Week 10, Post 2: Sentence-Level Lesson Plan Brain Tempest

I spoke with another colleague from this class.  It appears that neither of us has a crystal clear idea what is expected from this assignment.  I thought this was basically 20 min of me explaining grammar a la lecture.  She seemed to think this was a lesson with activities for students.  I didn't remember hearing that; perhaps I missed that.

I told her I've been teaching grammar for so long, I'd much prefer to teach something new to me, where I'm learning something.  I mentioned sentence building, since that's at least sentence level.  I said I wasn't sure that would wash, since it's not about addressing student grammar errors.  She said she thought mine was a great idea, and that she planned to steal it!  I said I'd send my thugs to break her knees.

The biggest question is audience.  We learned the folly of teaching grammar to FYE students because there are so many types of students in one class, each with his/her specific grammar needs; what's fascinating for one is baffling to another or just overkill and boring the yet another.

If sentence building is not an option, I would like to teach something to AUGMENT their writing, not merely explain why it's broken and repair it.  Working with idiomatic expressions would be fun, but I'm not sure where to begin. 

I think I might be able to humor myself by focusing on a list of confusing count/noncount words that deserve special attention.  For example, sometimes "crime" is noncount, sometimes it's count.  Why?

Similarly, the use of any/some often needs some explanation. 
Do you want some coffee?  No I don't care for any.

Week 10, Post 1: Case Study Brainstorm

On one hand, I'm happy to be able to pinpoint who my case study is about; on the other, I'm unhappy to report that I don't have a simple, strong story to tell, in part because it's still unfolding.

My tutee Lulu has missed two out of six tutorials, so she's looking more and more unlikely as my study subject. 

My tutee Luigi is showing promising signs of increased motivation and improvement.  He's showing up a bit more organized, less apathetic and his writing is looking up, even if his teacher has little praise for him (I disagree with her lack of praise and her focus on minutiae).

However, the story unfolding is less clear than I thought it was a couple of weeks ago.  At that time, I thought this might be a story about helping Luigi with organizational skills and in focusing on the prompt, which he was often vague about.  At this time, I'm thinking the story (if there is one simple story buried in all of this) is how to motivate Luigi to believe in himself as a successful writer, and/or to equip him with a clear model of what a good essay looks like. 

As I wrote in my tutoring report, it's still not clear, though, if he's the clever writer I think he is (just too unmotivated to really edit his paper), or whether he's a decent writer with really mediocre editing skills, especially since he's failed to implement the ideas we discussed for his revisions two weeks ago, and now the teacher is complaining, generally, about exactly the organizational points I brought up back then.  It may be that we're just asking too much too soon from him.

My hunch is that he needs a Bartholomae & Petrosky bootcamp of deep reading immersion and deeply personal writing to wake him up to the deeper possibilities of the reading/writing connection.  The truth is doesn't read much, never has.  So realizing his full potential may take some time.

Week 9, Post 6: HELP! (Drawing a Blank!)

 Find examples of the sentence level issue that you're going to focus on in your 704 lesson plan.  You can work from your tutees writing or you can work from any of the essays that we've looked at this semester.  What kind of lesson activities might you do with a class of students to help them with this grammar issue?

I know we discussed this (briefly) in class last week.  I know I'm to plan out and give a 20 minute (??) grammar lesson.  But I'm blocked because a) I'm finding no inspiring grammar issues in our sample essays, nor in my tutees' essays -- at least, nothing that would sustain my interest to rant for 20 minutes of my hot air.  Is this a lecture?

That's a hell of a long time to harangue about minutiae, no?  Especially after we've spent nine weeks discussing (and agreeing?) that grammar, if it's dealt with at all, should never -- or very, very, very RARELY -- be taught at the group level.  Nearly EVERYTHING we've read and discussed has concluded that error analysis is of ZERO benefit and that students IGNORE it -- UNLESS it's IN CONTEXT and MEANINGFUL.

