Question 2 on Delpit's article

I know this post is late..... But I found question number two to be very interesting. I can imagine that this is the thought of many children when they are younger, "Why do we have to be taught the language of other minorities and learn in different ways?" Until this article, I would have had the same question. But I now understand why it is important to teach everyone based on the culture they grew up in. I have been a student-aide in classrooms here in Corvallis and observed minorities in these classrooms. It is obvious that they don't understand some of the codes or slang language we use. I think that through reading and examples on paper, these students will be able to better learn. I also think that it is important to bring minority ways of thinking and cultures into the classroom at a young age because then children grow up around it and will understand it more as they get older. Besides the fact that there are more and more minorities in the U.S. each year.

Ideal VS Real

Acceptance is essential in a country that is a professed "melting pot." Whether that is true or not is neither here nor there. It is important to teach acceptance, but the issue with teaching "only" acceptance is the conflict between the ideal world versus the real world. The unfortunate fact of the matter is that the chance for an individual to succeed is to adopt these guidelines and rules of speech. It's obvious to assume that learning the "language of power" is in opposition with acceptance, and that is probably my biggest concern with Delpit's argument. I completely agree with her, and I understand the importance of teaching acceptance and promoting practices like "code-switching" in order to prepare students for the business world, but it is easy for a middle class white male like myself to promote my way of speech. I frequently wonder if teaching the language of power doesn't perpetually keep it in power. In the ideal world, acceptance would be adequate. In the real world, there is a language of power, and the best way to participate in struggles for power (which is what school is for, right? We learn so we can succeed and be more powerful in one way or another) is to learn that language and work within it.

Response to Delpit's Article Question 2

By teaching children the language of power, everyone ends up on an equal footing. The child's parents, family and friends cannot provide examples of times when the language of power did not help a person get a better paying job. However, if children are taught acceptance only, they will see plenty of times outside of class where acceptance is ignored. Those children see members of their own family be passed over for jobs because they don't know the "language of power." If children are taught both acceptance and the language of power, then there is a good chance of changing the way the "culture of power" works.

"Ethnographic analysis"

I completely agree with Delpit's suggestions that teachers must educate students the codes of power. I believe that teachers and parents must come to an agreement to decide what kind of instruction would be most beneficial to students. She also says that teachers must use "ethnographic analysis", meaning that teachers must have a better understanding of a student's background, especially culture. But, in large classes with a high diversity (for instance, a class in a large high school or an university), would it be possible for the teachers to use "ethnographic analysis"? Can someone tell me how it would be without the "culture of power" (her proposed five aspects of power), is it even possible to not have the "culture of power"? Looks like it is present everywhere(not only in classrooms, but also in workplaces, capitalist or communist countries).

Response to prompt 2 for Delpit article

Teaching students acceptance of other cultures and traditions of communication is a noble undertaking, but it is not likely that our society will become completely unbiased any time in the near future. It is important to work toward that goal, but in the meantime, all students need to be instructed in the ways of speaking and writing that will earn them respect in life and the ability to be taken seriously by those in power. The most important tool we have right now is the ability to give underprivlidged students the language that will allow them to accomplish what they want in our flawed society.

Prompts for Delpit

Your assignment is to respond to one of the following questions related to Lisa Delpit’s “The Silenced Dialogue.” Aim for about 100-150 words, and post it to your team blog. Please follow the following guidelines:
1. Identify your entry with a title that suggests the content.
2. Single space.

You may respond to other people’s posts through the comment feature. You may also read the blogs of the other groups by going to: http://writingcommonsone.blogspot.com/ http://writingcommonstwo.blogspot.com/ etc. through http://writingcommonssix.blogspot.com/ You can add a comment to other blogs by using the comment feature. You can only post to your own blog.

