Context and Batman

I had written a much lengthier piece for this week's post, but with the benefit of someone else's advice, I did not post it.

The reading really inspired me to try something new (one suggestion by Elbow being to write in the voice of someone else), and I just went with it. I tried to write in the spirit of Dennis Leary. I poked fun at Batman. And in one sense, it was a beautiful piece.

I was also still riding a wave of inspiration from having seen a performance of the Broadway hit: "Title of Show". In "Title of Show" one of the musical's conflicts was how to overcome creative blocks - which was resolved by a fantastically decadent number, "Die Vampire Die!". These two forces (our reading and "Title of Show") unearthed some fairly hefty concerns, desires, speculation, and philosophical query. Nonetheless, in quite another sense, the piece was rather ugly if not downright disparaging and rude.

What has "disappointed" me up to this point in the semester has been our lack (mine included) of reader participation with one an other's blog posts. If the purpose of the blog post is merely to execute a surface level analysis of the readings, then is blogging really serving any purpose? I want to become a better writer. Not only that, but I would also like to better understand how one can learn to become a better writer. Elbow had some great ideas in this chapter about how to do just that (writing groups etc.), and my initial post was an attempt to provoke a reaction in hopes of triggering a REAL discussion about writing and writing pedagogy. I believe firmly that, if we wanted to, we could plummet the depths of writing pedagogy and philosophy while becoming better writers ourselves. But to do so would require that we heed Elbow's advice and help one another. It would ALSO require that we(myself included)steer away from simple surface analyses and give in to the spirit of writing exploration.

Unfortunately, the original post would probably have been received in poor taste without first explaining context. This post is attempting to provide some of that context. So are the three clips that follow.

And PS. I REALLY do not like Batman.

How I Really Feel about Batman:

Dennis Leary

Die Vampire Die!

I wonder what Peter Elbow would think were he to see "Title of Show". All of the video clips on youtube were of too poor quality, so this parody will have to do:

blog 7

For those of you who don't know, I. Love. Grammar. I really do. Diagramming and labeling and figuring out what word goes where... It's sort of like an exciting (I'll admit, nerdy) puzzle. And I was always under the impression that grammar was an integral part of my language arts curriculum.

Somehow, though, the idea that grammar doesn't make a person better at writing makes a lot of sense to me. A person speaks way before he/she ever learns to write, much less learns to abide by grammar and usage rules. It seems quite pointless to teach them. And, let's be quite honest: there aren't a world full of Allyson Gard's out there running around with a love for grammar; most kids HATE learning grammar and usage. It seems downright mean to put them through all that stress of memorizing and drills and worksheets to come to the point of "hmm...ok, and where did THAT get me? How am I using this in my writing?"

I have a friend here at Penn State who could probably tell you what nouns, verbs, adjectives, and MAYBE adverbs are. Linking verbs...a little fuzzy. Prepositions? Forget it. And diagram a sentence? You might as well be asking this person to read Mandarin Chinese. But this person's an English major. He/she analyzes literature, participates in class discussions, and writes papers that are quite insightful. With a little help in the editing department, this person's good to go. So why, if my friend can get through almost her whole college without knowing grammar and usage rules, should any of our future students?

"The real issue is how grammar should be taught, not whether it should be taught." (Williams 180) Like with ANYTHING teachers teach, how do we engage our students and also get them to learn at the same time? Of COURSE our future students are going to hate grammar drills; they're repetitive, require only memorization (which usually means they're not going to remember it for the long term), and quite frankly, they're BORING! Just like a professor lecturing for 50 or 75 minutes or even 2 hours and 45 minutes is dreadful for us, so are drills for our students. So we engage them! APPLY the knowledge. I like Williams' idea for engaging students in grammar and usage on page 190. He says to have them listen to other people speak and record their findings. Now that sounds a little more exciting than a worksheet.

I'm sure the grammar drills and the students' feelings of dread toward them in schools will continue, but I look forward to the day where kids get as excited about grammar as I do.

Grammar and Writing

"Nevertheless, it is important at the very outset to recognize that the study of grammar does not lead to improved writing," (Williams 173). Over the course of our time spent teaching writing, one of the most sensible components seems to be the incorporation of grammar into writing curriculum. After all, if a writer has valuable concepts to offer, they can make as many grammatical errors as needed, right? According to what I have been taughy my whole life, this theory that studying grammar doesn't lead to better writing has (kind of) shaken my world up. I understood grammar to be an important communicative tool. If sentences are jumbled up and punctuaion confusing, how can the writer, no matter how brilliant the concept, get their idea across effectively?

