Something more to think about

Chapter 14 gave me something more to think about when writing. I was specifically taken by the section on sentence rhythm. I always appreciated, at least subconsciously, when a good peace of writing has a rhythmic sense to it. However, I simply thought that is what good writers do. I failed to realize that this is a developed skill. And I was particularly taken by the concept of "end focus." The point being the chapter leads me to believe that with closer examination of my own writing, and thinking of the "end focus" in conjunction with two part subject and predicate structures, I may be capable of improving the rhythm in my own writing.

Finally, I noticed some other weaknesses in my own writing. For example, I over use "be" verbs. Also, I do not give enough thought to choosing verbs. By in large, I choose a verb and I am done. It seems that if I spend more time editing with verb choice in mind, my papers will improve dramatically.

The Importance of Punctuation

With only two weeks left of the term, some of the most important things that I will be taking away from this class are finding a writing style, making sure my sentences are cohesive and rhythmic, and finally choosing the verbs that sound right in particular sentences. I would have never noticed that I actually have a writing style that is unique only to me. In my writing style, I really tend to overuse compound sentences. This makes my sentences seem repetitive in a negative way, so I will come away from this class focusing on eliminating compound sentences if they appear to be in over-abundance in any of my future essays or papers. I have also come to always be leery of dangling participles. Sometimes it is so easy to begin a sentence knowing perfectly what I am talking about, but forgetting that my audience has no idea what I am referencing. I think that proofreading out loud will greatly assist me in detecting such errors. Finally, for my sentences to have that certain flow that makes the reader want to continue reading what I have written, I need to choose verbs that sound the absolute best. This means that instead of over-using be verbs, I need to get creative and figure out ways to use more active transitive verbs. I think that this was an important thing that was mentioned in chapter 14 regarding the rhythm of a sentences. After all, if all sentences sound the same, who would want to read them? A lack of unpredictability can ruin a piece of writing.

Chapter 14 Thoughts

I found Chapter 14 the most interesting chapter we’ve read so far in this book. I think this is because the information in this chapter is the most directly relevant to taking my writing to the next level. Learning all the grammar is helpful when writing papers etc, but learning about the little things like choosing verbs or word order variation help me develop an individual style. With my own style, my writing will better reflect my intelligence level.

Some interesting thing I noticed in this chapter:

·      The Introductory Appositive Series – I never use this. It makes the writing very dense and frustrating to read in my opinion. I have to reread the sentence multiple times in order to fully comprehend it. It is a conscience choice not to use it on my part.

·      Metadiscourse – I’ve used this a lot in my writing without even realizing what it was. I feel that using metadiscourses makes my personality come through clearer and easier.

·      The Passive Voice – Before this class, I had no idea what the passive voice was or how to recognize it. I know find it everywhere. Whenever I come across I love looking to see if I can figure out why the author choose to use the passive voice instead of active voice. I’ve been finding that there are may situations that the passive voice actually works well in context. For example, I’ve seen it used multiple times as a segue connecting two thoughts.

Purposeful Punctuation

I wish I had read the chapter on Purposeful Punctuation years ago. It was so helpful. Even on the first page, I became immediately aware of a grammar mistake I had been making for years; I suppose that it is even more frustrating that none of my high school teachers ever caught it. I tend to be very wordy, writing long sentences. And I understand that a semicolon is an excellent tool to separate two independent clauses that are not joined by a coordinating conjunction. However, I was not aware of how often it is used to separate two independent clauses that are joined by a coordinating conjunction. That was a bit of a wake up call for me. The fourth use of the semicolon, according to Kolln, is that if either the first or the second independent clause includes commas, substitute a semicolon for a comma before the coordinating conjunction. I know now that when I write essays, I’m going to try to write shorter sentences. The semicolon can easily be overused.

I also appreciated her section on dashes. Although this blog does not show it, I love to use the dash is just about everything I write. It is a great way to add emphasis and zeal to a piece of prose. I feel that in the future, I actually need to limit my uses of the dash. After reading this chapter, I have learned that the dash should only be employed to highlight a certain clause or phrase. An overuse of it can diminish the effect.

The last portion that really stood out to me in this chapter was the power of the participial phrase. I read the example that Kolln shows (“The line judge, blocked by the player’s movement, could not tell whether the ball was in or out.”), and it seems really well written and fluid. There is an added sophistication to using a participle, and I am going to strive to use it when I am doing creative writing.

