Re: comfort ye, my peepul


Subject: Re: comfort ye, my peepul
From: Will Hochman (hochman@southernct.edu)
Date: Mon Feb 11 2002 - 21:07:48 GMT


Jim, if you noted some of the url's I posted earlier in this
discussion, you might guess that I spend quite a bit of time teaching
standard English. I think we are actually close to agreement. I think
learning how to write standard English is important...it's just not
the big kahuna for me. I don't think students learn how to care about
rules of language until they care about making meaning, and I know
from closely observing students' composing processes that fear of
rules doesn't motivate learners. I just spent close to 40 hours
responding to student essays and challenging students to learn about
sentence structure, using the MLA, and specifying with details, so
please know I work hard on the front lines of college literacy
struggles. So let's get real. I think you know as well I do that
teachers can use power poorly. I see it all the time. Sniping about
grammar and punctuation when a student is saying something important
isn't always wise. I do find opportunities to instruct students about
proper English and I create class activities to show students how to
teach themselves to use a handbook and to use their own critical
thinking to improve language use. But I often see learning "scars"
like students just trying to do what the teacher wants, or believing
that correctness is intelligence. Like you, I know I'm teaching a
dialect called standard English, but I also respect other dialects
and don't think that rejecting them helps college students learn to
write. Peter Elbow, a writing teacher whose scholarship I've found
instructive talked about dialects and "mother tongues" as part of a
composing process at last year's College Conference on Composition
and Communication. It makes sense to me to respect the languages and
ideas of my students. When we "enforce" standard English, we tend to
lose sight of that respect. Rereading Foucault may not work...how
about reading Paulo Freire instead? I'll be happy to send you a xerox
of his essay "'The Banking' Concept of Education" which I'm teaching
today. And since you mention Foucault, I'm guessing you might know
about the Whorf-Sapir hypothesis...that language is connected to the
realities of cultures...if we are teaching standard English and not
listening closely to ideas that are not expressed in our academic
dialect, we may be missing out on opportunities for students to teach
teachers about our culture. You are right to nail me on too much
polarization in my rhetoric, but I'm not letting go of this argument.
We both agree knowing and using rules of English makes sense and it's
part of much of my teaching effort, but I don't think careful grammar
and punctuation happen without caring about ideas and meaning.
Teaching students to care about their ideas and to strengthen them is
a large job--following rules is part of it, but not my focus. will

-- 
	Will Hochman

Assistant Professor of English Southern Connecticut State University 501 Crescent St, New Haven, CT 06515 203 392 5024

http://www.southernct.edu/~hochman/willz.html

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