In the next subsection of our text, Williams poses the questions, "What role does grammar really play in writing performance? And how does one teach grammar effectively?" Both questions are critical at this point in my (our) education. Over the years, writing techniques have been invented and thrown out, to arrive at the current writing destination: cognitive grammar. "Called cognitive grammar, it helps us understand some of the issues writers face when producing text, but it has no connection whatsoever with improving writing," (Williams 174). I have a variety of questions stemming from this section of the book.
1. If cognitive grammar helps us understand writers' issues, then can't we find some way to use that to help us to help them? Just because it hasn't been done yet are we beng lazy, rather than innovative and creative?
2. If a grammatical (and in a sense writing) tool does not accomplish the purpose of improving writing, which is our form of written communication, then why are we still using it? Surely there must be some other, better way!

The scope of this dilemma seems daunting, at best. Yes, I understand what the text says regarding grammar education having no correlation with improved writing, but that doesn't satifsfy me. Instead of settling for the status quo, won't someone step up and find a better way?

Grammar Experience

Reading the international experience of Farisak provided an interesting take on English.

When I went to private high-school, grammar and usage were heavily stressed in the English curriculum. English rules came somewhat easier for me, yet, because my parents spoke good English and fluently, learning was probably more familiar, and thus, easier.

It is funny to realize how Williams distinguishes grammar from usage in Preparing to Teach Writing on page 171. Thus, using grammar to refer to something other than, say Subject Verb Object constructions is a usage problem. In my opinion, if how the grammar is used is not taught, then grammar is not taught. Semantics aside, my guess is that English is so hard to learn, other than all the exceptions, because people speak one way and write another. The only way I can imagine someone writing with so many usage errors is if that individual speaks with those same errors. About the only major usage problem difficult for me to grasp was between the words “lie” and “lay.”

Traditional grammar sounds most familiar as speaking this way was common for me. Tenses pose a significant problem for people who are not familiar with English though. I remember during one Spanish class, nearly every word would translate nicely or loosely into some English translation, all except the future tense. While the future verb form was there, figuring out what it actually means does not “click,” since, as Williams notes on page 195, no future tense technically exists in English. Foreign students and students who do not know how to use the structure of that particular language have a significant barrier to overcome.

Phase structure grammar appears similar to traditional grammar, only more descriptive and less prescriptive as the text notes, giving phase structure language a more universal approach to language than traditional grammar.

From what I understand about transformation grammar, Chomsky appears to be saying language is relative. However, he might be onto something by saying a surface form and underlying form exist. The fact that passive voice takes longer to process in speech or by understanding may explain why writing discourages passive voice. Apparently, thinking is not fun to process. . . . More often than not, I believe most problems are due to performance, rather than competence. A person could speak like a drunk just because they were tired.

Cognitive grammar describes the fascinating way thoughts apply to language. The divergence of language structure appears inevitable as human minds collectively interact. The brain cannot be described as simple on/off switches or even the sequences of switches that interpret a picture the same way computer transistors produce a screen. Even looking at patterns in waves is challenging to interpret or predict. Thoughts can be controlled or let loose sporadically at will, that is why I believe no permanent and complete linguistic structure can be formulated and understood to explain all of the continually diverging languages, at least by our finite minds anyway. Neural networks do not work that way, and they separate us from being a machine.


"Big ideas first, dots and lines later." Posted by D.W. Sipes

I must dissent a little on that. A musician does not play music without first hearing or seeing the notes, nor does a artist paint without knowing colors. Graphs with dots and lines are used to formulate ideas all the time in mathematics, and characters form words which writers use for ideas all the time. Hence, dots and lines first, and ideas will follow.

Either experience makes these concepts possible, or these concepts make experience possible. (Immanuel Kant)--Datalinks

Breaking Rules

“Grammar has been taught for generations on the assumption that a knowledge of grammar helps students write better. Teachers, parents, administrators, politicians-all are convinced that students must know grammar to improve their writing, yet few have examined the underlying assumption or have reflected on their own experience” (173). Very true. I remember this very idea being drilled into my skull when I was a young lad. But as we have read, and discussed in class, our personal knowledge of grammar does not in fact create better writers, but rather has a potential to stifle our writing ability. If, as teachers, we force the idea of mechanics over creativity to students, we may be providing a great hindrance to them. The teacher I am working with for my student observation stated to me on the first day that language arts teachers are not just teachers of language, but also social studies teachers at the core. I believe this. I also believe that we are the ones who provide the basis for their philosophical questioning. I will go out on a limb and state that the two most essential courses students take in middle/high school are math and English; math teaches us how to compute, English teaches us everything else. I truly believe this is not an arrogant statement.

