Blog 16: Dialect Boundaries

by: Sarah Cummings

Responses are due by Friday, Nov. 12th, at class time.
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This article was a study of different dialects in the Middle East part of the United States. This particular study focuses more on the different dialects of Ohio. 12 locals that never lived outside of their hometown were taken from 4 different cities in Ohio and asked to circle and label areas where the people speak differently from them. They have to label from 1-4 their differences in dialect. 1 being where they speak like them and 4 being where they sound completely different.

The respondents were recorded and asked to follow up questions for clarification. The two respondents from Southern Ohio didn't agree on the dialect areas. One said there was no difference in dialect with people from Ohio, they all sound the same. The other divided Ohio in two parts. The upper and western area of Ohio was unlabelled while the southern region by Kentucky and West Virginia was labelled "hillbilly slang". He/ she said that the northern and western part of Ohio was similar to the lower Michigan, Indiana, and Pennsylvania.

Southern Ohio was similar to Kentucky and West Virginia, but West Virginia was more "twangy". I-70 (runes east and west) was used as the main divider between upper and lower Ohio. The 3 participants from southeast/central Ohio seemed to agree that the speech within Ohio is largely the same, with few pockets of difference attributed to cultural or ethnic background of residence.

The 3 respond ants from central Ohio (Columbus) tended to outline and comment more on dialect areas than that of the respiondants from the southern part of the state. Northern Ohio was circled with Southern Michigan and Indiana. northeast Ohio was given it's own dialect and said they have their own way of speaking, ("like the New Yorker's) with several dialects with varying degrees of differentiation. Northwestern respondents percieved at least 4 different dialect regions that extend beyond state boarders- central and nothwestern Ohio constitute one dialect region that extends towards the west into Indiana, northeast Ohio and southern and eastern Michigan is another area. A third area is found in southeastern to central Ohio and extends into Pennsylvania. Region 4 is found in southern Ohio and extends across the Ohio river into Kentucky and West Virginia.

Blog 19: Grammar Instruction: What Teachers Say

by: John Gund

Responses are due by Wednesday, Nov. 10th, at class time (because it was published late by instructor).

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In the article “Grammar Instruction: What Teachers Say” author Brenda Arnett Petruzzella illustrates differing opinions on how grammar should (if at all) be taught especially in regards to the difference between college and high school. The first section of the article is about differing attitudes towards teaching grammar. Petruzzella begins by writing about her years of experience in being taught grammar, only to realize in college the idea that it might not be worth it. According to Petruzzella, there is debatable agreement that grammar doesn’t actually improve writing skills. That being said, the author claims that many teachers dislike teaching grammar as much as students hate learning it. As a teacher, Petruzzella tried multiple methods in teaching grammar that would be beneficial to her students, and individual discussion about their papers appeared to be the most effective. However, this method was found very time consuming and no critical consensus of scholars seemed to agree on the “best” method of teaching grammar. One problem that Petruzzella encountered was that teachers who had no systematic grammar instruction were in educational settings that required them to teach formal grammar.

The second section contains the debate between the findings of researchers vs. classroom teachers in how grammar should be taught. Petruzzella personally asked many teachers that she knew about their opinions on teaching grammar. She found that the majority of them agreed that there was a need for some grammar instruction, but she also concluded that one of the major problems of teaching grammar is that there is little consensus as to what the definition of grammar is. In this section Petruzzella then transitions to the opinions of six teachers to illustrate various opinions in teaching grammar.

The third section begins with a teacher who teaches grammar in the terms of writing skills. Another teacher felt similarly, and argues that you can’t teach writing without grammar, and believes firmly in personal conferences for every assignment. Another teacher felt that grammar should not be taught in drills, but rather in applicational practice. The fourth teacher’s opinion prefers teaching grammar within the context of personal assignments. The fifth teacher felt that the major controversy about teaching grammar was about how much to teach. The final teacher’s opinion given believes that a certain level of grammar education is needed for effective writing is needed.

