Literacy

To me, a useful definition of literacy goes beyond the capability to read and write.  When someone says that they are 'computer literate' they are expressing that they know how to use the functions of computers with ease and to their benefit, they aren't just saying that they know what a computers' tools are.  There are a lot of students who know how to read and write in a basic sense but who still struggle greatly.  Some have difficulty thinking abstractly about a text, or even interpreting written information correctly.  Some students who now how to write have no confidence that they can convey meaning in their own writing.  I define literacy as not only being able to read and write, but to be able to grasp the intended meaning of a text and to be able to write with intent and control.  I don't mean that someone who is literate needs to be able to be able to apply complex literary criticisms, but they should be able to at least follow a basic text and take something away from it.
I have experienced moments with coworkers where it seemed as though a text was read and nothing was gleaned from it.  For instance, an instructional company wide email in which an employee cannot discern what is important and what actions need to be taken after receiving it.  It is as though they lack the patience or confidence to interpret the directions for themselves without needing to ask questions.  I don't mean to say that I think this person is illiterate, as this kind of material or use of is more complex than what I am thinking for my definition, but I do think that it could demonstrate that they never received proper instruction on how to do this kind of reading.
I guess I am taking this blog assignment and turning it into creating a definition of literacy/illiteracy that I want to have in mind for my own classroom.  I think it could be a definition that can change for the individual, especially as they age.  Literacy can be something one can always improve upon and develop.  As a high school English teacher I want students to be able to read a text and understand what it is saying, to be able to approach a text from different perspectives, and to keep an open mind and allow for abstract thought.  I want them to be able to write with purpose and authority.  As a teacher I want to allow the avenues for these abilities to flourish--I want to help students gain confidence in their reading and writing abilities and to encourage them to keep an open mind when doing both.  I don't want my students to go to college or to work and feel afraid of the written word.  I know that this definition is completely self-derived and simply what I want it to be, but I want a definition that can be used as a tool for myself when setting goals for my students.

Grammar(s) in the Classroom

Before I read the Hartwell article, I was under the impression that English instructors always unanimously consider grammar instruction to be vitally important.  It was a great relief for me to learn that is not the case.  I have often reflected on my own lack of formal grammar training, wondering why I never really received any growing up.  I have felt at a disadvantage as a student and future English teacher because of this, and have found myself wishing that I had gotten some formal instruction.  After reading Hartwell's article I find myself wondering if perhaps I was taught about grammar in school, and I just don't remember any of it. This may or may not be the case but either way I am much more confident now in my feeling that grammar instruction should not take up ample classroom time.  I already have too many things in my mind that I want to teach my students, and I consider this content to be much more important than grammar instruction after reading about all of these case studies denouncing its effectiveness.  I know that I learned my 'grammar 1' from all of the reading and writing I did as a child, and I want to help my students pick it up the same way.  An idea I have for possible instruction technique is to include the recognition of grammar errors in students' work, but not grading it.  This might be a way I could point out some of the formal rules but in a way that is not so confusing and rote.  I could have them correct their errors for a homework assignment so they get some practice in correcting at least some more widely used and accepted rules of formal grammar.

Stories

Early on I was exposed to being read aloud to and listening.  My mother often read me bedtime stories, and when she didn't I would listen to audio books as I fell asleep.  To this day I still fall asleep easier when there is some kind of noise around me, whether it be music or television or people shuffling around.  From the time I was very small I was always surrounded by noise. Like the children in Tracktown, there was always some kind of noise around me, and it was usually music.  My father worked a graveyard shift so he was always home during the day and always had his stereo blasting music through the house.  I remember memorizing the words to the songs he would play and creating little stories in my mind to act the songs out.  When I think of my first exposure to language this is what sticks out in my memory. I became so used to music being played around me that I always wanted it to be playing.  Many of my early memories have songs associated with them in my mind.  They weren't necessarily playing when the events occurred, I inferred meaning into them from what I thought the songs meant and what the event meant to me. For example, one day I had a friend over from down the street and she started teasing my dog with a graham cracker. My dog jumped up and bit her face and my parents ended up taking him to the pound.  After that, I couldn't listen to John Lennon's 'Jealous Guy' without bursting into tears, and I still think of my dog to this day every time I hear that song.  I think being surrounded by music is really what sparked my interest in reading and writing, as well as music itself.  I loved the stories in songs and would just sit and do nothing for hours taking them in, like being read aloud to for hours a day. I never really had any guidance through my parents in what I was taking away from the music, in fact I don't think they ever really knew how engrossed in it I was, I think they probably assumed I was in my room playing games.  I was able to take what I wanted from the songs and in that sense I was able to exercise creativity and my own kind of story-telling.  

Dialect Presentations

I am happy that our group chose the topic that we chose and I am also happy about the topic I got to research, because I ended up becoming very interested in it.  I learned about some phonetic rules that I always knew existed but never really thought of them as rules nor did I ever stop to think that they were much of anything at all.  Once I started studying these rules more closely I started thinking about them in the contexts of other languages as well and I discovered I am actually quite interested in phonology While studying the retroflex 'r' consonant I became curious whether this was related to the more 'rolling' 'r' sounds I have heard in other languages like Spanish and Scottish, and learned that those are 'trills', different in the fact that they actually create a vibration when you speak them. Then I got to thinking about Spanish again and how they use both retroflex consonants and trills, depending on how many 'r's are in the word (pero vs. perro).  I am a big fan of these 'r' sounds, probably because I can't really do them myself and they are foreign to our standard English, which I think is unfortunate.
Back to the topic of Indian English, I really enjoyed studying these dialects because I think it sounds beautiful and rich and I love the humor and excitement they infuse into their vocabulary.  I have read several Indian English novels, some by Indian authors and some by British authors, and have always wanted to study they way they speak more closely.

