formed my sentence around “Although” in order to incorporate the use of the pattern of the week. I enjoyed these weeks patterns because I already use these patterns in my everyday writing, so it made it fun to be able to use a pattern that I have some prior knowledge about.

Blog 3 Pages 75-79 Diagramming Sentences

            Throughout my schooling, I have never worked with diagramming or experienced anything similar to it first hand. To be honest I did not even know there was a visual component to grammar such as diagramming. I had the same teacher all four years of high school and my teacher herself did not explain grammar in anyway similar to diagramming. [Reflexive pronoun to show emphasis. I wanted to emphasize the matter in which I had the same teacher for a long period of time and diagramming was never brought to my attention] I think it is really interesting there is a format for reading and writing grammar in order to improve accuracy.

            Diagramming looks very confusing to me. There are so many different symbols that are meant to identify the different components of grammar. I am sure once I am more informed about what symbol goes with which function of grammar it will make more sense. Although for now, I am confused. Ultimately, I began to learn sentence structuring with grammar very easily when we did the sentence building in class on Tuesday February 3^rd. I tend to learn better when I am experiencing the learning first hand. Instead of just being given a pattern or equation and myself learning the information straight off of a piece of paper. [Reflexive pronoun to show emphasis. I wanted to bring emphasis to my frustration with being given something and being expected to learn it almost immediately] I have never been a student who excelled in math. Equations always overwhelmed me. I was never a comfortable, confident, strong student in regards to math, which is why I am sort of fearful of learning the ropes of diagramming. [List without final and. I wanted to list the qualities in which I lacked in regards to mathematics] It looks quite like math to me!

            I am expecting to struggle with diagramming once we begin learning and discussing it in class. Although, I did not struggle with the exercise we did in class recently. The interactive way in which we went about constructing sentences was extremely beneficial to my learning. Having the ability to be an active learner in the process really clicked with my brain and the way I learn and process information. I do believe once I begin to learn and understand components of diagramming, I will see how it could be beneficial to have symbols representing the different concepts of grammar. Diagramming seems to have a specific technique in which it follows, which could be extremely helpful for someone who struggles when it comes to constructing proper sentences.

            Overall, I am very apprehensive about diagramming. I am very willing to try and experiment with it, just like I have been with all of the components of grammar we have learned this semester.  Diagramming definitely has some shortcomings in regards to learning the functions and everything through a specific system—instead of interactively.  It does provide room for success for students learning grammar because it may be helpful to follow a precise format when constructing sentences. It could prove to be a very helpful resource in the long run. Diagramming is something I have never been introduced to, but am totally willing to experiment with in order to improver my grammar skills.

Blog #2 What It Means to Teach Grammar

Christensen and Grammar Alive challenge my opinion on how to teach grammar to students because it is more than just “teaching” grammar. It involves teaching about the different cultures and the different forms of grammar in English that are neither right nor wrong. Christensen explains how teachers pointing out every usage error that the students make only make people conform to those teachers editing styles and later harshly correcting their own students in the same way. Christensen makes a point to say that although we should correct student’s mistakes when using grammar, there should still be a time where making mistakes and experimenting with the different forms of grammar is perfectly fine. When experimenting with this, it would be a good time to teach the varieties of grammar usage amongst the English language specified in Grammar Alive!

            Before teaching students about the varieties of grammar within the English Language, it is crucial to understand as a teacher that students have a tendency to make assumptions about what is correct or incorrect in regards to anything in life. As stated in Grammar Alive, it is essential to show and explain to students that no one uses proper edited Standard English when communicating with family in a silly way or texting friends. Situation makes a huge difference in regards to grammar. Students need to understand the circumstances at which grammar is being used—instead of immediately judging people [use of the dash to emphasize an important point]. Grammar Alive states it is important for teachers who are grading grammar, to think about the language and the context in which the grammar is used; before they begin to mark the student’s work incorrect [two closely connected sentences joined by a semi colon]. This is a way in which people tend to judge one another based upon the language used.

Grammar Alive challenges me as a future teacher to steer away from viewing grammar as correct or incorrect and working on seeing the differences in which grammar can be used appropriately based upon the current situation. A way to go about teaching grammar to students is to state we are practicing grammar—it does not have to be correct immediately [use of the dash to emphasize an important point]. Once students understand that when they are experimenting with grammar they are neither right nor wrong, they will feel more comfortable making mistakes. This will then lead to students learning from those mistakes and gaining knowledge on all varieties of grammar. Not just typical “Standard” English. Christensen and Grammar Alive work cohesively to provide insight for me as a future teacher on how to challenge myself as a teacher by approaching grammar in a friendly way that people can relate to and not are fearful of.

I decided that I wanted to experiment with using both the dash and the semi colon because I wanted to go outside of my comfort zone and try them out. I am a safe writer and decided I wanted to make mistakes to get better at using grammar instead of not gaining insight on how to use grammar appropriately by not making any mistakes. I used the dash because I felt as if it was important to provide emphasis on the act of judging people by their grammar. As well as emphasizing that when teaching grammar, students do not need to be a pro at grammar usage right away. I was more apprehensive when using the semi colon, because I felt as if I put it in the correct place but I am still unsure. Although, if it were incorrect I would rather know it is so that way I can learn from my mistake and gain insight on how to use a semi colon properly for future references. Overall, I wanted to use both the dash and semi colon because they were the two patterns that fit the best in my writing style for this blog.