After reading Deborah Dean’s article, which
was about the idea of no longer teaching grammar from a textbook, it made me
think of a few things (starting with an AWWUBIS to create a complex sentence.
Deborah was taught—as an educator—what
to and how to teach her own students (dashes to show emphasis, also an
appositive to give more information on the noun, in this case Deborah). She
believed that teaching by the book, using strict guidelines to teach her
students the ins and outs of what is known as “Standard English.” It was
originally believed that this was the best way to accomplish the goal of
educating young students and preparing them for the world. Standard English was
the way to go, and these rigid rules were to be followed, if not, the student
would be marked wrong, shown how to correct and made to rinse-and-repeat, so to
say, the uses, rules, and applications of English Grammar.
This was until an epiphany she had.
Written language is supposed to be a documentable version of English’s spoken
language. When we speak, we don’t think about grammar. When we write, we write
as if we would be speaking. A professional author probably does not bother him
or herself much about how many semicolons they are using, if they properly used
a colon, or if there is a balance between complex and simple sentences in their
art. They just write. They don’t go over every nook and cranny of their essays
with a “How to: English Grammar for Dummies” guide. They just write.
Writing is an extension of our own voice;
it is a finite and concrete way to ensure that what we have to say will be preserved on paper for years
to come. Enforcing traditional grammar hinders students’ voices. It forces them
to speak in only properly defined guidelines. It smothers their creativity and
chokes out their identity of self. These are the things I want to keep in mind
when teaching my own students. Because one’s writing should reflect their
voice, grammar should be taught with spoken language in mind. Use punctuation
to best reflect your ideas of how your spoken word would appear on paper. Don’t
concern yourself with the logistics off the why... look at the why not.
Writing should give students
freedom to express themselves. My mini lesson would be centered around those
ideas. An idea I had would be to teach the students all of the different
punctuations, their meanings and their uses in rhetoric and which can be substituted
for another, then have them write anything they felt like. It wouldn’t be long,
just a paragraph about something important to them. I would have them write it
and use punctuation to make it read as close to the way that they would speak
it. This lets them practice their own patterns and exercise their own
creativity, using their own language. Once they were done, I would have them
defend why they chose a certain punctuation over another, tell why they wrote
it they way they did.
Language is a tool to use; and a
tool should never control the user. Written language is a convention, humans
invented it, and they can change it too.
