Project Proposal

Dialect Unit

Question: How do we, as teachers, educate our students about other dialects and the fact that there is more than one "correct" version of English while also teaching them that Standard English is the only socially accepted form.

Project: As you know, I was originally considering interviewing teachers about ways in which they handle the use of various dialects in their classrooms.  However, upon reflection I realized most of my teachers never addressed this issue.  This is partially because my classrooms lacked diversity and the issue of dialects was never prevalent in the classroom.  As a result, I decided that conducting interviews would not be the most profitable project for me as a future teacher.  Instead I will format a unit plan to teach my own students about these issues.  The unit plan will include reading assignments and perhaps some research for my students to learn about other dialects.  These will likely be similar to what we did in class this semester.  I imagine doing this unit after reading The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn so that we could discuss the slave (his name escapes me at the moment) and his language use related to his intelligence.  The unit would end in a discussion and paper addressing the reasons why society only accepts Standard English as the "correct" form.

After starting our Engl 338 class, I was astonished none of my other teachers had ever addressed the concept of dialects before.  I feel the subject is interesting and important in accepting all peoples and cultures.  I would like to teach this unit to expose my students to a new topic and force them to re-examine the standards society demands of our language use.  With any luck, I will help them open their minds to look at languages in a new way and to explore their own beliefs about what makes language "correct" or not.

I have no major questions at this point but any input would be greatly appreciated!

Standard close readings

"As specified by CCSSO and NGA, the Standards are (1) research and evidence
based, (2) aligned with college and work expectations, (3) rigorous, and
(4) internationally benchmarked. A particular standard was included in the
document only when the best available evidence indicated that its mastery was
essential for college and career readiness in a twenty-first-century, globally
competitive society. The Standards are intended to be a living work: as new and
better evidence emerges, the Standards will be revised accordingly."

The first thing I notice in this section is the designation of significance.  For the numbered items, the statements are placed in order of perceived importance.  This also serves to establish validity for these standards.  Listing these items is an effort to prove why they should be accepted as the best and therefore incorporated in all schools.  Secondly, "standard" is almost always the subject of the sentence.  Repeating this subject establishes the importance and focus on the topic.  Thirdly, the writers of this document establish an authoritative identity as the experts on the matter, dictating that they fully researched each standard and only included those which "indicated that its mastery was essential for college and career readiness."  This statement also establishes the significance of college and career readiness since every standard must meet this criteria.  Additionally, this creates a connection between the standards (what we teach in our classroom) and college and career readiness.  In other words, we should be preparing our students for their future with everything we teach.

Early Transcript Thoughts

Things I've noticed:

• Use of the words "like" and "um"
• Teachers pulling students into the conversation: calling on specific students to encourage them, planning activities such as the review game or smaller group discussions to include all students, etc.
• Following written transcripts is much more difficult than following a spoken conversation.  I'm not used to reading all the um's and pauses and repeats/corrections of words.
• Several teachers seem to be really comfortable with their students.  They can joke around and have relaxed discussions while retaining respect and control of their classroom.
• There is not as much use of the Evaluation portion of the IRE as I expected. Carl's and Julia's transcripts had teachers who actually evaluated student responses, replying with "good" or "not quite" etc.  Many other teachers merely acknowledged the response or repeated it without evaluating the answer.

My Class Discussions

I believe the best discussions are truly student oriented and originated.  As a teacher, I want to stay out of some discussions as much as possible to let the students talk and truly hear their ideas.  My role will to be guiding the discussion where needed, prodding the students to get a discussion going when necessary and pulling it back together if some student starts "Gregging" too much.  However, the point of discussion is not to get answers from the teacher.  I will also step in where necessary to encourage all students to participate in the discussion.The point is for students to share their ideas to open their minds and explore different options about the topic they are discussing.  I think this is especially important in literature.  There are so many ways to view a text and we lose some value of meaning if we don't explore as many options as possible.  The only way to achieve this is through class discussion.  That's what my classroom conversations will focus on: fostering new ideas through sharing thoughts from all students.

More Standards than We Can Define

As I being to dig through the new Common Core Standards for English Language Arts, I must admit I am a little intimidated.  The sheer number of standards is a little overwhelming.  I have spent the least amount of time going through the CCR standards and am therefore still unfamiliar with them.  However, their very name has me concerned.  College and Career Readiness?  What does this even mean??? My problem biggest problem is the fact that we are supposed to apply these standards to every student but each student's required "readiness" will undeniably be different.  A student who wants to be a doctor will need different skills than a lawyer, or a mechanic, or a teacher...the list is endless.  Every career requires a different set of skills.  For general purposes, I think these standards mean we must do our best to equip our students with the tools they will need to navigate the "real" world in either a career or college.  This includes being able to read and comprehend documents of all types that may come into their hands be they business related, social, or technical in nature.  Students also must be able to communicate through writing and speaking.  This may include the ability to speak in public while conveying the point and not throwing up on the stage.  This may include being able to type a professional email detailing your business concerns.  Regardless, students must be able to communicate clearly, concisely, and effectively.  I do not know if these are the skills CCR covers, but I sure hope so.

