Christine,
I was forwarding the message from Joan Livingston-Webber, so your
response is to her post about her classroom practices.
(I would be proud to call them my own, but that would be misleading.)
She has been having trouble reading ATEG posts when they come directly
to her computer.
You're absolutely right. We need to be very careful not to
oversimplify.
A good friend and colleague had an interesting way to say this in a
talk yesterday: "It would be OK to tell students it's OK to be
themselves if we could change the world for that to be true." In
reality, the task is far more complex than that. Our students need to
negotiate their way in a world that will be both open and hostile, and
sometimes the openness will be illusory, and sometimes the hostility
will at least have the advantage of being clear. And sometimes we need
to listen to them to perceive these differences.
It doesn't do any good to tell students you like them (or accept
them) if you are setting them up for failure.
As progressive educators, we sometimes do more harm than good by our
discomfort with clear standards.
The natural language of our students is a wonderful starting point
for growth, but it will not be a starting point for growth if we don't
demand (expect) significant development. In general, they are capable of
far more than we are asking of them, and most students want to be pushed
when that comes from a respect for their capabilities.
If Smitherman is right (I think she is), syntactic features are
minor, and the major difference is what she calls a communicative style,
which can almost be paraphrased as a different way of being in a
communal world. Gates uses this also to argue for African-American
literature being judged from within that community. It has an organic
connection to that community that would be lost when judged from
different standards.
If the only differences were surface feature differences, then
dialect would little matter.
Perhaps one of the reasons this becomes so political is that there
are enormous political implications. An articulate populace is more
likely to defend its own interests.
What we have going, of course, is the wonderful realization that
being bi-dialectical is not only possible, but deeply enriching.
Consciousness of double consciousness dates all the way back to W. E. B.
Dubois and probably began when the first two slaves decided they would
say one thing to each other and another to the master. We now recognize
that the truest histories of pre civil war America are in the slave
narratives. We may once have wanted to suppress them, but now they are
priceless treasures we work hard to unearth.
Craig
Christine
Christine Reintjes wrote:
> Craig,
>
>
> "No one in my classes thinks or leaves thinking that all dialects are
> socially or politically equal."
>
> I hope this is true of my classes also. I'm aware that this is the first
> thing the gets distorted when there are discussions about the "inherent"
> equality of dialects.
>
> I use the example of the fact that so many English computer terms have
> become part of the vocabulary of many other languages. Why did this
> happen?
> Why not Arabic or Inuit? I ask them where did these specailized words
> come
> from within English since they obviously weren't around 100 years ago.
> Anyway, I try to discuss how dialects develop differently depending on
> how
> they are used and the social and political pressures at work.
>
> Who are these people going around saying all dialects are politically and
> socially equal?? I've never heard anyone say that, but people do react
> as if
> that is what is being put forth.
> --
>
> Christine Reintjes Martin
> [log in to unmask]
>
>
>
>
>
>> From: Craig Hancock <[log in to unmask]>
>> Reply-To: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar
>> <[log in to unmask]>
>> To: [log in to unmask]
>> Subject: [Fwd: Re: success of linguistic grammars?]
>> Date: Wed, 3 Mar 2004 08:21:23 -0500
>>
>> Joan Livingston-Webber asked me to forward this thoughtful message to
>> the group.
>>
>> -------- Original Message --------
>> Subject: Re: success of linguistic grammars?
>> Date: Mon, 1 Mar 2004 13:57:18 -0600
>> From: Joan Livingston-Webber <[log in to unmask]>
>> To: Craig Hancock <[log in to unmask]>
>> References: <[log in to unmask]>
>> <[log in to unmask]>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> I teach two courses to English Ed majors - English in its Social and
>> Historical
>> Contexts (or sociolinquistics with accompanying narratives - or that's
>> basically how I do it) and Grammar Methods, which includes lg
>> acquisition
>> and methods of teaching grammar, including how to make sense of
>> handbooks
>> (specifically, Hacker) as well as readings by Weaver, Wheeler, E.
>> Schuster,
>> and
>> others. No one in my classes thinks or leaves thinking that all
>> dialects
>> are
>> socially or politically equal. Indeed, one point to make is that if
>> they
>> were,
>> we wouldn't need a course one of whose purposes is to demonstrate the
>> systematicity of varieties. That students learn in linguistics courses
>> that
>> all dialeacts are equal is some kind of urban myth.
