Regular class: Cell phone/Stress, Homelessness, Pot legal, on college writing, spelling

            The students I put in this class all have a relative idea of what writing should be. Parts of their essay could be better organized and some ideas need to be clarified and expanded upon but they know enough about writing to benefit from the demands of a regular English class. I think they would be able to learn without being overwhelmed. They seem to have a clear (or at least better) understanding of written English. Their vocabulary is decent and they don’t have as many problems with grammar such as verb tenses or subject verb agreement.

            I would focus on the thesis statement, organizing and expanding support/body paragraphs, and review basic grammar. Reverse outlining might be a good strategy as well since the students can produce a short essay’s worth of material. They have enough to go back and pull out the main points in their writing. These students don’t have as many grammar issues and some may even be able to fix their own mistakes through a simple proofread. Their writing is beginning to resemble an academic essay.

Developmental class: Students A-I, students 1-3, writing samples, weird Friday, importance of dance

            These students all have repeating errors that impede the reading process. I think I can piece together what they are trying to say but it takes several reads and careful piecing together to do so. Many of their writing samples seem to suggest that they need help with generating content and basic grammar. Their spelling is okay but it is not main obstacle when it comes to reading their essays.

            These students would greatly benefit from reviewing grammar rules such as subject verb agreement, verb tense, and plural vs. singular. Some of these students need to learn the difference between spoken English and written English. The thesis needs to be introduced and studied early on because several writing samples have a general idea but lack a clear thesis. Additionally, their supporting paragraphs are often vague or unrelated to the topic. I think one issue that hampered many students was that they didn’t or couldn’t produce adequate content. I think the PIE format for expanding/developing paragraphs would be very useful. Outlining will later help them set up the basic framework for an essay. 

Notes on School success and failure

The reading was a study done by Guadalupe Valdes that studied the language issues immigrant children are forced to deal with. She had been selected as the DeWitt Wallace-Reader's Digest lecturer for the 1998 AERA annual meeting. Valdes started the study in 1991 that focused on schools in Mission Vista, a city in the greater Bay Area. It is primarily focused on two students: Lilian and Elisa.

Lilian was a bit of a "problem child" while enrolled in school. She rarely participated and spent more time socializing with friends rather than working the assigned activities. She didn't really try so it was no surprise that she was never able to transition out of the ESL program.

Elisa was more like a model immigrant student. She was shy but respected the teacher and tried her hardest to learn English. She strived to make it out of the sheltered curriculum with little luck. Despite her efforts, she was still told to enroll in ESL classes despite her increase in English proficiency.

Valdes reveals that the young students in the school ESL program were expected to learn English quickly, but their exposure to proper spoken English was minimal. There were usually 35 to 40 students in each class and teachers were poorly equipped to provide the instruction the students needed. Classroom instruction usually consisted of copying vocabulary/sentences and coloring. Students rarely progressed out of the program. Teachers who taught the regular courses simply catered to the majority of native English speakers and they weren't willing to adjust to a new student who struggled or had proficient but broken English. The fact that policymakers believe immigrant children are learning English does not help the cause.

Group reading synthesis

My group has narrowed down the overarching issues from our readings to the problems and attitudes associated with student dialects. The mere fact that schools and policies are trying to be more accepting is a nice sentiment, but there are more problems that arise. The members of the CCCC and its opponents alike seemed to agree that there were flaws. There are many issues yet to be addressed (or issues that haven't been addressed properly) and some even argue that respecting those marginalized dialects is in fact a detriment.

An important reoccurring idea was balance. In order for such a policy to succeed, administrators and educators need to be able to find a balance between respecting student dialects and teaching Standard English.

Group Reading Points

Here's what I gathered from the reading.

The CCCC article itself:

The Students' Right to Their Own Language is a theory piece addressing the issue of non-standard English speaking students. Its authors were essentially announcing that the CCCC would honor and "officially" recognize the various dialects of English spoken by students. It seems that this was primarily a response to the growing number of non-standard English speaking students in high school and college. I suppose, however, anybody could argue that is article is a pedagogical piece because it offers insight and recommendations of how to approach education for a diverse group of students. Its statements and arguments wouldn't really be applicable outside an academic setting. 