English classes help students see beyond their own personal scope. They are exposed to worlds, situations, dilemmas, and other events they may or may not ever encounter in their lifetime. English teachers give students the opportunity to think different and step outside their comfort zones. We teach philosophical thought. We encourage debate. We explore different points of view.

My point to all of this is essentially what Williams theme is throughout this chapter: teaching grammar is not essential to developmental growth. Ideas should come first. Grammar within the creativity community essentially has its own rules as well (try explaining that to a 12 year old). Big ideas first, dots and lines later.

Chapter 6

It is difficult for me to comment on grammar without knowing exactly how much of my understanding of sentence structure is a result of instruction and how much was just picked up over time. In school, I remember getting frustrated by my inability to understand the lessons my teachers were trying to explain to me. I remember how pointless and tedious it seemed. The book mentions "who" and "whom" as an example of an oft misused pair. Personally, that was the one that seemed like the biggest waste of time and energy. In our assignments, we had to go through a long process, showing our work as though we were in math class, all to find out whether or not we were supposed to use "whom" instead of "who." We had to identify and label the parts of the sentence in order to determine the correct word for the sentence (a process no normal person would take the time to think through before speaking), and in the end I just read the sentence and wrote the answer that sounded right to me, disregarding all my work scrawled in the margins. A few years later, after I had the chance to see both words used contextually many more times, it occurred to me that authors used "who" when the person was doing the action, and they used "whom" when the action was being done to the person. At the age of 17, that explanation was satisfactory for me. It had nothing to do with the formal names for parts of speech, nor did it have anything to do with formalized analysis of sentence structure, but it worked. It makes me question the way I was taught, and it makes me wonder how class time could have been better spent.

I'll get off my soapbox now. Chomsky! I'll talk about him instead. Williams mentions Chomsky's assertion that "the number of possible sentences in any language is infinite because language allows for endless expansion" (200). Because there is an infinite number of word combinations, language cannot be entirely formally instructed. One cannot teach another to string just the right words together to form a point because the spectrum is endless. To utilize an example from Chomsky's Powers and Prospects, the sentence I am typing right now may have never been spoken or written before. I did not hear this sentence and regurgitate it. No one taught me to type these things, yet I am cognitively able to put the necessary pieces together to formulate an understandable, complete thought. As was mentioned in the Williams text, there must at least be some innate capacity for language acquisition.

williams blog 7

While reading this chapter I was reminded of the many years in Catholic school and then in high school of grammar drills. This chapter seems to undermine what I had believed about learning to diagram sentences and grammar as helping me to write. First Williams states, “unlike speech, writing lacks context” and that, “writing is more formal than speech.” (179) Further he states that speech is ephemeral and writing is permanent. (179) These statements began my thinking of the major reasons writing verses speech is viewed as so difficult by students. Speech is fleeting so there can be little judgment attached to it, and its meaning or any lack of understanding on the hearer’s part can be corrected immediately. Writing, which is permanent, is open to judgment and that fact alone is intimidating for students.
Another fact that today’s students are so limited in their exposure to formal writing either hearing it reading it or writing it, creates more problems for teachers. Few students have much exposure to formal discourse; fewer still have experience producing it.

When Williams discusses grammar as structure and usage as production these concepts are immediately “imaged” as I remember many diagrammed sentences looking like STRUCTURES, but have no recollection as to usage errors in my writing productions. I like the suggestion of teachers helping students to understand the difference using literature and “focused reading activities followed by discussions of the form of writing.” (184) I know this form of instruction has helped me to learn better writing skills. Additionally, I like the recommendation for teachers to supplement instruction with direct and indirect instruction. (191)

I was a little lost at first with explanations of the four different types of “grammar” as I was taught only prescriptive. I realized as the chapter progressed how this was inadequate and that the other grammars were necessary to understand as well. Phrase structure grammar-descriptive, which concentrates on phrases rather than just words, helped me to understand why writing in the active voice is so much clearer, and how using literature would be helpful to grasping this concept.
I can’t wait to see what tomorrow’s group chooses to highlight with us.

