Johanna -- I'll volunteer.

 From the trenches,
Marcia Alessi
6th Grade Language Arts
Los Angeles
On Apr 22, 2005, at 4:37 PM, Johanna Rubba wrote:

> Well, well, well, Ed -- you DO teach morphology, aka "prefixes, 
> suffixes, and roots". Be careful of letting any more linguistics sneak 
> into your curriculum.
>
> I don't actually think there is anything that could change your 
> stubborn  insistence on misunderstanding (and misrepresenting) 
> linguists, but I'll take a last try. I have a web page on English 
> morphology (call it 'word structure' if you like), as well as several 
> exercises on the web in word analysis (I call it 'morphological 
> analysis', but 'word analysis' is fine outside of linguistics classes, 
> and is, in fact, what it's called in CA language arts materials). You 
> will find some linguistic terminology on these pages, but again, 
> that's because they are for linguistics classes. Virtually all of the 
> material could be adapted for classes at 'lower' levels quite easily, 
> with few terminology changes. Many of the words on the pages are 
> identical to terms used in everyday pedagogical grammars (maybe even 
> KISS).
>
> As for 'linguistic theory', the approach on my pages is basic 
> structuralism, which corresponds in most aspects to how traditional 
> teaching materials depict the language. I never use the term 
> "structuralism" in my classes. ANY description of a language is a 
> theory of it, for you have no choice but to define and categorize 
> according to some scheme or other. The traditional approach to word 
> analysis is known as the word-and-paradigm approach. I don't introduce 
> network models (the theory I believe in), optimality theory, 
> discontinuous morphology, generative morphology, or any other modern 
> linguistic theory, on these web pages.
>
> It would be fun to work with a few people on actually "translating" my 
> basic page into language that you (or others) accept as 
> non-theoretical enough. It would also be fun to discuss which concepts 
> teachers think are appropriate at which levels. Any volunteers?
>
> Here are links to my pages:
>
> http://www.cla.calpoly.edu/~jrubba/morph/morph.over.html
>
> http://www.cla.calpoly.edu/~jrubba/morph/morphex.html
>
> http://www.cla.calpoly.edu/~jrubba/morph/morphex2.html
>
> http://www.cla.calpoly.edu/~jrubba/moremorphex.html
>
> http://www.cla.calpoly.edu/~jrubba/morph/auxlex.html
> (could be seen as a syntax exercise)
>
> One might object to the most basic term of morphology, "morpheme". One 
> could propose an alternative like "word part" or "word-building unit". 
> But is "morpheme" really any harder than "appositive", "apostrophe", 
> or "preposition"?
>
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> Johanna Rubba   Associate Professor, Linguistics
> English Department, California Polytechnic State University
> One Grand Avenue  • San Luis Obispo, CA 93407
> Tel. (805)-756-2184  •  Fax: (805)-756-6374 • Dept. Phone.  756-2596
> • E-mail: [log in to unmask] •      Home page: 
> http://www.cla.calpoly.edu/~jrubba
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>
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>
Marcia Alessi
Language Arts & Social Studies
Sixth Grade
St. Paul the Apostle School
Los Angeles, California

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