What an insightful chapter!

Response to Van Kooten

Overall, I think that Van Kooten makes a very good point that if society is not careful, computer mediated language can potentially degrade formal English language--if we allow it to. This youtube video reminded me of something that I read in Delpit's article a few weeks ago. There was a teacher in Alaska who taught two forms of English in her classroom. One language was formal English, and one was the English spoken at that dominantly Native American town. The children knew that their local language slang was acceptable when they were with family, friends, and people from their culture because everyone could understand one another. However, the children were also aware that when they were out in the real world trying to find employment or be accepted into a good college, they would have to use formal English. I think that the same goes for computer mediated language. It is ok to use it when you are emailing or texting family and friends, but when you are sending something like a business email or an email to a professor, you should write it while using formal English.

Netspeak the new Newspeak?

I found VanKooten’s project on language to be hauntingly reminiscent of one of the primary notions in George Orwell’s 1984: the degeneration of language into simple contradictions, such as pleasure and pain, good and bad, cold and hot. There are no other shades of meaning beyond these basic dichotomies of pain and pleasure, good and bad. Orwell calls this Newspeak--Newspeak being the device to drive civilization into a climate of orthodoxy. Orthodoxy means, according to Orwell, not needing to think for oneself (Orwell 53). One example of Newspeak is when Winston, the novel’s main character, is given a task at work: “time 17.3.84 bb speech misreported africa rectify” (38). Here, this means that Big Brother--the totalitarian leader in Orwell’s society--had made a false claim about Africa in his speech for the March 17, 1984 edition of the Times news article, and the article needed to be rectified to accommodate Big Brother’s false prediction. I am going to now observe how many words it took me to write my explanation. The sentence explaining Winston’s task took me about 35 words to describe what needed to be done while Newspeak could describe it in (arguably) seven. That is the power of simplicity.

In VanKooten’s project, she calls the language of the internet Netspeak and Computer Mediated Communication (CMC). Her most rash example of how Netspeak has altered the use of language is shockingly similar (but obviously not exact) to Orwell’s Newspeak: “hey man wats up imma meet u @ 4 @ the gym c u then.” There is zero punctuation here and only a few coherent words. This, however, makes sense to us because this is, essentially, the “Newspeak” of our time. But while it can be argued that there is a time and place for writing in this manner, the real issue is when people have a hard time differentiating when such a time is appropriate or not. I am reminded of my Junior Honors English teacher in High School; early in the year, my teacher actually had to address the class that the next time he sees an essay that has any form of what is essentially VanKooten’s Netspeak, he was going to give the essay an automatic Zero for a grade. It is ridiculous that even in Honors English, the students could not differentiate when Netspeak was appropriate. The real problem is, therefore, that while it is acceptable to write in Netspeak under certain circumstances, many people of today do not have the knowledge to understand and to differentiate between formal and informal writing. Netspeak, ultimately, strikes me as eerily similar to Orwell’s Newspeak; they are both a slow degeneration of language.

The "Polluting" of the "Culture of Power"

Crystal VanKooten’s video raises some interesting questions about how CMC is used in standard written English. I mentioned some of my thoughts on this issue in class, but I’ll reiterate and elaborate on them here. I don’t believe CMC is “polluting” anything. It is a form of communication that is readily used in our society. It is not as formal as some forms of English, such as that used in academia, but it is still a form of English with a whole culture surrounding it that shouldn’t be disregarded. From the article we read last week by Lisa Delpit, we learned about the “culture of power.” I believe that one of reasons that CMC is so hotly debated is because it’s not part of this original “culture of power,” but it is slowly gaining power and a strong following that is threatening this “culture of power.” This “culture of power” is threatened because users of CMC don’t always know when CMC is not appropriate. Therefore the people in the “culture of power” feel like they are being overrun and loosing their control on what is right.

Although I feel like CMC should not be disregarded, I am aware that it does have its inappropriate moments. People, especially youth, have not necessarily been taught when CMC is appropriate and when standard written English is needed. Therefore, I feel like instead of getting defensive and saying CMC is “polluting” the language of power, these people should be putting their efforts into educating where it’s appropriate and where it’s not. Like Lisa Delpit says that in order for a person to succeed in the “culture of power,” they need to taught the rules of this culture first.

Way to boil it down.