I have taught mini-lessons in ESL for many years, but even at that level, I would avoid something as unruly as a 20 minute lecture.  Inevitably, some students will find it fascinating (and forget it), while others will be baffled (but not admit it), while others will already understand it (and resent it).

Then, if we're to address the most common errors our tutees make, I don't see the point.  Most of these grammar points are mundane, like subject/verb agreement, which they've known for years, but, for whatever reason, they fail to apply.  Perhaps they need to be shown the usefulness of the APPLICATION or the importance.  Other, more "exotic" points, like subordinate clauses, will tend to befuddle and bore more students than they aid, I'll wager, especially if the topic's presented out of context.

From my experience, what would be much more creative and beneficial, would be an APPLICATION of a grammar point to a particular activity or game.  But a 20-min. lecture just for the heck of it?  Hmmmm?

So, I'm really confused about the point of this project, and about how to proceed!

I welcome anybody's input!!  Thank you!

Week 9, Post 5: Tutee Fruity?

Really, I could have sworn we did this exact blog last week and discussed it in class.  See Week 8, Post 3.

N'est pas?

Week 9, Post 4: In the Blender

In your second blog synthesize the readings into a single set of issues:
What do the readings, taken together, tell us about teaching and learning with students who are speakers of dialects? 
What teaching recommendations can you make based on the readings?
What ongoing questions do the articles raise?
What kinds of discussion questions should we tackle in class?
How does this group of articles tie to the articles in the previous round of presentations?

So Your Point Is?
Taken together, the readings tell us that some students, especially Black students, enter the classroom with a very low self-confidence in general and regarding home dialect in particular.  This may be because previous teachers or other authority figures or family members have ridiculed their speech.  This may be because there is a general barrier between Black people and White people, especially when the latter assume authority roles.  These issues have a great potential to add fuel to these students' affective filter, nullifying any efforts to help them.

What To Do?
From the literature, it's clear that, to reach out to Black students who are struggling to perform, a teacher must make much greater efforts to acknowledge them and how they identify with language.  To a limited degree, ethnographic interviews can level the playing field for all classroom cultures.  The next step is to recognize students who need extra help and to conference with them ASAP, being careful to strike a balance between showing compassion, but not "singling them out," which could be construed as denigrating them.  If all this fails, it may be necessary to make special time for such students, to speak to them about personal matters, to learn what sorts of family orientation, or other social issues may be impacting their effort to progress.

Where Is This Going?
It's wise to keep abreast of the ongoing controversy surrounding these students because it's such a delicate issue, with many key Black figures taking sides on both sides of the scrimmage.  In addition, there appears to be much ongoing research to draw from for teachers interested in breaking through the affective filters.

In Class?
The decision whether to discuss these topics with the whole class would probably depend on the number of Black students in class.  For example, if most of my students are Black, we would discuss these issues, perform ethnographic exercises and journal about the topic.  On the other hand, if the class is 99% White, as may be the case at Iowa State, whole-class discussion would probably alienate the minority 1%, so one-on-one conferencing with that student would be warranted.

Looking Back?
This batch of articles continues to spread the word that Black students, sincere as they may be in their goal to succeed at college, are educationally handicapped in many cases, as compared to the White majority: they struggle more with language, with self-esteem, with connecting to the "conversation."  They're often deeply conflicted in their desire to both succeed in school and to maintain their identity withing the Black community.  Indeed, some (consciously or unconsciously) willing sabotage their own academic futures in order to nurture this ambivalence. 

This group of articles is rather mixed in its remedies.  Articles like Fordham's further the notion that nothing short of total social revolution, along with a complete overhaul of the White psyche, will ever narrow the "achievement gap" between the races.  Coker's paper sees the problems as largely caused by the White machinery, but praises Black students for their creative maneuvers in coping with college.   The Gonzalves and Wallace/Bell articles make a very fair assessment of the situation, noting that, while many White educators are trying to serve these students fairly, the situation is like a mine field, and sometimes even the best intentions garner bloody results.  Far from making ineffectual blanket statements, as Fordham's do, these last two articles provide creative methods and case studies illustrating White educators' effectiveness with struggling Black students.