Question

Mourdants' article was written in 2010. His last sentence reads 'By engaging in a concerted effort to steer students towards proficiency in SAE while continuing to value AAE, much progress can be made in the right direction." Has progress been made? Is Mourdants' stance on the acceptance of AAE to steer a student to bidialectalism a widely received one or is this issue still highly contested and argued over as it has been for years?  Do schools and instructors receive the support to teach students with these goals in mind?  Have the discouraging statistics listed in this article gotten any better or worse and if so why?

Assignment 9/5 re: AAVE in schools

When I was in high school, I had a hard time feeling confident enough to share my thoughts and opinions in front of an entire class. There were a few students that spoke in front of the class all of the time, but there were others who seemed so terrified of doing so that I don't think I ever heard their voice.  Considering myself somewhere in the middle, with probably an average self esteem level for a high school aged human, I can't imagine how much more difficult and intimidating it would be to participate in class when you have to consciously change the way that you talk as well.  

The concept of dialect switching was probably what struck me most in the Pullum article.  I began to wonder how someone who speaks in one dialect changes to another depending on who they are talking with.  Trying to think of times that I do this, they are pretty few and far between. I know that I use swear words much more in conversations with friends than I do in the workplace or in classes.  However, I have never really recognized any difficulty in making this switch. I wonder if this is because I haven't used swear words all of my life, I assimilated them into my vernacular over time, and never in a school or work environment.  It is as though I trained myself automatically by incorporating swear words only in (what I consider) appropriate environments.  This example is much different than the idea of an AAVE speaker switching their dialect.

Someone who speaks AAVE has probably been doing so since they could talk, or at least for long enough that it is what feels natural.  It is a part of their identity in the same way that I consider the way I talk to be a part of mine. At the high school age identity is a concept that many people struggle with.  I think it is unfair to uproot students by disallowing them from speaking the way that is most natural to them simply because it differs from standard English.  Speaking AAVE is not equivalent to speaking a foreign language in class that fellow students and the instructor cannot understand.  I am going to assume that in a community like Oakland, even students or instructors that don't speak AAVE can understand it just fine, so I can't buy the 'speaking english in an English class' argument.

As far as preparing students for a future that will be less welcoming towards the way they speak, I don't really know how to argue against that as it is a profound point, except to say that I think a students' future could be in more jeopardy if they are inhibited and discouraged when they are in high school instead of being encouraged to explore who they are without constraining the basic ways they communicate.  I don't know how easy it is for speakers of AAVE to dialect switch, how conscious they have to be of it or if it comes naturally. I do know that it is 100 percent unnatural for me to try to speak AAVE, and if I was mandated to speak it in school, I probably would have done poorly and more importantly I would have become discouraged and disengaged in school.  I think it is important for instructors to understand this and to try to relate to the way a student speaks if it is different than their own, as the student will probably have to make these efforts throughout their entire life.  Teaching students what you think is important is a big step in preparing them for the future, and at such a vital point in a person's life, the present needs to be thought about carefully in order for there to be a future to worry about.

Hello

Teaching has appealed to me since I was a child. At first I think this was mostly because I loved the school environment. I loved classrooms and the library and even the cafeteria. Reading and talking about reading were my favorite activities, I was pretty introverted and found it easy to sit still and pay attention, I think I am actually getting worse at this over time. 

I attended college at U of M in 2005 and graduated in 2009 with my Bachelor's degree in Creative Writing.  At the time I was still thinking about teaching as a possible avenue but to be honest the thought of going straight back into a high school after having been there so recently did not appeal to me at all. So I simply chose the classes and content I liked best without giving much thought to the future.

After college I worked for a couple of years at The Missoulian. I assisted with the creation, editing, and proofing of the ads that went into the paper as well as their website and helped with the daily layout of the paper as well.   A long with these duties I supervised 5 other employees with the same job and performed several other miscellaneous duties given to me simply because the Missoulian was insanely short staffed.  The struggling state of print journalism is what lead me to leave the Missoulian about a year ago. Once I knew that advertising and sales were not career paths I wanted to pursue, I decided the long stress filled hours weren't really worth it anymore.  Instead I took it pretty easy my last year in Missoula, working as a receptionist at Western Montana Clinic, basically enjoying laid back days with friends in a city that I love and miss very much. 

Writing (mostly poetry) is still an intense passion of mine, but I have returned to school to get my teaching license because I know it will be a career that I will enjoy a great deal as well but I will also be able to support myself. I came to Bozeman because as much as I love Missoula I needed to start fresh in a new environment to really inspire myself to be successful in this decision.  My family as well as my boyfriend Kyle's family both live nearby and we are happy to be able to spend more time with them.  I don't know where I want to go with my teaching license geographically, but I am very interested in getting a chance to work with Spanish as well as English speaking students, and would love a chance to go somewhere new.