Word Choice

Sometimes I get papers where it looks like the writer right clicked each word and went thesaurus crazy. Many students want to improve their vocabularies - but the best way to do that is by reading. Most often the initial word choice works better. The exception might be where the same word gets used over and over. In that case I do encourage students to think carefully and vary word choice to make their meaning more clear. Until I found this image on a blog post of college humor about More Accurate Book Titles For This Semester's Reading List I never considered that the problem might stem from the source of so many ills that plague composition work - procrastination and lack of time for revision.

The post had some other great book title revisions. The ones by Joyce and Homer cracked me up.

While on the topic of word choice, The Oatmeal has some brilliance re: the word "literally."

Grammar Matter (?): that vs who

One mechanical or stylistic pet peeves that got violated most in the SP2010 semester is the careless or inconsistent use of that vs. who. These words (along with "which") introduce a type of relative clause, which is particularly difficult for speakers of Asian languages - because relative clauses don't exist in their native tongues. Relative clauses are only found in European languages (tho some Native American languages have adopted the grammatical structure due to the influence of Spanish). But the "That/ who" distinction discussed here is a primarily native-English speaker issue. This concern is shared by many of my colleagues, and this issue sparked the longest dialogue posted to a teaching list-serv this year. Consider some examples. A colleague posted the following, and asked us to compare:

She was a student that worried about the finer points.

To this:

She was a student who worried about the finer points.

It's small and fussy, but in my ear it's like calling a person "it."

I whole-heartedly agree. "That" is way overused - and it denies humanity to the word it refers to - its antecedent. It reminds me of a self-described " conservative Christian" who referred to "children that are abused." Denying humanity to a race or class of people is the first step to violence against that group: the irony. Another prof. here offered:

I agree that it's most important just to get students thinking about word choices. It's pretty common, though, for personalized animals, like pets, to be referred to as "who." However, I too prefer students to refer to people with "who," even when the student wants to write "the damn cop that gave me the ticket!"

Grammar Girl weighs in on the subject with her customary verve here. And Grammarbook.com is less equivocal and more succinct.

What I'm learning: pronouns

We expect to see a lot of lower scores on the "distinct sentences" portion of the Microlab, but many students this semester lamented low scores in "misplaced modifiers" and "pronouns." Several students had already seen comments on their papers about "dangling" or misplaced modifiers, but there seems to be a general confusion about the pronouns category.

It makes sense for me, if the Microlab looks at relative pronouns. I've been expressing concern about that ;) for at least the last year. Purdue's Online Writing Center explains it fairly well, but I may prefer wikipedia - because the table on the OWL site may seem to imply that "that" can be used to refer to people. I have an issue with that. For example here's a quote from the 9/20/10 US magazine "Loose Talk" section - where they provide quotes from celebs.

It's nice to be one of the guys that can help sell a movie by taking his shirt off, [but] by no means do I want to be a piece of meat for the rest of my career (Lutz 34 - emphasis mine).

This is funny! The use of "that" rather than "who" as a relative pronoun choice denies himself the humanity he claims to eventually want. He treats himself as an inanimate object, implying linguistically that he is, after all, just "a piece of meat." Is there anything wrong with that?

Purdue would say he can to that he can do that (but not necessarily that he should) - but almost every other style book frowns seriously on using "that" when "who" traditionally would be called for. To me in this instance it seems imprecise and undercuts Kellan's argument that he should be eventually taken seriously. Unless one is referring to work as a meat puppet (Philip K. Dick reference - not necessarily the punk band) one should not use "that" to refer to a human.

Does anyone remember the trouble President Clinton got into for a reference to "that woman"?

Team-based Learning: ad campaign

I'm toying with a new idea for the team-based learning (TBL) unit of Comp 1. The lesson uses TBL methods and develops multi-modal composition skills by creating audio, video and static graphics. Last year I allowed greater student direction by letting groups choose their own products to develop. Where

This year I'm thinking of allowing students to take on authentic products and services. I've spoken with the director of the Writing Center here on campus, Kathryn Byrne, and she supports the idea of students promoting the WC, and would like several options to choose from because audio, video and/or promotional material created could be used in real promotion. That means student work could appear in podcasts, vidcasts and the student newspaper, and maybe even radio, TV and more public venues. Any student participation in a successful advertising campaign could be used in resumes as authentic work experience.

We have some material from past classes on the wiki here, a couple classes have used facebook - but that has limitations. See class Facebook group here, but the problem is they mostly created pages in private places that restricts sharing with future classes. Students have also posted video on YouTube here.

I like the idea that education creates a "walled garden" where students are safe to experiment and take risks - but sometimes we build a roof over the garden and ideas wither from lack of sunlight - or root rot. I'll figure out how to wrestle this analogy back to coherence later.

The Royal Order of Adjectives..

I found this graphic at http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/adjectives.htm Thanks to Chad for the head's up.

It illustrates what we spoke about in class - native speakers intuitively understand but Non-native speakers have to learn.