Questions (choose one):
1. If you are preparing to teach, what are you taking away from Delpit’s article regarding language and power that might help you as a teacher, and how could you apply these ideas to your proposed level of teaching?
2. One student asked, “Why do we have to discuss teaching minority children the language of power? Why not just teach everyone acceptance?” Respond.
3. For one of Delpit’s specific proposals (refer to the article), discuss the challenges of implementation. How could these challenges be addressed?
4. Your own topic.

Reactions.....

Finally, I got this new blogger thing figured out. I think you all had some very good questions, some of which were the same that I had. I also wondered about the optional slot and if this is a new term and just one that Kolln uses? I'm not sure on that answer. I do know that I have never came across this until this class. I am also glad to see that I do not appear to be the only one that needed a refresher and thought we jumped into everything a little fast. I was thinking we would go over verbs, nouns, etc. before starting the diagraming and everything else right off the bat. Does anyone else agree? I am still overwhelmed but hope to be understanding things soon. I find the passive/active voice and the past tense of words to be way more my style. These are more like the things I remember and thought we would be doing in this class.

Group 4: Chapters 1 and 2

Within the two chapters, I found the most interesting part to be the 10 sentence structures. I was never taught grammer in school and was completely unaware that there were forms that almost every sentence falls into.

As I already mentioned, I was not taught grammer in school, except for the basics (noun, pronoun, verb, adverb, etc.) Prior to taking this class, how much grammer did you recieve in your K-12 education if any?

Ch. 1 and 2

I found chapters one and two to be very interesting because it was a quick reminder to myself on how much I don't remember about grammer. I'm excited because I've already learned more from those two chapters then I did all through elementary and junior high school.
In chapter one I liked learning about all the different meanings of grammer and how the meanings of words had changed over time. In chapter two I found it quite interesting on just how many sentence patterns there actually were. At first I was just having trouble remembering the abbreviations and definitions for simple concepts such as linking verb and subject compliment. Did anyone else need a refresher course on just definitions? I was also having trouble diagraming the sentences. I don't think I fully grasp where the lines go and what words they branch off of. If anyone has any suggestions on learning how to diagram sentences I would appreciate the help (or advice).

It is very interesting that all English sentences can be classified by only ten sentence patterns. English is the mutt offspring of a variety of linguistic parents, so I would expect there to be many more patterns as well as sentences that simply do not follow a pattern.

Also, I was wondering whether the "sentence slot" approach is specific to our book or if it is a widely accepted method of sentence analysis -- are there other ways of classifying sentence pieces that are unrelated to the "slot" technique?

Group 4: Chapter 1 and 2

I found chapters one and two to be very interesting. Both chapters did more than just refresh my memory. I am wondering if you all remember learning all of this in elementary or not? I sure don't. The most interesting thing I found were the idea of the option slot and the linking verb. I had forgotten about the linking verb. Diagraming is coming along for me but I find it somewhat difficult. Is anyone else experiencing this?

Group Four:

There were quite a few interesting things in both chapter 1 and 2. In chapter 1, the most interesting thing is the usage of words which are now no longer in general use. In chapter 2, an interesting thing is the definition of nouns and verbs. Previously, nouns were defined by what they represent but now they are defined by their characteristics. Is this new definition the "official" definition? In other words, if I look in another grammar book, are nouns and verbs defined as how they're defined on page 20 and 21? If so, abstract nouns cannot be considered nouns according to the new definition?

Another interesting thing is the ten pattern structure. I didn't know that there are 10 different sentence patterns. It's amazing that every single sentence in english language can be related to one of these sentence patterns. I am slightly confused about the difference between a clause and sentence pattern with NP and V-int. Are they both the same?

Welcome to Writing Commons Four

Welcome to Writing Commons Four, your group grammar blog. Your first assignment is to identify something in the first two chapters of Kolln that interests you and share your thoughts with your group. Also, please pose a question related to your post to which other students might respond.

You are also welcome to use the blog to converse with your group members about the course content and assignments, get help, clarify things you don’t understand.

Enjoy!
vtb