Week 9, Post 3: The Breakdown

In your blog, first summarize each individual reading in a few bullet points:
What is the genre of the article: Is it a study? A theory piece? A pedagogy piece?  A historical piece?
Who’s the audience for the article?
What points is the author making?  What’s the authors purpose in making these points? 
How might you summarize the article in a few sentences?  
How does this article tie to articles in the previous round of presentations?

Gonsalvez
This is a study.

The audience is post secondary educators who deal with inter-racial faculty/student issues, specifically those with African-American males.

The author seems determined to help bridge the relationship gap between White comp teachers and African-American males, particularly.  The point is to avoid the potential pitfalls -- 1. failing to address writing problems early on, 2. the ensuing frustration, 3. assuming too much about the student -- and, to the importance of going beyond the usual teacher-student conference, to cultivate a real relationship with him.

Compared to the first group of articles on Students' Rights, this was extremely fair and balanced in its presentation, much more productive in its positive suggestions, and not the least focused on home dialect as the being the magic bullet.  Similar to the other papers, though, the Gonzalvez study highlights the sensitive issues race brings up for both teacher and student; like the other papers, the onus is on the White educator, not the student, to go above and beyond the norm to give Black males extra help.

Coker
This is a study.

The audience could be any college educators interested in insights into the psyches of Black women in college and their struggles to adapt.

The goal seems to help educators understand their Black female students.  The paper covers key reasons these women went on to university, the challenges they face and their means of coping.

Like the articles last week, the focus here is largely on Black perceptions and Black assumptions about prejudice.  Most of the findings focused on the assumptions these Womanist students made about being marginalized by White instructors, though they never spoke to the teachers to ascertain any information; assumptions were made and inferences followed.  For example, if a student felt her opinion in class discussion wasn't given adequate credence, her conclusion was that this was because the teacher was a racist or because he lacked the compassion to give her special attention, since she was an older, re-entry student.  Unlike the article above, or those last week, Coker's attention is on the Black females' on-campus survival skills, rather than placing the responsibility on White educators.

Wallace/Bell
This is a study.

The audience would appear to be post secondary educators who are open to affecting change on behalf of Black students.

The article draws attention to the peculiar issues faced by Black students at a predominantly White college campus.  Specifically, the article underscores problems of (unintentional) racism encountered by Black students, their coping mechanisms, and what faculty can do to assist these students.

Like last weeks' papers, this one addresses challenges in dealing with home dialect and the dubious goal of teaching SE to the unwilling.  Unlike those papers, the Wallace/Bell article takes neither side: "..simply respecting students' home cultures and requiring them to learn new discourse practices is...not a sufficient answer" (323).  The authors maintain that teachers need to be as interested in community literary practices as we expect our students to be about acquiring SE (while some ethnographer/linguists tout this technique for promoting "co-researching," Wallace & Bell fail to mention this, and argue for it merely for its fairness).

Ultimately, English faculty prodded to become "advocates for educational equity in higher education."

Fordham
This is a historical piece (?).

The audience is anyone interested in Fordham's earlier piece on Capital High students.  Her thrust seems more sociological/anthropological than the previous article, which centered on classroom language, home dialect and Ebonics.

Chiefly, Fordham defends her previous paper, laments it's misappropriation and explores related interpretations of the term "acting White."

Essentially, Fordham seems to set herself up as a one-woman army fending off affluent Blacks, well-meaning Black students in her college class, powerful figures in the Black community (Bill Cosby), as well as myriad misunderstanding and opposing researchers and journalists (Time, NY Times, etc).  Ultimately, in her pursuit of "the elimination of the Black-White achievement gap" (235), she echoes her earlier article: "one major reason black students do poorly in school...(is their) inordinate ambivalence and affective dissonance in regard to academic effort and success" (236).

