comparing and contrasting this week's texts

Why would Doris Sommer suggest that migrants play games of odd man out with their language? Is it really a game when African Americans signify a word to keep others in the dark? I believe the origins of African Americans “signifying” certain words come from being able to keep their secrets from the white people who owned them. I think that her use of the term “games” trivializes something very important. Sometimes people need a safer way to communicate. She comes back to this at the end of her essay by quoting Gates and Morgan but she doesn’t retract her use of the word “game” which makes the linguistic capabilities of people who can hide their real meaning from certain other people seem less important than it really is.
That being said, she seems to veer off towards a more thoughtful interpretation of multilingualism in the next sections of her essay. She moves through a high number of “they say” sentences about multiculturalism. I am learning this quarter about these “moves” of showing what others have said on a certain subject and then including what I have to say on that same subject. My problem with Sommer is mainly that she explains in depth and on many levels the issues that affect speakers of more than one language, but I didn’t feel that I was ever hearing her part of the conversation once she got rolling into the other strangely named sections of her essay. GOOD DAY? A JEALOUS SPIRIT? I used these divisions and tried to summarize what each separate section was about but could not do it. It surely has more to do with my lack of understanding than her writing, but I am trying to learn from the reading I do, and in her writing, I was mostly confused about what she was saying as opposed to what the people she was quoting were saying. Maybe her transitions are just so agile that I didn’t see them, therefore I could not distinguish her voice from those she quoted.
In contrast, Paul J. Hopper writes in a way that I can understand. Perhaps it is the fact that I like linguistics and I have already read about or studied much of what he writes about. I want to read “Historical Linguistics” by Larry Trask after reading about it in Hopper’s article. In fact, I want to memorize much of what Hopper says in this article because the information reminds me of how much the topic of linguistics excites me and the more I find out the more I WANT to find out. I want to know all there is to know and Hopper takes the time and the skill to give me a huge dose of linguistics in a lovely and learned way. “This process, whereby a sound that was once a mere phonetic variant comes to be an autonomous phonological unit, is known as phonologization.” Indeed! I read and reread that, almost wanting to applaud the simplicity of the explanation! Hopper has included everything I’ve learned so far in the field and added to my knowledge. I will return to his essay again and again. The material there is priceless.
Heidi Byrnes article is more about how we get language. I enjoy reading theories on how we acquire language because it helps me understand why I am STILL unilingual. I learned some new stuff about teaching my students that have English as their second language but I am most defeated by my inability to learn Spanish, not to mention Gaelic. I would love to move to Ireland and be a teacher there but the teachers there ALL have to be bilingual, English and Gaelic. I’ve been taking Gaelic lessons for a year and I can’t speak a word of it and can’t understand it either. I think everyone should be bilingual at a minimum but I can’t take my own advice. I tell the parents of my students all the time, speak your native tongue in the house; I don’t care what it is. Spanish, Vietnamese, Korean...The more the better and it makes me feel like just a sorry-assed old white lady to only know English.
The last reading for this week was TSIS pages 51-73. I can summarize that chapter quickly by saying that I had no idea what points Sommer was agreeing or disagreeing with, so I completely understood what TSIS was pointing to, and I agreed with, nay, was excited by, what Hopper wrote, and would use the techniques for agreeing with that TSIS gives on pages 56-57. By the time I finished reading the TSIS chapter, I was refreshed by the new knowledge of ways to show agreement (but with a difference) or disagreement.

To Quote or not To Quote

and I quote, "Antecedent and ConsequenceVery similar to cause and effect, this topic of invention invites one to consider events or consequences that follow given actions or conditions. The difference is that what follows may not be caused by what preceded it, but will naturally flow from those earlier conditions." The reason I found this so interesting is that our TSIS book seems to flow rather naturally from the article Textual Scholarship by Leah S. Marcus.