The fourth section discusses the aforementioned teacher’s opinions on teaching grammar. Petruzzella finds that no matter what you consider grammar skills to be, a certain level of grammar knowledge is essential to good writing. However, perhaps teaching grammar should come after teaching writing rather than drills. It would appear that the best way to teach grammar is within the context of individual students’ writing. Petruzzella’s conclusion argued that teaching grammar through the context of writing is the most effective method. There are different methods to this concept, but the basic idea remains the same.

Personally, I agree that it is very effective to teach grammar within the context of personal papers. That being said it requires a lot of time and effort to succeed in that method. I still believe that grammar drills can still serve a useful purpose, but they should be taught with more context in mind than just mindless memorization. For a teacher it can be hard to give constructive and individual instruction to large classes. On the whole I felt that this was a very excellent article and did a good job of presenting some different opinions on such a vast topic.

Grammar Really is Important!

Deborah Dean really hit on something very important with this article. I believe teaching what the state says has to be taught, or what the curriculum says has to be taught gets in the way of actually teaching students. There are some activities that need to be taught even though they are boring, but I believe it is the teacher's job to make the topic interesting. Children will not learn if the subject is not taught in either an interesting way or a way that appeals to the students. I liked how she took constructive criticism from the parents of the students. The parents were upset because they felt like Mrs. Dean was spending too much time on teaching pointless grammar exercises. She took this criticism and actually turned her ways of teaching around. It is so refreshing to hear of a teacher who will not just stick with the same boring routine even if she knows it is not sinking into the student's heads.
When she started applying grammar in a different way; the students actually picked up on the information and began to learn. Even though they did not fully understand the fact that they were learning sentence structuring and grammar; it did not matter because they were getting the concepts. Students are not dumb. They were younger in this particular instance, and they needed a refreshing approach to learn how to become better writers. By Mrs. Dean stepping out of her comfort zone and finding a new way to teach grammar; these students eventually became better writers.
A hands on learning technique is the best way to retain the information that you have learned. Mrs. Dean realized that and ha d her students making up sentences as the lessons went along. this tactic was a great way for these students to become better writes, which is exactly what ended up happening.
What I learned from this article is that grammar is very important. It is the fundamental skill to possess to be a great writer. I think it is sometimes taught in a boring way, and it can come off as pointless to students. I believe if teachers would take an approach like Mrs. Dean; more students would learn grammar without even knowing and eventually become better writers.

The Decline and Fall of Esperanto: Lessons for Standards Committees by Robert Patterson and Stanley M. Huff

Ludovic Zamenhof was born in 1859 in Poland. In 1887 he introduced Esperanto to the world. Esperanto is a simple language he created to bring the world together. Esperanto has a Romantic influence and resembles many Slavic languages. Zamenhof decided to assemble his own language instead of bringing back an old language like Latin or classic Greek because those languages are too complex to learn easily.

Zamenhof was trying to solve many social problems with the creation of Esperanto. He figured Esperanto would make international communication easier and could possibly bring peace to Europe. One of the benefits of Esperanto is that it is not culturally biased.

When it first came out, Esperanto received mixed reviews. Some liked it and some didn’t. In the 20^th century the West, including Western Europe and America, stilled showed no interest in Esperanto. Even though these places had many different types of people living there that spoke many different languages. Eastern Europe and China though saw the benefits of using a common language. By the 1970s anywhere between two and five million people studied or spoke Esperanto. There was even the possibility that Esperanto would become the official language of the European Union. Unfortunately Zamenhof did not get to see the rise in popularity that Esperanto got because he died in 1917.

Instead of Esperanto being the language of the world, English is. Even though English has idiosyncrasies, nonphonetic spelling, and consists of cultural biases it is still more popular than Esperanto, which has none of these negatives. English is more practical than Esperanto because it is a “mother tongue” language. English is also well known because it is the language of science, research, finance, investments, music, and movies. Approximately one billion people either speak English or in the process of learning English. Even 80% of web sites are in English. One of the inconveniences of Esperanto is that not many people speak it.