The reason is because... :cP

A major point this article brought up RIGHT away and I am happy about is that there is a difference between usage and grammar, and as future educators, I feel it is important for use to be able to distinguish between the two and move ahead accordingly.
Williams states, "Students already use language grammatically...the goal is to identify errors that are embedded in the patterns of everyday speech...(Kindle ed, p.4070)" Yet, delving into the murky waters of slang and teen speech to educate the students on writing conventions is a humongous undertaking. However, there has to be a balance of appropriate conventions and home and community and I really applaud the way Williams discusses this in this chapter.
The fact that some subject-verb "disagreements" ARE used in various dialects, but not in the "standard dialect that governs writing (Kindle ed, p. 4119)", is interesting to me. I wonder how children in these areas who speak in the dialects where people say "Fritz and me was going to the ball game (Kindle ed, p. 4119)" know how to write properly? I remember learning when to use "I" or "me" and "was" or "were". It was always easier to say the sentence out loud. However, the dialect my family/friends/teachers spoke was relatively standard. Overall, speaking out loud always helped me understand .
Going through each type of grammar, I learned a lot. I had never heard of phase-structure or transformational-generative grammars before this.

Teaching Grammar Doesn't Lead to Better Writing

I found this interesting article today on this website
http://chronicle.com/article/Teaching-Grammar-Doesnt-Lead/27874/
It says The ACT reported recently that college professors rank grammar as the most important skill for students entering college, while high-school teachers consider it the least important. The ACT thinks that this gulf between high college expectations and inadequate high-school instruction explains why almost 20 percent of first-year college students take a remedial writing course.
In Bangladesh, where I was raised, we had a separate Grammar class until High school. I think what we focused on most when we were in kindergarten was the memorization off different types of grammar. And for me personally that was the biggest mistake. We dreaded that class where as we loved our composition classes.
Therefore what Williams says in page 182 about the focus should be on helping students understand the difference between academic language and day to day language is very true.
This chapter gave me a lot of useful tips such as under common usage problems it talks about who and whom. To this day I confuse between who and whom. The examples illustrated the paragraph on who/whom pretty well.
Learning about the four major grammars was interesting for me as I had not learned such forms before. Or at least we did not classify them into four categories in school. The one that made most sense to me is the phase structure grammar. It provides a better depth and analysis of language.
But personally my favorite was the cognitive grammar simply because cognitive grammar rejects the idea that language is rule governed. I love the idea of connectionism. I completely agree that mental activities are primarily imagistic. It is so much easier to match and understand words when we link them to images ( mental representations) when we are younger. And thus no rules are involved.
Overall, a good chapter with a lot of information that I can personally use in the future to get a better understanding of the major types of grammar and the common usage errors.

Williams 171-214

The question of whether grammar instruction leads to better writing is to some people a rhetorical one. To these people, it is understood that the knowledge of grammar is vital to making students into better writers. So, why then, is the same grammar drills being given to students throughout their schooling, when it has been shown that these same students are not better writers, nor are they proficient with grammar and usage rules? "We have to examine the enthusiasm with which so many teachers engage students in grammar drills and exercises that also are quickly forgotten." (pg. 177) If grammar is so important then why not dispense with the boring drills and worksheets that students will forget as soon as they are completed? Any lesson that is given in isolation from anything useful it may pertain to is a lesson that will probably not be remembered for any length of time. Students need to be engaged while learning things that matter to them. One idea could be brining in age appropriate media for them to critique for grammar and usage errors. This method may be a way to teach grammar and usage minus the boredom. The lessons could be humorous, engaging and useful to students, who will become animated participants instead of mute observers, pretending to listen to boring lectures, while sneaking peeks at the time waiting for class to be over. More importantly, these engaging lessons may stick with the student for much longer than a fill-in-the-blank grammar and usage worksheet. The students will also see that usage errors are made by everyone, not just them, which will help their confidence levels soar.