As for other forms of literacy, I hope my students will be socially literate when they leave my classroom.  College and careers both require the ability to work with other people.  Therefore, students need to be socially literate, able to communicate, collaborate, and compromise when working with others in a classroom or work setting.  This means I will be using a lot of group work in my classroom to help establish these skills.  I also hope my students will be culturally literate when they graduate.  They should know what's going on in the world.  They should understand cultural references to important works of literature and history.  My focus will be on introducing students to the literature aspect of our society's cultural canon.

College and Career Readiness will mean something different for each student.  As teachers, all we can do is give our students the best tools possible to navigate the general world and hope the student knows how best to apply their resources to their individual situation.

Literacy

By my definition, to say someone is "literate" means they have the ability to proficiently read and write.  "Proficiently" in this sense means reading and writing at a level which allows that person to function in basic society.  They can read bills, newspapers, and other life essentials.  Having a higher level of literacy would then mean possessing the ability to read at a higher level--dense academic papers and the like.  Someone who is "illiterate" is someone who can not yet read/write at the basic level required by society.  Reading and writing are an essential part of functioning in society.  They allow us to communicate with others, gather news, navigate using signs-the uses are endless.  The gap between literate and illiterate, then, is an important one.  Being illiterate would make functioning in society much more difficult (though not impossible).  As teachers, it is our job to at least provide students with enough skills to read the important documents and communicate with others in their lives.  A higher level of literacy would be preferred but is not absolutely essential at the basic level.

To teach or not to teach..Grammar that is

I do believe grammar still has a place in the classroom.  Most students don't enjoy learning grammar.  Most teachers probably don't particularly enjoy teaching grammar either.  Unfortunately grammar is something students need to know.  Like it or not, standard English is expected in higher institutions and the working world, and grammar is an important part of this knowledge base.  I plan on incorporating Grammar 4 (school grammar) in my classroom.  Grammar will not be a huge focus, but some lessons will be learned.  For example, I think punctuation is essential to writing a well written sentence.  Meaning can be totally misconstrued without proper punctuation.  Spelling and sentence structure are also essential to understanding.  The point of good writing is to accurately convey a message and this cannot be achieved without proper grammar.  I also don't think it's important to teach Grammar 2 or the strict science behind grammar.  Those rules are too complicated for any student to memorize or comprehend- I still don't understand most of them.  This article argues that grammar comes as a subconscious knowledge of the language, but I do not this this is always true.  As we have discussed in the class, students come from all different backgrounds which affect their basic concept of language.  For example, a student who speaks AAVE may not inherently know all the rules of Standard English grammar.  They must learn these rules to meet society's expectations (whether these expectations be right or wrong).  Ultimately, unless the entire globe agrees we can do away with grammar, the subject must still be taught in schools in order to prepare students to meet the expectations and communication standards of their society.

Dialect Project Thoughts

I thoroughly enjoyed this dialect project.  I had never even heard of Hinglish before this assignment so I had the chance to dive into an entirely new language.  I find language differences fascinating.  Learning about differences in pronunciation and grammar makes me question why we speak the way we do, and what makes us so sure our way of speaking is the "correct" way.  This assignment taught me some of the nuances and rules of a different dialect, which was fascinating.  However, I think the more important lesson was making me question how many other dialects are out there and how important these are to various functioning societies.  Hinglish is spoken by millions of people in multiple countries.  That's sort of mind blowing considering it's not the internationally accepted form of proper English.  Living in Montana, it's easy to forget how many other languages and dialects infiltrate most of the world.  As a teacher, I am sure I will face these differences in my students and their families.  Hinglish seems so far away and therefore it's easy to assume I will never encounter the dialect personally.  However, in doing research, I discovered a video of a little girl in America telling her sister a story in Hinglish.  We didn't have time to show that video in class but here's the link. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RB2fKbx8yLY&feature=related  This video helped me realize that I may quite possible encounter ANY dialect in my classroom and I must be prepared to deal with them appropriately.  I am still figuring out how to go about doing this but right now I think the most important aspect is to keep an open mind and never count a different dialect as wrong just because it's not the language I use on a daily basis!