Punctuation

In my opinion, the most interesting idea of Chapter 15 was that of optional punctuation. Throughout this term, we’ve been learning grammatical theory, and now we are putting it into practice more. Before I took this class, I had never realized how punctuation choices can place emphasis on words. Before, I’d always assumed that word order accomplished this. Choosing whether to use a comma, dash, semi-colon, or period can have different effects on the reader. Lastly, I had never been so critical of coordinating conjunctions before. Now, I realize that they show a relationship between clauses. Misuse of them can render a sentence nonsensical or illogical.

Nominalization

The majority of the classes that I have taken at OSU are English (I got my "prestigious" Associates' Degree before I came here). In literature, nominalization is used frequently, and it almost always increases wordiness. This makes reading works like, as Zac mentioned, literary criticism difficult and hard to follow.
This class has primarily helped me find my "voice" as a writer. I had very little knowledge of grammar before taking this class. I liked what Dr. B. said on the first day, something along the lines of "students at OSU are much deeper than they may come across, they are just not able to express themselves" (paraphrasing of course). I agree with this. After learning more about grammar in this course, it has helped me better express myself through writing.

I noticed nominalization more when I read papers that my peers have written. I don’t think that a lot of people go through and try and edit their own papers. Mistakes are made and are over looked. Students have the mentality of getting things done. A lot of errors are overlooked due to this lack of editing.

I think that a lot of students have trouble with the passive/active voice as well. Since I started taking this class, I have been much more aware of sentence structure. I have found that a lot of the texts books that I read are very abstract. This is very frustrating to me. The books I read for class should make the subject clearer. Instead I find myself dissecting paragraphs to try and figure out what the author is trying to say.

Nominalization in Texts

I see nominalization often in texts I read in both scientific primary sources and literary secondary sources. In scientific articles, nominalization is used in explaining methodology; this draws attention to the method used by allowing verbs to be the subject of the sentence. Generally, scientific writing is concise and this doesn’t detract from the readability of the article. Literary criticism, as far as I can tell, uses nominalization to make abstract ideas concrete. However, due to the long-winded nature of literary criticism, this tends to make these articles difficult to read.

This class has made me more aware of dangling and misplaced modifiers, which are, for me, easy to make when constructing long sentences. Because this class has taught me how to divide sentences into their individual components, I can more easily find modifier errors.

Seasons

Summer
Scorching heat
Rising constitution
Do you have allergies?
Might not be as much fun

Sleep

Sleep

Dream
Under blankets
Over and over
The clock strikes 12 again
Another day is soon gone

Cinquain

Thinking
At the beach
Beneath the stars
Tonight
To gaze at my choices of my life
Until the daylight shines threw, and all along I always knew.

Cinquain

Hoping

Soon
About now
These midterm tests
Will stop for a while
Because I would like to sleep

Cinquain

Meditating
Always
For peace
mountain peaks
to climb and stand
On top of the earth

Acknowledgement and Implementation

The most important thing to be recognized, from a teacher's perspective, is the existence of the language of power. Relating this to students, particularly at a high school level (the education level I desire to teach) is the challenge. How is a teacher supposed to distribute their resources to students? Teaching literacy is important, of course, but it is impossible to bring every student to the same level. Minority students, ESL students, even honor students, may all need varying amounts of instruction. I believe the best strategy, as Delpit suggested, was implementing peer writing groups, and encouraging as much interaction as possible. Not only does this increase interaction among different kinds of students, but also will help improve overall language utilization. Another challenge is assisting students who refuse to participate in the first place. It's impossible to help everyone. But through increased interaction (group projects, writing groups, presentations, etc), varying kinds of language will be made the norm, and perhaps acceptance will become more prevalent in the future due to this exposure.

Acknowledging participation

4. If you are not planning to teach, how do issues of language and power apply in the field you plan to enter? Does Delpit offer relevant insight?

The field i plan to engage in is that of Socio-Economic Development, a field that is inherently cross-cultural. Not only do i believe that Delpit offers relevant insight in this field but in all fields. But i digress. While i was reading the Delpit article and thinking of how her sentiments may apply to my field of research, i came across this passage. "In my work within and between diverse cultures, I have come to conclude that members of any culture transmit informations implicitly to co-members. However, when implicit codes are attempted across cultures, communication frequently breaks down. Each cultural group is left saying. "Why don't those people say what they mean?" as well as, "What's wrong with them, why don't they understand?" The reason i believed, and still believe, that this applies to not only education but economic development is because as an agent of socio-economic development a person is charged with understanding the plight of a different culture. One example would be the inconsistency in environmental values between developing nations and industrialized nations. How can an educated individual from a comparatively wealthy background tell someone who struggles with life and death every day of their life that they cannot continue to practice time honored traditions because they are endangering the life of an endangered species. In increasingly integrated societies we are all faced with the task of understanding people or concepts that are foreign to us. "...acknowledging personal power and admitting participation in the culture of power is distinctly uncomfortable."

Acceptance and the Culture of Power

2. One student asked, “Why do we have to discuss teaching minority children the language of power? Why not just teach everyone acceptance?” Respond.

This question targets the wrong people; teaching everyone acceptance is indirect, and does nothing to address why power is unfairly distributed in the first place. Delpit understands that the power status quo will remain intact, and that it isn’t going anywhere. However, she encourages minority students to learn the “power game,” because if they “act as if power does not exist [it will] ensure that the power status quo remains the same” (496). If minority students acknowledge the culture of power, but learn how to operate within it, they can elicit change. So, yes, the idea is to teach everyone acceptance, but until the power base of society has a “diversity of style,” brought on by minority viewpoints, this will not happen. Ultimately, I think Delpit’s envisions a society in which a culturally heterogeneous power base makes acceptance the norm.

Welcome to your class blog!

For the rest of the term, you will be posting, commenting upon, and reading the blogs of this class, Writing Commons One through Writing Commons Seven. When you compose a post, you may want to write it in Word first and save it. Then paste it into the blog post block. By composing in Word, you won’t get frustrated if the posting doesn’t work the first time.

You may respond to other people’s posts through the comment feature. You may read and respond to the blogs of the other groups by going to:
http://writingcommonsone.blogspot.com
http://writingcommonstwo.blogspot.com
etc. through http://writingcommonsseven.blogspot.com

You can add a comment to other blogs by using the comment feature. You can only post to your own blog.

Your first assignment is to post your cinquain, a poetic form described on p. 134 of Kolln. Then you will give each other responses and suggestions for revising.

Your second assignment is to respond to one of the following questions related to Lisa Delpit’s “The Silenced Dialogue.” Aim for about 100-150 words, and post it to your team blog. Please follow the following guidelines:
1. Identify your entry with a title that suggests the content.
2. Single space.


Questions (choose one):
1. If you are preparing to teach, what are you taking away from Delpit’s article regarding language and power that might help you as a teacher, and how could you apply these ideas to your proposed level of teaching?

2. One student asked, “Why do we have to discuss teaching minority children the language of power? Why not just teach everyone acceptance?” Respond.

3. For one of Delpit’s specific proposals (refer to the article), discuss the challenges of implementation. How could these challenges be addressed?

4. If you are not planning to teach, how do issues of language and power apply in the field you plan to enter? Does Delpit offer relevant insight?