Like her earlier article on Capital High, the gist of this article is, despite an avalanche of opinion within and without the Black community (and logic?), the great obstacle to Black advancement is the White machinery that keeps all Blacks enslaved.

My issue with Fordham's logic is this: She attacks the White machinery that prevent Blacks from success; she attacks the Black machinery that judges other Blacks if they (try to) succeed; yet, she also denies that, as Bill Cosby says, the problem in the Black community is within, not without.  How can this be?  At the very least, by her own admission (above), "ambivalence" about success is at the core of the problem, both on a cultural and individual level.  Once this attitude is clarified, most of your obstacles will have been eliminated. 

Week 9, Post 1: quiz

Take-home quiz:

What is the STROL resolution? Why was it introduced? And how has it played out over the past 40 years?
What main criticisms of SRTOL?
What are the main criticism of the  the notion of "Standard English"?
In the English classroom, what tensions might dialect speakers experience when they have to write in "standard English" and what can English teachers do to reduce those tensions?
What are some of the strategies that AAVE speakers use to navigate/negotiate their identity in an environment where standard English is "forced" upon them?

The Students' Rights to Their Own Language resolution (CCCC) says that each cultural group has a right to know, study about and feel proud about its culture and accompanying dialect, and to be aware that SE is by no means superior to other dialects.

It was introduced along with the spirit of the 60s civil rights to try to ensure that the rights provided by civil rights legislation would not be Jim Crowed into meaninglessness, since it's a widely held notion that a culture's honor and dignity begins with upholding its language.

The impact over the years has been to isolate one group against the other, essentially, breeding some degree of pride for the Black community and, at the same time, much unrest within and without.

Criticisms of SRTOL say that it gives students a false sense of security, since it tends to leave uncorrected some communication behaviors that can invite future obstacles.  As far as the overall school curriculum, teaching Ebonics or any other language in the classroom, other than the standard discourse spoken by the teacher is totally unprecedented.  For example, if a student wanted to learn a computer language, he would not be permitted to communicate in a computer language of his own choosing.  Also, historically, the classroom is the place where we are corrected; this is practically a definition of the classroom; Ebonics, though says that the student is always right and is above correction.  Other criticisms hold that Ebonics shames teachers, it "dummy-down"s the curriculum, creates more stereotypes and, finally, increases segregation.

The criticisms of SE are: a) that SSE and SWE are roughly equivalent, b) standardization is possible, c) that SSE is the language of the workplace, d) that SSE is or should be the language of the classroom.

Many minority students grow up feeling conflicted about their own dialects, whether it's Jamaican patois or AAVE.  Many such students feel inferior because their family or perhaps previous teachers spoke ill to them about their speech or writing.  At the same time, many people in these peoples' communities denigrate each other for language and many other such "low class" trappings.  These neighborhoods also boost the notion that NOT speaking home dialect equals "gettin' above your raisin'," e.g. "selling out" to "the man."

By following some of the techniques in Shafer's article and by carrying out ethnographic studies, students can learn to embrace their own language and culture with pride.

Some students, sadly, subvert their own personalities or cultures, "losing" themselves in a false identity in an attempt to please teachers and other gatekeepers.  Other students, like Korie, flat out rebel against school in general, saying things like, "I don't do no book reports," even if rebel-without-a clear-cut-cause attitude has no specific agenda, even if it ends up damaging the student and his future.  Others, like Maggie, live in a kind of denial, telling themselves that they never need to speak non-AAVE, although, in fact, they do so unconsciously with teachers and other officials.  Still, other students, like Norris, adopt a kind of "camouflage," putting on a "crazy" act to deflect the heckles of his Black neighbors, befriending dangerous toughs at school, whom he uses for protection, all the while remaing true to his long-term goal of college-bound success, and speaking SE as best he can.