Language Investigation #3

In primary schools I remember being asked to read a lot of the more "classic" adolescent literature. Night, Bridge to Terabithia, and The Giver are a few that stick out in my mind. They were shorter books that had some sort of moral we were to draw from it. There wasn't much of an expectation for us to read outside of class, but I did it anyway because I really loved reading. We were given plenty of time in class to read the books, and often times we read out loud as a group, discussing as we went. In regards to writing, most of what we did were worksheets and warm-up like exercises, such as Daily Written Language. We worked with verb tenses, finding the differences between adjectives and adverbs, and learning spelling (such as the difference between "there", "their", and "they're"). Any papers we had were very short and followed a very specific template that the teacher gave us. The papers always had to incoporate some sort of genre or part of speech that we were learning about. Was this useful? In some ways, I suppose. I've never messed up the different "to's" or "there's", that's for sure. However, I also didn't retain much of what we learned or read. It was all very surface level, very much rote memorization.
Once I hit secondary school, things changed immensely. I was thrown right into writing long essays (at least long for secondary school). There wasn't much instruction given. They threw us in with the lions and let us figure out how to survive on our own. I remember that essays were graded very harshly, as well. My writing did improve very quickly because I insisted on getting good grades, but I was forced to visit my teachers outside of class in order to learn what they expected from our writing so that I could get those grades. The templates were gone, the specific prompts were gone, and my creativity and imagination had certainly suffered due to the strict requirements I was given in primary school. The completely freaked when I received my first essay assignment that allowed for us to choose our own topic. Poetry was also a new genre that was introduced in secondary school. Rhyming was everything to my teachers, and looking back, I realize how ridiculous and forced that was. We never wrote argumentative or persuasive essays. They usually were research or summarizing papers. Boring. This is an important skill to have, I know, but I feel as though my teachers could have mixed it up a bit. Why did they teach just these methods? Maybe they were trying to keep things at a level that wasn't too challenging so that they didn't leave any of the students who were having difficulties behind. All the students suffered because of it, though. We still did the Daily Written Language, and a lot of it was simply repetition from primary school. In regards to reading, we still stuck with the classics. Contemporary literature was not of import. We read Shakespeare, Dante's Inferno, Of Mice and Men, and other such books. They were definitely more challenging and required a bit of reading outside of class, but they were still discussed in their entirety in class, so reading them wasn't really a requirement.
I know my teachers were trying to give us the best education they could, but English classes in both primary and secondary schools were kind of... well... lame. I don't feel as though anything new was really introduced. They needed for us to learn the basics, so they repeated the basics for years (probably so we could pass the tests). Grammar was a focus every year, as were parts of speech. They were always strict graders in regards to these aspects of English. Vocabulary was also important. We had to mix up our language if we wanted to get a good grade, whether or not the mixing up was really necessary. You couldn't use the word "I" in your writing. You couldn't say "said" more than twice in a dialogue. Bla bla bla. It was useful, sure, but it could have been so much more.
When I arrived in college, I was completely unprepared. I didn't take Composition until my sophomore year, and that was a huge mistake. When a teacher assigned a persuasive essay in one of my first classes, I was lost! I didn't want to raise my hand and tell her that I had no idea what that entailed because it seemed like everyone else was following her. I knew how to summarize. I knew how to explain. I knew how to describe. But how to argue in a paper? I needed help. I had to visit her outside of class and get her assistance. I struggled with that paper and many more to come until I finally got into College Comp. That class helped me so much. My high school teachers had tried to prepare us, but they failed in the worst of ways. If I hadn't gone to see nearly all of my professors outside of class my first semester, I probably would have flunked out. Fortunately, I was blessed with great professors that year who helped me to grow more as a writer in a matter of months that my secondary teachers had done in years.