If we must quote lines from other writers in order to enter into the bigger discussion of the subject, how can we even know that what we are quoting is the original, or that it has not been changed in some way? I ask my students to always support their quotes in their essays, just as TSIS says, because otherwise the quote is just dangling out there. It needs a "sandwich" if you will. On the other hand, Marcus makes it clear that the very quote itself might be compromised, especially if it is from an old text.

What concerns me is how much of the learning and reading have I done that was in some way erroneous, because of ancient transcribers? How much can I believe of anything, or do I have to doubt everything?

(P.S. How many of you teachers can't use the blogger from your classroom computer? I can't and it pisses me off.)

Introduction to Scholarship in Modern Languages and Literature

The article Rhetoric by Susan C. Jarratt in our textbook (named in the title) is more than I can understand. If this is some one's idea of an "introduction" then we have different understandings about what an introduction actually is. It appears that the article is about the history of how rhetoric got started. She references many names, so many in fact that I got lost in the names. When I am reading a text I try to summarize every few paragraphs or so for my own notes and understanding. I was unable to summarize anything from Jarratt's article. I believe that using too many references in a paper does the opposite of show authority, especially in an "introductory" article. I get frustrated when I read something I can't understand, and Jarratt's article frustrated me.
Composition by David Bartholomae was easy by comparison to Jarrett, although it was not an easy read. The way the article is organized is in a more user-friendly way, and I found Bartholomae's voice was much more accessible. This might be because I understand composition. I teach high school composition all day every day. I have never had to teach anything about rhetoric... the word is seldom used in any of my teaching guides or teacher meetings. The research quoted by Bartholomae is tied in with anecdotes about the research, which makes it understandable, for me at any rate. Bartholomae's article taught me some interesting new ideas about writing. Jarratt's article made me feel stupid because I couldn't understand what points she was trying to make.

teaching writing is very difficult

In our textbook They Say I say: The moves that matter in academic writing, authors Gerard Graff and Kathy Birkenstein contend that templates are a good solid foundation for beginning writers. Writing templates can be used to break the spell of the writer’s block, to show writers where to pick up and start from, and a host of other well thought out plans for helping struggling writers be good writers and good writers become fantastic writers.
This might be true to the degree which they present in their book. I agree that with several different templates from which to choose, a person might be able to take into account what others have said on a topic, comb it in with his or her own ideas about the topic in a genuinely original way, and come out with a paper that is truly unique.
My problem stems from the fact that they offer several different templates and I am only allowed to offer one. It becomes a matter of degree for me as I read through this book. I teach high school English and the only template we are allowed to use is The Jane Schaffer Writing Program. In her writing program we are given ONE template to use and I suspect, especially after reading what we’ve read so far in TSIS, that one is not enough for the whole population to get. We appear to be stuffing all of our writers into one basket of noncreative crud. Graff and Birkenstein are way ahead of me on this argument, moving to counteract it before I even said it. On page 10 they say, “Many of our students complain that using templates will take away from their originality and creativity.” Yes, indeed, with just one template for the whole student body, how can it do anything but?
At Redlands High School we use the JSWP exclusively and it does not help the students that I have seen do anything except pass the CAHSEE. CAHSEE essay graders just look for those key elements of the template and therefore they can get through the piles of grading more efficiently. As a result of having to teach the JSWP for the last five years, I have grown to hate it. I have to agree with Graff and Birkenstein that there may be ways that templates benefit the writer, but mostly, to this high school teacher, one template above all (The Grand Jane Schaffer) makes essays that get turned in to me looking like little nooblets on parade with their little noob templates in rows. I know that some of my freshmen have intelligent thoughts. I read them in their journals. But the work they turn in with their required JS essays is mostly shite.

graduate program

It's so much more challenging than I was expecting. I have an appointment with Sunny Hyon on Monday so hopefully I'll get some real answers. I have felt like I was floundering every since I started the program, so a little bit of structure will help me quite a bit.
A little bit more energy would help me a lot too. Those energy drinks do not give me as much as I need and espresso makes me have weird angry mood swings. Not that any of this matters AT ALL, I just want to get in the habit of coming to this site and contributing something.