Peter,
Contractions are a routine part of all the formal writing I do. I have
yet to have an editor object. I edited a literary magazine through four
issues and never took issue with it.
I would also take issue with the idea that all our ideas should be
impersonal and/or expressed in impersonal ways. That may be a
reasonable goal in many of the sciences--it doesn't matter, I suppose,
who keeps a specimen at 80 degrees for three hours--but I can't for the
life of me separate my understanding of teaching writing from my own
schooling or the wealth of my experiences in the classroom. I don't
have "logical" views about it separate from my values and experiences.
It seems silly for me to say "When one teaches educational opportunity
program students for twenty-three years" when I'm trying to
characterize my own background. Other people may have opinions about
it, but I have a perspective. It seems to me that asking students to
avoid "I" in subjects like this means we are asking them to avoid being
honest about where their views are coming from. This also shortchanges
the dialectical nature of most writing. If a student has grown up with
a hunting rifle in his hands and another has seen someone shot by a
fellow teenager on a playground, they will be unable to talk unless
those differing experiences can be acknowledged as legitimate.
We are not logical machines, and most subjects don't benefit from
pretending to leave our values and experiences at the door. Quite
often, the "reasons" we give for our beliefs are after the fact.
Craig
I've never understood some teachers' constraints on first person, so I
> look forward to reading the replies to Paul's post.
>
> I also wonder about contractions. I tell my students that they
> shouldn't use them in very formal writing or when writing to an
> audience that thinks they shouldn't be used. I also tell them I've
> never written anything in my life that was so formal that I avoided
> contractions. Where do others stand on this?
>
> Peter Adams
>
> On Jun 1, 2009, at 9:01 AM, Paul E. Doniger wrote:
>
>> In requiring students to write some papers in "formal English," I
>> often come across some gray areas. My tendancy is to be somewhat
>> conservative about formal language. I wonder where others draw
>> lines regarding levels of formality. For example, some of my
>> students use words that seem too informal to me, like "morph" (verb
>> form). Also, I know we have discussed the use of the first person
>> before, but I think it is sometimes valuable to challenge students
>> to write persuasive pieces that avoid using the first person
>> altogether. Where do the rest of you stand on such issues?
>>
>> Thanks,
>>
>> Paul E. Doniger
>>
>> "If this were play'd upon a stage now, I could condemn it as an
>> improbable fiction" (_Twelfth Night_ 3.4.127-128).
>>
>>
>> From: Scott Woods <[log in to unmask]>
>> To: [log in to unmask]
>> Sent: Sunday, May 31, 2009 6:45:07 PM
>> Subject: Re: Class size ATEG Digest - 28 May 2009 to 29 May 2009 -
>> Special issue (#2009-127)
>>
>> Herb,
>>
>> I wasn't clear. Currently, for seventh grade English, I teach four
>> groups of students for a total of 112 students. I meet with each
>> group five times each week. I think that I could get better results
>> by meeting with all the groups together on some days and with each
>> group separately on others. This would reduce total student contact
>> hours for me, but not for them. With 28 total contact hours per
>> week next year (I teach other classes as well), I would benefit from
>> reducing my contact load and spending that time planning, developing
>> lessons, and responding to writing.
>>
>> Scott
>>
>> --- On Sun, 5/31/09, STAHLKE, HERBERT F <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>>
>> From: STAHLKE, HERBERT F <[log in to unmask]>
>> Subject: Re: Class size ATEG Digest - 28 May 2009 to 29 May 2009 -
>> Special issue (#2009-127)
>> To: [log in to unmask]
>> Date: Sunday, May 31, 2009, 1:21 PM
>>
>> Scott,
>>
>>
>> I’m not join this debate because I don’t know the research on either
>> side, but meeting one group of 112 students twice a week rather than
>> four groups of 28 students twice a week for each group strikes me as
>> simply a different way of handling the same student-teacher ratio.
>> Meeting four groups of 112 students twice a week for each group
>> seems a more apt contrast. Or you could lower that to four groups
>> of 42 or 56 students. The result would be much less writing and
>> much less response to writing.
>>
>>
>> Herb
>>
>>
>> From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar
>> [mailto:[log in to unmask]
>> ] On Behalf Of Scott Woods
>> Sent: 2009-05-31 11:11
>> To: [log in to unmask]
>> Subject: Re: Class size ATEG Digest - 28 May 2009 to 29 May 2009 -
>> Special issue (#2009-127)
>>
>>
>> Paul,
>>
>>
>>
>> I would be interested in seeing research that shows a strong link
>> between reducing class size and increasing performance. The research
>> I have seen strongly suggests that the most important factor in
>> improving student performance is changing what teachers do.
>> Reducing class size can reduce the amount of disruption in a class,
>> but there is little research base (that I have seen) to suggest that
>> if we reduced the size of every class in the country to 15 students
>> that much would change in what students know and can do.
>>
>>
>>
>> As an English teacher, I would prefer having fewer total students,
>> but I could probably teach as well if, at least twice a week, I had
>> all 112 of my students in a lecture hall together. That would give
>> me eight hours of extra time to respond thoughtfully to their writing.
>>
>>
>>
>> Scott Woods
>>
>> BASIS Scottsdale
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> --- On Fri, 5/29/09, Paul E. Doniger <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>>
>>
>> From: Paul E. Doniger [log in to unmask]
>>
>>
>> Yes! And all research in education that I've ever seen agrees that
>> class size is a vital component in successful learning. This is
>> especially important to the writing classroom.
>>
>>
>>
>> Paul E. Doniger
>>
>>
>> "If this were play'd upon a stage now, I could condemn it as an
>> improbable fiction" (_Twelfth Night_ 3.4.127-128).
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> From: Scott <[log in to unmask]>
>> To: [log in to unmask]
>> Sent: Friday, May 29, 2009 8:30:56 PM
>> Subject: Re: Class size ATEG Digest - 28 May 2009 to 29 May 2009 -
>> Special issue (#2009-127)
>>
>> I too am normally reluctant to classify a remark as stupid; however,
>> the list member who indicated that class size was irrelevant in
>> teaching
>> writing must have been brought up by a school board member. My alma
>> mater,
>> MSC, whose regular Freshman English program I have praised highly, had
>> a secondary program in basic writing skills for those who had failed
>> the
>> English placement exam. I had scored a 100 in the exam but my
>> advisor had
>> accidentally put my test in the "Dummy English" pile; therefore, I
>> had to
>> take a non-credit English class on the same semester as my first
>> Freshman
>> English class. My advisor apologized to me later but I replied that
>> I had
>> learned more in Dummy English than in regular English because the
>> class size
>> was quite small--around ten students--and we wrote a theme each day
>> instead
>> of one a week. The professor in the Dummy Class was also an excellent
>> teacher.
>>
>> Having taught across the academic curriculum, I can aver that, in my
>> experience, class size is more important in English composition than
>> in any
>> other academic class, including mathematics and foreign languages.
>>
>> N. Scott Catledge, PhD/STD
>> Professor Emeritus
>>
>> ***************************************************************************
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