>>
>> I do think it's vital - essential - for ed majors to understand the
>> equivalence
>> in formalness of varieties, since if they go into teaching with an
>> elitist
>> attitude, that attitude will interfere with their effectiveness. The
>> sociolinguistics course is designed to teach certain analytic tools,
>> certain information and facts - as much by discovery as possible -
>> but one
>> end
>> of it all is persuasive, to let the "facts" students discover using the
>> tools
>> convince tham that variation is not an evil or careless or lazy or the
>> product
>> of inadequate cognition.
>>
>>> From that point, then, a methods course on effective ways to teach
>>> grammar
>>
>> makes sense and that is the second course I teach to ed majors. One
>> reason
>> I
>> have recently found this listserv and several other resources is that
>> I am
>> not
>> at all satisfied with what Craig (I think) called "point of contact"
>> as the
>> interpretation of "in context." I teach and have tried to find
>> models for
>> using grammatical concepts for insights into literature, into
>> other documents, into local variation. I have serious reservations
>> about "using" lit to teach grammar. I don't want to end up turning
>> kids off
>> to
>> literature. I look for ways to use grammatical concepts to open up
>> literature. What I've been seeing is that the trend is to say that
>> grammar
>> (of
>> whatever ilk) should be taught in 4-7 or so - and then move on. What
>> I am
>> looking for is partly, I think, where that moving on goes.
>>
>> Let me describe an example of the kinds of things I encounter: an ed
>> major
>> doing pre-student-teaching field observations called me a couple
>> years ago.
>> He
>> was in a one-semester course called Remedial Writing (grade 8). The
>> students
>> were going through Warriner's. The class spent one week on each chapter,
>> and
>> every Friday, they took a quiz involving labeling things in sentences
>> and
>> underlining elements of sentences, given the labels. Deadly. Neither a
>> grammar course nor a writing course. My student was to take the week on
>> Positive, Comparative, and Superlative Adjectives. The teacher didn't
>> care if
>> he deviated from the worksheet method, but the students had to take the
>> Friday
>> quiz.
>>
>> In the end, he assigned his students a short essay (itself contextless
>> except
>> for the course) comparing any two things. They were to exaggerate as
>> much
>> as
>> they could. They wrote comparisons of football and basketball, two
>> kinds
>> of
>> off-road vehicles, two kinds of guns, two kinds of music - that kind of
>> thing.
>> They used this writing to learn to identify the elements. My student's
>> report:
>> they had more fun. The comparisons were really outrageous. One guy
>> didn't
>> even sleep. They did about the same on the quiz as they had been doing.
>>
>> I think my conscious grammatical knowledge has always helped open
>> literature to
>> me. I don't understand how students with no knowledge of grammatical
>> concepts
>> can read sophisticated texts. David Mulroy's discussion of the
>> subject of
>> the
>> first sentence of the Declaration of Independence hits the nail on the
>> head.
>> How can someone follow the meaning of one of Virgina Woolf's long
>> cumulative
>> sentences without understanding how final modifiers relate to the base
>> clause?
>> To me, it sounds like reading without grammatical concepts is like
>> looking
>> at a
>> vista color blind. Yes, there's a great deal the same, but given a
>> choice,
>> technicolor is richer and reveals details otherwise invisible.
>>
>> The way I teach grammar methods (to secondary ed majors) means I need
>> to be
>> able to demonstrate some of the ends for teaching grammar at all.
>>
>>
>> Quoting Craig Hancock :
>>
>>> Joan,
>>> I'm writing this to ATEG, but sending it directly to you as well
>>> just to see if the problem is in my computer or in how it comes out of
>>> the List when redirected. I'll be happy to send you the last post as
>>> well.
>>> I do think Black English is not so embattled as it once was,
>>> though
>>> the good guys did not win the public battle that erupted post Oakland.
>>> Perhaps one reason for the concern on the part of Black students is
>>> their sense that progressive educators are very happy to let Black kids
>>> be themselves, but that this may doom them to living a marginal life.