Warm-up Rose 5&6

1. The writing Rose assigned to the students he worked with was rather basic because these were the kids the school decided were having difficulty with English. The first few assignments he gave them were simply to write about a picture. He brought in three pictures the first time and allowed the students to write about any of them that they chose. They could describe the picture, tell how it made them feel, anything. The second time, he brought in magazines and allowed the students to find a picture themselves to write about. Then, he took a few days to walk around the school and take pictures of his students while they were doing regular activities like playing on the playground, reading, etc. He then showed these in a slideshow and asked the students to write abuot themselves. He got mixed results with this assignment. Some took it deeper and wrote more abstractly while others kept their writing descriptive. I think he chose these assignments because it gave the students enough structure so that they were able to have ideas on what to write about, but it also gave them a bit of variety so they were able to have some free choice. It also started as very descriptive and simply got the students to put pen to paper and to realize that writing doesn't have to be scary. He didn't grade any of the work so as not to intimidate any of the students and discourage them from writing any more than their time in school already had done.
3. The language the schools used to refer to these students was not necessarily positive. Kids are not stupid. Whether or not a term sounds derogatory, they know if it means that they aren't as advanced as the other students. This can be discouraging. It can also lead to a sort of tracking. Even if it isn't official tracking, these students may be treated differently by the teachers, and not in a positive way. It can make it easy for the teachers not to expect as much of these students, and therefore the students may not achieve up to their full potential. If they're never given a chance or the support and faith to "catch up", they won't. Also, it can be discouraging to the students in general. They may realize that they are outsiders and become afraid to even attempt to achieve (or write, or read) due to their fear of failing again. And if these students are afraid to write, they'll never improve.

Language Investigation #2

I am fairly sure that every group of friends, or even acquaintances, has their own sort of language that is distinct from others, whether that distinction is faint or, well, loud.  It may be somewhat ignorant to say, as I am not part of other "friend groups", but I must admit that I believe the language my friends use to be extremely unique.  In some cases they may use saying which are somewhat typical slang, but the meaning behind these phrases is often different from the standard slang definition.  These people are very eccentric, to say the least, so sometimes words or phrases are made up completely out of the blue, generally just to get a laugh, but somehow they end up sticking around.  They may later be used again simply as jokes, or they may actually catch on as something used in a normal conversation.  Let us begin.

Ask him a question and he is bound to have the answer.  You want that answer in Chinese?  You got it, mister.  He helps you stay in touch with friends, manage your finances, even find a date!  That wonderful www... the "Al Gore".  Why?  Because Al Gore invented the internet, you didn't know that?

Now, the phrases and language uses I'm about to mention are more often used by my friends than by myself because, as we all know, I'm an English major.  It can be somewhat painful to "misuse" this language, and for quite some time it was difficult to hear my friends misuse it.  However, they are intelligent people, and these phrases are used as intentional debauching of English.  Perhaps they find it funny.  Perhaps they enjoy watching people's reaction to it.  Whatever the case, they do it.  "So much".  This is the one phrase I will admit has found its way into my conversations.  We all know what "so much" means.  We also all know that it is used with mass nouns as opposed to count nouns (so much information as opposed to so many purple people eaters).  My friends, however, enjoy using "so much" with count nouns while highly exaggerating the "so much" ("I have SO MUCH points in my hand," for example).  Another misuse of English is when it comes to nouns vs. verbs.  Instead of saying, "Let's go eat", a number of my friends will replace the verb with a noun and say, "Let's food."  "Book" for study, "pillow" for sleep, and "toilet" for... well... using the toilet, are other common replacements.

When speaking of other people, "toaster" is a term many of my friends use to describe people they don't like.  I think it started out as a term some of my more "special" friends used to describe people they thought were fake because apparently its a term used for the robots on a show called Battlestar Galactica which they watch.  One way or another, though, it caught on with a lot of my other friends, myself included. 

I have heard a plethora of ways to say "yeah right" in my life.  "Whatever", "no way", and "uh-uh" are just a few.  In my "friend group", though, it's "toi".  Again I will blame this one on some of my more eccentric friends because it really popped up out of nowhere.