• Somebody suggests that "we need to discover whether our attitudes toward "educated English" are based on some inherent superiority of the dialect itself or on the social prestige of those who use it

• A dialect is a variety of language used by some definable group. Everyone has a personal version of language, an idiolect, which is unique, and closely related groups of idiolects make up dialects.

• The user of specific dialect employs the phonological, lexical, and syntactic patterns and variation of the given "community." Because geographical and social isolation are among the causes of dialect differences, we can roughly speak about regional and social dialects.

• In specific setting, and because of historical and other factors, certain dialects may be endowed with more prestige than others.
• Edited American English (EAE) refers to the written language of the weekly news magazines, of almost all newspapers, and of most books. This variety of written English can be loosely termed a dialect, and it has pre-empted a great deal of attention in English classes
• Carefully chosen materials will certainly expose students to new horizons and should increase their awareness and heighten their perceptions of the social reality. Classroom reading materials can be employed to further our students' reading ability and, at the same time, can familiarize them with other varieties of English

• There is no evidence that enables one to describe any language or any dialect as incomplete or deficient apart from the conditions of its use. The limits of a particular speaker should not be interpreted as a limit of the dialect

• Concentrating on the EAE with handbooks encourage a restrictive language bias.
• Students can and do function in a growing multiplicity of language situations which require different dialects, changing interconnections of dialects, and dynamic uses of language.
• Students should also be able to recognize the difference between handbook rules and actual performance

Support for the CCCC article:

It was rather difficult to figure out the overall point of this article. While it was relatively easy to determine it was an academic theory piece, it was so long winded that it took a while for me to figure that out. It brought in excerpts from other people's work, I frequently struggled to figure out why that particular quote or example was important. The author has an academic tone that supports linguistic diversity and a heightened sensitivity towards language attitudes, but it took me a while to reach that conclusion. 

Struggle for language rights

The CCCC was not merely being trendy, nor politically correct, in passing the Students' Right resolution. Rather, the organization was responding to a developing crisis in college composition classrooms, a crisis caused by the cultural and linguistic mismatch between higher education and the non-traditional (by virtue of color and class) students who were making their imprint upon the academic landscape for the first time in history.

The resolution sought three goals:

To heighten consciousness of language attitudes

To promote the value of linguistic diversity

To convey facts and information about language and language variation that would enable instructors to teach their non-traditional students - and ultimately all students - more effectively.

The Counterargument:
 

The author of this piece is arguing against the CCCC's decision that ensures the students' "right" to their own language. The author quickly points out some of the weaknesses in SRTOL and often remarks that the CCCC means well but does not do enough or has overlooked critical details.

SRTOL:

• Never begins to examine a "right" to one's own language

• Offers no consistent view on the importance of dialect
• Wildly overrates its "sophisticated" knowledge in sociology and linguistics
• Both draws on and feeds into a reactionary politics of ethnic-cultural chauvinism

• Clumps people into homogenous, internally undifferentiated groups, missing individuals entirely

• Tries to shame English teachers for professional work of which we should be proud 

The readings focus on the issue of having a diverse group of students who do not speak Standard English. This has always been an issue but has gained much more attention largely because of the increasing number of non-standard English speaking students.

Not only does it reveal potential weaknesses in our current educational system, I think it highlights the fact that blanket policies for education are often ineffective. Especially relevant today, there are simply too many students that may have different learning curves and struggle to stay in school. Regardless of what dialect they speak, every student brings a different set of creativity and analytical abilities. Just because a student does not speak or write in EAE does not mean that student should be lumped into a group of "remedial English" students.

My recommendation would emphasize the notion that every student is different, and that not every teaching method will work for all students. I think the best approach for any class to bring a diverse group of activities and perspectives to the classroom. That way, it will ensure that most students will be engaged and actively participate. Of course, no matter how "cool" the instructor is or how fun the activities are, there is no way to guarantee that every student will participate. But it should be better than having all students strictly adhere to one method while learning nothing.