>>> At any rate, they have far more at stake here than we do, and it's not
>>> up to us to tell them what the proper way of understanding all this is,
>>> but to help them evolve or develop their own complex positions. It
>>> makes
>>> a great classroom topic precisely because it will elicit passionate
>>> responses from a number of perspectives. That is to say, in a typical
>>> college classroom with a number of language minority students (my usual
>>> class), pretty much all sensible positions (and a few not so sensible
>>> ones) will be presented. The right answer (on how to negotiate these
>>> language worlds) may be different for every student.
>>> A question like "Do you believe in Black English" is just not
>>> answerable in a yes/no way, and we can't let ourselves get forced into
>>> saying how we feel these students should conduct their lives. I'm sure
>>> your "yes" wasn't intended that way, but that may, in fact, be what was
>>> heard from their side. (Been there, done that.) It may not be the
>>> students who have changed, but us or their trust in us?
>>> Both the prescriptive and "progressive" positions are suspect. I
>>> haven't met a Black parent yet who didn't want his/her child fluent in
>>> mainstream English. They are rightly suspicious when they hear someone
>>> say that Black English is OK.
>>> Progressive educators have been happy to teach the primary
>>> tenets of
>>> sociolinguistics, but have adamantly opposed the teaching of grammar.
>>> Being for or against may make little difference if the students are
>>> ill served.
>>>
>>> Craig
>>>
>>> Joan Livingston-Webber wrote:
>>>
>>> >I have a very hard time reading messages from ATEG - "it" (ATEG?)
>>> tells
>>> me
>>> my
>>> >reader can't read mime. I get a lot of code. SOmetimes I get word
>>> wrap
>>> and
>>> >sometimes not. The archives aren't much better. I've thought of
>>> >unsubscribing, but I find what I can pick up of the conversations
>>> between
>>> Craig
>>> >and Herb especially so tantalizing that I try to read them, though I
>>> know I
>>> >miss a lot. I am unable to follow exchanges of short dialogue,
>>> since I
>>> get
>>> >frustrated in searching for the bits.
>>> >
>>> >I did want to reply to Craig's saying a few days ago that linguistic
>>> grammars
>>> >haven't made a dent in prescriptive attitudes. (My one-line
>>> summary of
>>> a
>>> much
>>> >longer statement, which I can't copy because of all the intervening
>>> code.
>>> I'm
>>> >never sure I've gotten a good sense of the whole; I hope my comment
>>> wasn't
>>> >already made elsewhere.)
>>> >
>>> >I first taught linguistics to ed students at Indiana in the late
>>> 70's as
>>> an
>>> >intern. I taught it at IUPUI in the early 80's, at Western
>>> Illinois in
>>> the
>>> >late 80's and late 90's, at U of NE at Omaha in the mid 80's. I
>>> continue
>>> to
>>> >teach it, though the courses have changed substantially in some ways.
>>> >
>>> >The students I have now are not nearly as resistent to the idea of
>>> dialects
>>> as
>>> >rule-governed systems as they use to be. I used to have Black
>>> students
>>> come
>>> up
>>> >to me after class and ask if I "believed in" Black English," as though
>>> it
>>> were
>>> >a statement of faith. Some of those students dropped the course
>>> when I
>>> said
>>> >yes. Now, I may have a small group of students who want to challenge
>>> the
>>> >conclusions that dialectal rules of phonology, morphology, and syntax
>>> lead
>>> us -
>>> >that all varieties are systematic. But I have not had a Black student
>>> simply
>>> >deny the existence of Black English since about 1982. That kind of
>>> denial
>>> just
>>> >doesn't show up anymore. That seems to me to indicate substantial
>>> progress.
>>> >
>>> >
>>> >Joan Livingston-Webber
>>> >Department of ENglish and Journalism
>>> >Western Illinois University
>>> > Better a pack of greyhounds than a pack of
>>> camels
>>> >
>>> >To join or leave this LISTSERV list, please visit the list's web
>>> interface
>>> at:
>>> > http://listserv.muohio.edu/archives/ateg.html
>>> >and select "Join or leave the list"
>>> >
>>> >Visit ATEG's web site at http://ateg.org/
>>> >
>>> >
>>> >
>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>> Joan Livingston-Webber
>> Department of ENglish and Journalism
>> Western Illinois University
>> Better a pack of greyhounds than a pack of camels
>>
>>
>>
>> To join or leave this LISTSERV list, please visit the list's web
>> interface
>> at:
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>>
>> Visit ATEG's web site at http://ateg.org/
>
>
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