Role Models

I thought that this week’s chapter really did a great job at not only outlining the various theories but also in proving that grammar instruction does not better influence or aid writers. In this chapter, Williams states that grammar instruction greatly impacts writing. He feels that obsession with grammar has led students to form a great detest for writing. Often times, students’ negative feelings towards writing stems from their frustration with either not understanding how to apply the rule (thanks in part to drills and exercises that are unrealistic) or becoming so fixated with following the rules that they lack content in their writing. Thus, students continue to abhor grammar (especially textbook worksheets) and writing. Williams repeats his belief that native students understand grammar but their problem lies in correct usage. Thus, I felt that the one main message in this chapter was the unspoken part that role models (teachers, parents, authors, fellow classmates, etc.) play in either aiding or inhibiting a student’s sense of usage. In this blog, I will address this issue.

While reading this chapter, I was intrigued by several quotes but the first one really aided in the formation of this blog. Williams writes that “The language patterns consist of both grammar and usage, and they duplicate closely the language of a child’s home and community” (178). I am in complete agreement with Williams’ observation. Once I learned that my gestures were no longer able to completely express my thoughts (or rather my wants) I was forced to have to express my needs in another form. Thus, I started to talk.

At first, I often would incorrectly identify objects or identify all objects by one word I knew. For example, I use to identify all dogs as cats because I had been taught the word cat. The reasoning behind this common error is that “when children encounter the world, their parents and other adults provide them with names of things. They see dogs, and they immediately are provided the word dog, with the result that they develop a mental model related to ‘dog-ness’ (211). Another example of this common error is seen in the movie You’ve Got Mail. In the film starring Meg Ryan, a little boy (the brother of her business nemesis-Joe Fox) informs Ryan that he can spell the word “fox.” He spells it out and is rewarded with encouraging statements. Ryan then asks the boy to spell “dog” thinking that he has learned about dogs and can easily spell it. To her amazement, he once again spells out “fox.” This moment illustrates Williams’ point about children slowly enlarging their vocabulary and word association based on their familial or community’s introduction and correction of words. Thus, a child will learn to correctly identify a cat as a cat and a dog as a dog as his or her “role models” (parents, siblings, grandparents, teachers, etc.) start to provide the child with more words and proper association. Once the child has started to create a network of acceptable words, he or she will partake in “communication [that] is more efficient” since it concentrations on meaningful exchanges instead of “structure” (178). A child will start to feel comfortable in communicating with their first discourse community (family, friends, neighbors, etc.) Hence, the community and family are reinforcing a certain accepted jargon that the child must learn it if he or she wishes to fully participate in the community.

The problem arises when the community and familial accepted jargon conflicts with academic discourse. Williams writes that “the language of school is different form the language of home and community in several ways . . . The language of school is commonly used in analysis and discussion, whereas the language of home is more commonly used to maintain social bonds” (179). This issue of conflicting jargons is especially highlighted in the writing process. In my own limited experience as a teacher, I have noticed how some of my students who either struggled with writing or showcased an open dislike of writing, had the same complaint. Many of my students were from lower socioeconomic communities and they felt that since they were respected in their communities there was little reason to write “like a teach” since many saw themselves in careers that only required their high school diploma. A couple of my students informed me that they saw members of their community as successful and they did not need to write essays or use “harder” words. Thus, many of their essays were filled with their community’s accepted jargon. Williams writes “that the less experience the writer, the more likely he or she was to rely on the conventions of speech when composing. But these conventions are rooted in the language of home and community and do not conform to expectations for academic writing” (179-180). The reason students continue to communicate with their home discourse in the classroom is that they are both comfortable with it and more importantly, they see themselves as successful. Last year, in another Dr. Kearney class, we read an article (I believe by Dr. Murray) in which the author discusses how first generation college students in New York who were in her “remedial” English courses often became unnerved at receiving bad grades. These students would inform her that they were using the language the same way their neighborhood butcher, barber, shop owner, etc. used. Since they saw these people as successful and used them as role models, many of her students became confused and in some cases even quit. For these students and my own, they reverted back to the jargon of their first discourse community because they had identified strong role models in their community and had found no similar role models in their second (school) discourse community.

I think that there is a great deal of frustration among students who try to move between their jargon communities because they sometimes are not given the chance to identify with role models who can aid them in better understanding the “appropriateness conditions” (181). While teachers inform them that “the language… [they] use on a daily basis is appropriate for communicating with friends and family, but it is not appropriate, generally for school and writing,” they forget to aid them in better transitioning between their discourse communities. It seems like we keep getting drawn back to Peter Elbow and freewriting. Freewriting will aid the student in not only bridging the two discourse communities but also in getting comfortable with writing which will help them in their academic community.

This chapter was great and I really enjoyed it. I cannot wait to talk about this chapter on Thursday.