Many of my friends are also coworkers.  We work at a restaurant, Sushi Jeju, so some terms we use go along with the job.  For example, 86 is called out when an item runs out.  There are also a number of Japanese terms used, such as the names of some fishes, styles of cutting, ways of preparing, etc.  Kaibashira (scallops), sashimi (large cuts without rice), and bincho (seared) are just a few examples.

I could go on and on with these special uses of language unique to my friends and me, but I will simply say that you'd have to hang around us for a day if you wanted to hear them all.  Often times we don't make sense, even to ourselves.  There is a common understanding between us, though, and sometimes our communication is more focused on the non-verbal aspects as opposed to anything we actually say aloud.  Most of the time the odd things we come up with just come out to get a laugh, and nearly all the time it works.  We're a group of inside jokes, of never forgotten experiences, of separate uniqueness, and that, my friend, is that.

9.3.08 Warm Up

1. I noticed that many people's families had unique names for various household appliances. A number of people had different names for the fridge, the remote control, or various rooms in the house. Many of these names were backed by a story about a young person who coined the term in a moment of curiosity.
2. Language in the family setting seems to be much less formal than it is in almost any other language environment. Families grew up together, so members can often be understood by other relatives without using proper English, without completing their thoughts, or even without using "real" words.
3. To be an "insider" in terms of language means that one readily understands the language used when one is speaking to them. Being an insider means that a thought may be conveyed without thoroughly describing it aloud. As a future teacher, this may cause issues in the classroom for it can be hard to tell students that their language is "wrong", and often times we may not even have the right to do so. Instead, we have to help them understand when to use Standard English and when it's okay to use the language that they typically would use with their family and friends.

Language Investigation #1

I was raised in a family of Jehovah's Witnesses, so growing up there wasn't much to family outside of that, and once I left the religion there wasn't much to family at all. Therefore, the majority of words and phrases related to my family are also related to that religion. To start, the religion is known as "the truth". This is because they believe it to be the one and only true option for a religion. One may be "in the truth" if they are a member, and if they are not, they are known as "worldly" (being one who chooses worldly pleasures over the religion). Another word that is very common in my family, especially in regards to me, is "disfellowshipping". When one commits a sin that is inexcusable by the rules of the religion or when one decides to leave the religion for good, they are disfellowshipped. This is what caused the rift between my family and I because when one is disfellowshipped, no one in the religion is allowed to speak to the person because they are thought to be a terrible influence, capable of pulling others out of the religion as well.
Aside from these religious words, there are a few words unique to my family that I remember from my childhood. One of these is "tat". This was used as a substitute word for "animal". When my older brother was a child, he apparently referred to all of our pets as "tats", and keep in mind that none of these animals were cats. My parents started using it when they spoke to him, and it stuck with their next two children as well.
When I was very young, I was somewhat rude. I would tell my mother outrightly when I thought someone was ugly. It took awhile for her to get me to stop, so until I could, she insisted that I said someone was a "sweet spirit" as opposed to ugly. This is something that stuck in my family as well, but adapted to refer to someone who had an unattractive personality. Another term which was coined by my childhood was "triple b". I had an obsession with naming my stuffed animals with three names, all beginning with the letter "B". My mother started calling all of my stuffed animals "triple b's" because she could never remember their names. The phrase stuck until I outgrew my stuffed animals, but it is still used when a younger family member has one around.
A very close friend of mine had a child a few years ago, and I have assisted her in raising him ever since he was born. I therefore consider these people my family and will use one of the terms her son, Arlo, has been taught. For awhile, Arlo said the word "butt" a lot. He knows that it can be kind of offensive without being vulgar, so he used to use it often. He's now only allowed to use the phrase "special buns" when referring to this word, and it's something we always use in the house.
Finally, "those mets" is another phrase that is common in my family. Whenever my parents would start fighting or saying something unkind about another family member and someone in the room didn't want to hear about it, they would say "those mets" as a codeword to change the subject. It came from the saying, "How about those mets?", but was shortened to be less obvious.