The goal of Esperanto is similar to the goal of standards committees. In order for there to be human communication a common language is necessary. A common language is especially important in the medical field for instance. The American Society for Testing and Materials was the first medical data standards committee established. It was started in 1970 and its purpose was to define standards related to medical information. Since then many committees have been created for the purpose of creating and maintaining standards and identifying communication problems in the medical field.

Blog 15: A 1925 Lesson on SLANG

by: Krista Pilz
The responses are due by Monday, October 18th, at class time!
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In Besse Clark's article, A teacher has created a classroom lesson that revolves around slang. The teacher asks the students about slang, asking questions like: To how many people does slang exist to express thought? The students respond with everybody. Then the teacher continues on, he/she gives the class two types of language. The first example was from The Heart of Midlothian. the excerpt was, Thief: She has got a Jark from Jim Ratcliffe... Jark being the slang word. The students starred blankly at the teacher, not understanding what the word meant. The second type of language he/she gave the class was from the American Magazine, an article written by a New York detective. He tells about what one thief may say to another, It read: Put your duke under your tog....

The teacher explains how both of these excerpts were taken from thieves. Slang was the language of thieves in Shakespearean time, and still exists to conceal thought from most people. This article expresses that thieves words are constantly creeping into our language, because slang was once the language of thieves. Therefore, any slang we use today is taken from thieves "language". For example, the word "kids" was taken from the term "kidnab", which today we know as "kidnap", and kidnapping is the action of "child stealing". The word slang comes from the old language of Scandinavians, and meant "to talk abusively".

This article continues on to express how offensive slang really is, and because of this slang terms never stay in existence very long. The students come to the conclusion, that words only last if they are not offensive. For example, calling an insane asylum a "bug house" is very offensive to anyone who may know somebody who has been defined "insane".

Besse's article truly breaks down the meaning of slang. I found it quite interesting simply because I never thought of slang as necessarily negative. We throw terms around without truly understanding the meaning of what the words actually mean, and how they could be offensive to somebody else.

Blog 14: “Collaboration: Writing Center Tutorials vs. Peer-Response Groups"

By: Sami Bowden

In the article, “Collaboration Is Not Collaboration Is Not Collaboration: Writing Center Tutorials vs. Peer-Response Groups”, author Muriel Harris examines the difference between peer-response groups and writing center tutors. Harris says that they are both the same, but different at the same time. Even though a student gets a paper peer reviewed, they should also go to see a tutor in a writing center. She states that some form of peer review/writing center has been around for awhile, whether it is a friend asking another friend to correct their paper, or whether they just want them to find what is wrong with their paper.

Harris states that the role of a tutor, more broadly, is to strengthen the writer’s skills that will carry over to future papers. Tutors are there to listen, question, “why did you do that” is one of the most popular, and offer advice to the writer. In order for a tutor to be able to do all this, they must be trained, so they can be neither a teacher nor a peer, but a tutor instead.

She also shows the positives of a peer-response group. Ann Gere and Robert Abbot, reviewed published statements on peer response, show that teachers endorse the peer revised papers. The teachers stated that it gives the students a chance to see, and get used to, different writing styles, and develop a sense of community between the students.

The difference between tutors and peer responders are that tutors have had formal training and are there to ask questions about a paper and listen to the writer, and try to strengthen their writing for the future. Tutors also have dealt with critical reading of other’s texts. Peer responders are there more just to edit a paper and give feedback. The more students respond and critiques others work they will in turn become a better writer themselves. Many times, tutors will have on-going sessions with students so they can keep learning how to become a better writer. A peer responder will only see a student once or twice when they are in class where they have to review another’s work.