Ms. Van Kooten does a wonderful job of boiling down a complicated issue. Let me begin by saying that I am one of those who believes that CMC "pollutes" standard written English. I feel that the problem stems from the overuse of this medium. I fear that today's students, who, as Van Kooten's numbers show, spend so much time communicating informally via such mediums, have great difficulty transitioning from informal communication to formal communication, or, put differently, they fail to appreciate the audience with whom they are communicating. For example, in class we have spent some time discussing the need for writers to know their audience; furthermore, Professor Tolar-Burton has pointed out that email communications from students to teachers tends to be an area where students fail to appreciate their audience, I believe that this failure is directly related to how dependent we as a society have become on such forms of communication.

Placing my own beliefs aside, Ms. Van Kooten does a wonderful job of presenting the facts. And the inescapable fact is that internet, email, social networking cites etc. etc. is here to stay. It is here to stay because it is both popular and convenient. Because of the popularity of this medium, it needs to be embraced in the classroom. Teachers will need to teach, not just teach about audience, but also teach proper internet research methods. What I am really trying to say is that Wiki is not research.

I guess my point is Ms. Van Kooten, in just under six minutes, did a nice job of boiling down a complicated issue.

Language and Technology Assignment

Crystal VanKooten, a doctoral student in English and Education at the University of Michigan, has created a You-tube video on the influence of technology on language. Please watch the video (just under six minutes long) and respond on your blog to one or more of the issues Van Kooten raises in her video. I especially like her use of music with the images. Crystal VanKooten received her MA from OSU and then taught high school in Oregon for five years before going on for her doctorate. Remember also to respond to the blog posts of others.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W0Mgxhqfdyg

2. Acceptance alone is, unfortunately, unrealistic

According to Delpit, the language of power is formal English. Language standards, though arbitrary, are “politically charged,” (Delpit, pg 499) and an understanding of formal English provides children with their best champion for the political arena. Unfortunately, bigotry and stereotypes still run abound in this country, and because of this, educating children on acceptance is simply not good enough. Individuals can be classified unnecessarily as stupid just by the way they talk; and when society already carries around certain stereotypes, those people labeled as stupid have an even larger hurdle to jump just to prove to others that they are not. Teaching acceptance by itself becomes virtually unrealistic. It must be earned. And this is unfortunate. Understanding how to write and speak formally gives people the chance to show their arguments articulately and intellectually. This power of language can help break the preconceived notions of superiority that many people (often subconsciously) hold to everyday. Acceptance can become more of a reality when the stereotypes are disproved. This is an incredibly difficult feat, which is all the more reason why people must be given the tools to prove themselves in a society already set against them. Language provides those tools.

Kristin's Response to Delpit

1.

I am preparing to be a high school teacher in Oregon after I graduate from graduate school in the next three years. As a teacher, I know that no two students are alike. This means that I will be teaching classrooms full of young adults who all learn and process information in different ways. After reading Delpit’s article, I will always be aware of the fact that some of my students will be totally unaware of the linguistic codes of power. For example, if I assign homework in a passive way and say, “ I would like for you to turn in the homework no later than tomorrow morning,” the students who think that I would literally just like them to turn it in and no actually require them to turn it in probably won’t turn in the homework. I need to be assertive and direct as a teacher in order for all of my students to be relieved from confusion.

4. Different Cultures Collide

4.  Lisa Delpit explained how children come from different cultures at home. Delpit explains that at home children from non-middle class families are taught a culture different from the “culture of power” that middle and upper class families teach their children. The culture that is taught in the non middle class families, helps them to survive in their own community, but doesn’t prepare them to succeed in the culture of power.

This difference in culture is something I have personally experienced, but with a twist from what Delpit was explaining. In my 8^th grade language arts class, I was the only white middle-class student. Everyone else, including the teacher, was either Black or Hispanic, and the majority of them were from a lower socio-economic class. Opposite of what Delpit discusses in her article, I was the one who felt out of place and confused. The lingo was different, the mannerisms were different, the expectations of classroom behavior were different. For the first half of the year instead of trying to learn the culture I retreated in the back corner of the room in silence. The only time I would speak was when the teacher was teaching this “culture of power” with grammar and reading lessons. I felt comfortable in this area unlike the rest of the class that would grow quieter.

Although my experience is not exactly what Delpit was talking about, I can empathize with her argument and feel like the difference needs to be taken into account.