Cultural or Academic Informants

If one goes to the writing center (WC), one gets the most out of the trip by going in prepared. Have a few specific questions or issues you want to address ready and present them to the consultant before you get started. None of the 1/2 dozen or so WC's I've worked with have prioritized grammar and mechanics, and most try to avoid those "lower order concerns," believing them to be less of a barrier to understanding than higher order concerns like logic or organization. The goal, as Steven North put it, is to create better writers rather than better writing. As a result tutors sometimes find themselves conflicted when faced with international students.

For the Non-native English speaker, immigrant or Generation 1.5 student the boundary between higher order and lower order concerns is blurred. Syntax, word choice, the appropriate use of articles and awkward grammar may not typically thwart understanding between 2 well educated Native-English Speakers from a similar background, but when one comes from an alien environment with different language, culture and values, the typical assumptions can lead to disaster. I've even seen this happen when white upper-middle-class consultants work with students from less privileged urban schools in Toledo, Kansas City, KS and KC MO. Schools tend to train tutors to resist the urge to address lower order concerns even when the tutor's instincts tell them they should. Partly this is to ward off the possibility of the tutor appropriating the student's work. And often grammar and mechanics are not the biggest problem a paper has. Also, IMHO, this keeps the WC from getting too popular. No one wants to create a proofreading center on campus.

Asking for or finding a Cultural Informant provides a solution for NNS and students from diverse backgrounds. The University of Richmond Writing Center tutor training site explains that the role of a cultural or academic informant is to

try to identify the problems that the student is having, and then use a direct approach to teach writing as an academic subject. When we, as ESL tutors, "understand, respect, and respond to the differences between the needs of ESL and native-speaking writers," we can increase the effectiveness of a particular session (Powers 103). For more advanced students, it may be advantageous to show "specific examples of how to fix a particular error, and then to try one on their own, or explain what he/she has fixed" because this process allows the student "to really grasp your ideas, and helps them learn in an effective way," according to Dotty Giordano (Connect, 10/17/97).
All ESL students who enter the writing center come from different backgrounds, and therefore, bring different cultural and social contexts to a tutorial. Although some of the problems that an ESL student has are a result of the rhetorical structure of their native language, "others are social or cultural attitudes and beliefs that will definitely affect the tutor-tutee relationship" (Powers 98). Therefore, the tutor must act as a cultural informant. As an example, the nature of asking questions is different among cultures. For an international student, questioning a tutor, or an authority figure, may be frowned upon in one culture, whereas in ours, it is simply regarded as a means of obtaining information for clarification. Since questioning authority may be considered disrespectful in the eyes of a particular international student, he or she may refrain from asking questions in a tutorial because he or she feels that it is inappropriate. In this situation, the tutor should encourage the student to ask questions and inform him or her that this type of behavior is not considered disrespectful in the eyes of Americans

The term "academic informant" is also used because sometimes non-typical learners, such as dyslexic, dysgraphic, and some students with autism spectrum conditions also benefit from more direct help and communication.

So tell your consultant you want a cultural or academic informant if your learning style needs it, but also let them know specifically what you need work with on your writing. Read the margin and end comments from teachers to get some ideas.

The above research is tertiary - see the Asian EFL Journal on the topic.

Minimum length on Papers

Many students complain that English classes frustrate them because of subjective grading, and that rules of grammar can be flexible. For the most part that isn’t quite true. Teachers do “grade norming” exercises with colleagues and find that we in fact have similar expectations and similar ideas of what constitutes an “A,” “B,” “C,” “D,” or unsuccessful paper. See the syllabus for Grading Rationale. However, I do understand where students are coming from with those comments.

With length or content minimums in my class, we have concrete and objective measures. Most instructors won’t accept a paper under the minimum specified word count or length, or they will simply fail the paper giving it 50 % and not bother going to the work of reading it. After all, the student didn’t bother going to the work of doing the minimum requirement.

I read every paper. Papers that fall under the minimum word count invariably leave me wanting more information. Some papers over the minimum length do too – and that may be reflected in comments about content.

It surprises me though when someone puts in minimal effort (as indicated by a brief response to an assignment) and then expects an "A" or "B." If a "C" is average - barely making the word count shouldn't guarantee you even that.

I had way too many papers under the minimum word length on the first paper this semester, and sometimes I read one that barely makes the minimum. I go back and count the times they used the word "very" or similar such filler. I generally find a relationship between the # of filler words and the word count in that the closer a paper is to the word count cut off - the more empty words or phrases clog up the prose. I did that once too. Read the assignment prompt and the rubric and you'll see why it won't work.

plagiarism and copyright

image from the dilbert website at http://dilbert.com/ 9-2-10. Click to see full size image.

Writing and Power

Grabbed the above image from a boingboing post on Woody Guthrie, an old artist activist who wrote a couple of my favorite songs (the motorcycle song and alice's restaurant).

I like it because it highlights a point I try to make with my classes - that language, and writing specifically, is all about power.