Tell us a little bit about how you "mastered" academic language at various stages of your academic career -- the language of high school reading/writing, the language of college reading/writing, and the language of graduate-level reading/writing? Was it a conscious process? Or did you just "absorb" the language? Or was it trial-and-error? What struggles or challenges did you face? What challenges do you still face in academic reading/writing?
My One Blessing
I suppose I came to SFSU to get a handle on how to teach writing because, while I feel I write fairly competently, I can't remember ever struggling with it, so how to translate something so natural into a "methodology"? Math was always a challenge, frankly, and I felt like an idiot because I had to fight just to get Cs and Bs.
Languages, though, have been my one blessing. I fell in love with language through songs and movies and children's books. I began writing "songs" in fourth grade, then, really seriously in high school. I was on the school newspaper beginning in seventh grade, so I must have felt some enjoyment and control over language then. Reading, actually, was tougher for me. I was always a notoriously slow reader (still am).
My Two Activities
Two things stand out as useful activities that aided my language acquisition, and both of them come down to being a good "magpie." I remember watching lots of TV as a kid, and I recall putting on "skits" back in fifth grade. (One in particular involved a cop and a heroin junkie. The junkie was injecting himself with a "needle" (a mechanical pencil that resembled a hypo, I thought?) and the cop comes and freights him off to jail. Then the cop tells the audience the "moral" of the tale in a voice that tried to sound like Robert Stack from the TV show "The Untouchables.") It was nothing. But I always loved doing "schtick" like this, either drama or comedy, mostly the latter.
The other activity was songwriting. Again, it all began with listening like a total devotee to the Beatles, Simon and Garfunkle, Creeedence Clearwater, Motown, etc. -- then making something up based on, not pure imitation, but definitely inspiration and emulation.
In both cases, whether "drama" or songwriting, looking back, I was actively IMITATING other genres. Kids do this all the time in trying out impressions of friends, family, movie stars, etc. And so it goes, I suppose, with writing narrative. It starts with what I call in class The Art of Paying Attention. People who really listen, then absorb, then try to replicate -- this type of people has a far easier time. Because I think 80-90% of it's imitation, don't you?
Faking the Code
So we learn the "style" of writing book reports. We learn the "style" of writing a newspaper lead. We learn the "style" of a five-paragraph essay. And so the language of academic discourse is just a code. If I'm on the corner, talking to Jimmy Two-Fingers about the game, I'm gonna to hit Jimmy with his, you know, street "code." But if I'm to converse with learned minds concerning elevated topics, if I have any intention of impressing such worthies, it behooves me to wear the appropriate "clothes" to the event, namely academic "code," and to meet such people head-on with ideas that at least pretend to hold their interest.
Academic Magpie
When I was eleven, I became a "born again Christian." Part of the fascination with religion was the spiritual "pull," I suppose, and the other part was the intrigue of the rhetoric itself. The philosophy was compelling, largely a giant poetic ball of beautiful ironies: this poor carpenter becomes King of Kings; he tells people to turn the other cheek just when they're dying for revenge; he comes to fulfill his mission, but he's still got his moment of doubt in the Garden of Gethsemane. Anyway, I found it so mentally appealing, which is one reason that I jumped in, studied like crazy and began "preaching" to my friends as early as junior high (no, I wasn't popular).
Essentially, again, I was "trying on the clothes" for another act -- this time it was religious and, I suppose, intellectual or at least, academic. I loved the way a sermon could compel you through a mixture of reason and emotion: this was the art of the persuasive argument. I dreamed of being able to persuade people myself someday, possibly as missionary in an exotic land (!). In a way, my connection to academic discourse was just a melding of the "magpie" in me with my fascination for philosophy and persuasion.
PS
I just re-read the above after several days' marination, and I need to add that, as far as TRUE academic discourse, the above was my "grooming" for the academic culture, but I was blessed with additional tutelage. My sharpest "chops" for critical thinking, consciousness of my audience and concise writing came from a) my experience writing in journalism (Acalanes/ Piedmont H.S., UC Berkeley, Cashbox Magazine, various video magazines in LA) and b) my Rhetoric 1A course at Cal. As the editor of my high school paper, I felt like a bit of a "hot shot" writer, so I opted for Rhet. 1A, since it was said to be the toughest. It was. Through lively debates, we learned that critical thinking was the means to a clear concept of audience for the argumentative essay and the most succinct language. It was a merciless and absolutely successful "boot camp." All of us had begun thinking we were "great" writers. All of us improved markedly still -- even if, due to the stringent nature of the rubric, we were lucky to pull a B in the end. This was by far the most useful course in my college career (and I still have the cracked ribs to remember it by).
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