There can be times where there is tension between the tutor and the student. The student may just want their paper critiqued and that is all, where as the tutor doesn’t only want to work on the paper, but on the student’s overall writing. In cases like this, the tutor and student have to come to a happy medium. Normally, all a student wants, is to make sure the paper is accurate to the assignment. Tutors, however, sometimes have instructions from the teacher with what the student needs help on.

When the tutor starts asking the student questions they can learn what their writing method is and why he or she did certain things in his or her paper. When it comes to a peer responder, asking question isn’t really the purpose. Peer-response groups don’t focus as much on helping the student with their future writing, just how they wrote that one specific paper.

Certain reports have shown that peer evaluation has been as effective as a teacher evaluation, but the opposite has also been found to be true. To some students, they don’t think peer evaluation is effective, because they may just give back responses like: “Your paper was ok”, “This was spelled wrong” or “You just need to explain this a little more”. The tutor has to be a bridge between the students and the teachers. They need to know more than the student, but don’t know as much as the teachers.

Blog 13: “Flipping the Switch: Code Switching from Text Speak to Standard English”

By Elizabeth Hileman

In her article, “Flipping the Switch: Code-Switching from Text Speak to Standard English,” Kristen Hawley Turner examines the place of digital language in the Standard English classroom. When she first encountered text speak, Turner was concerned that it would be the main contributor to the ruin of Standard Written English; however, instructors, like herself, could not ignore the wide use of this informal English on the internet or through texting. Some developed worried attitudes, while others accepted that this “new” language could become the normal means of written discourse.

Turner takes a different view on the situation by utilizing a method created by Rebecca Wheeler and Rachael Swords known as Code-Switching. The method enlists the thoughts and experiences of students, so they are able to learn when to use formal language and when to use informal speech. This method is normally applied to dialects and other informal languages used outside of school; however, Turner and her graduate students have applied this method to secondary classrooms in attempt to teach code-switching to these students of the digital age.

In code-switching, students must first recognize that they utilize alternative languages in varying situations. Turner suggests that the instructor asks the students to propose situations that they encounter daily. Using these situations, the instructor combines the four most common situations, which in the article include the classroom, home, playground, and the internet. Then the instructor supplies sample sentences that the students are to place in the correct category. For example: “Hello. How are you?” is placed in the classroom category. Once the students understand this concept, they create there own sentences to place in these categories. They also are asked to alter each sentence so that it would fit in another category. They discuss the idea that all forms of informal language are acceptable in different situations. Finally, students create a “grocery-list” of common problems for which to search as they edit their future, formal writings.

Turner also considers the idea of class blogs and the extent to which informal grammar should be accepted on these. She suggests allowing the students, at first, to decide what type of speech to utilize on the first posting; then, the instructor is to identify the varying speech and have a discussion about which speech is more appropriate for the classroom setting. Most students, she assures, will choose Standard Written English as opposed to text speak and will come to correct their classmates’ posts. Students should also be encouraged to write first drafts and classroom journals in the manner that comes most naturally to them.

However, she warns that this should not be a one-way task. Instructors should not only encourage switching text speak to Standard English but also allow students to alter Standard English to text speak. This will enhance their language abilities and allow them to better understand classic themes in contemporary society. Students should also be informed that text speak is appropriate to use in digital discourse, but Standard English is appropriate to use in the polished, final drafts of papers. While she admits that this is a difficult task to teach, she, herself, has managed to learn how to code-switch effortlessly and how to connect with her “digital native” students.

Having noted the increasing effects of text speak in the written language of the students I tutor, I must agree that they are having difficulty understanding when to switch to Standard English; however, I must also count myself among these students. The first year I was allowed to have a texting plan, I was surprised to discover my once polished papers littered with informal text speak. I had effortlessly imported my digital language into my written language. By simply becoming aware of the issue, I was able to correct it with editing and eventually, without thought. With this first-hand knowledge, I would like to try to utilize this method with my future students and view the results.