Thursday, August 30, 2012
What I Want To Teach
I feel that I have far too little wisdom to impart to students, considering how soon I am to be a full-fledged English Teacher. First and foremost, I suppose, I would want my students to realize that English, like every other language (excluding those that are extinct, naturally), is evolving. Seriously, "google" is now a commonly used verb. I'm actually shocked that I still get the angry, red squiggly line under it when I type it on here. Sometimes it is okay not follow exact grammar conventions. Mostly because no one actually knows what they are anymore. Students need to know what audience to write for. They must realize that if they are writing a resume, they probably shouldn't depart from the grammar they have been taught since middle school, but if they are writing a letter (or, honestly, a paper for my class) they can have a little more fun with it. Language paints a picture and if we are all coloring by numbers and following conventions, we will miss out on the beauty English has to offer. I would also like to help my students realize that dialects of English such as Ebonics may indeed be different, but that my no means makes them wrong. Many people have a mindset that if our white, male, ancestors spoke a certain way, any other way is incorrect. Well I plan on blowing that out of the water. Hopefully. I realize that my students need to know conventional grammar, and they most certainly will, but I also realize the importance in opening their eyes to the real world. The one where the pictures aren't always paint-by-number and where language is alive and growing and always maintains the potential for beauty.
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I really appreciate the parallel that you made between the idea of painting by number and using strict proper grammar. While I also believe that language should be understood correctly by students, the rigidity of language rules should not force students to feel like the ideas that they are trying to express within the writing are less important than the rules themselves. Educating students of the importance of proper language usage is crucial, but so is self-expression. Before we as educators begin to criticize students right off the bat for their technical writing errors, we should analyze their ideas and then express the importance of grammar in properly conveying these ideas.
ReplyDeleteFollowing on Julia's comment, we might ask, what is "the importance of grammar in properly conveying" student ideas in writing? It's an important question, and it's a question about rhetoric - that is, in what ways do errors in standard mechanics and usage interfere with a reader's engagement with a student's ideas? We know that in many cases it's very high, that many teachers will take error as a sign of sloppiness or apathy on the part of the student, if not straight out incompetence and intellectual weakness. That alone means that we need to foreground these issues for our students, but it also means that we change the reasons why it matters - it doesn't "just matter," but rather it matters because it makes readers not see the ideas we have - it makes readers, that is, misread our writing.
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