I need your help for my upcoming teaching practicum. Please bear with me while I explain.
Instruction on grammar and usage has become a requirement for all English classrooms K-12 through NCLB, instruction that was often avoided by many Language Arts teachers before it was nationally mandated. Even after the mandate, teachers remain intimidated by strict grammatical rules, parsed sentences, and categorical terminology, and have little recourse but to turn to dry, pre-fab curriculum. Students hate the worksheets and lose respect for learning grammar — never mind the negative message sent by teachers afraid to approach the material — and teachers remain safe behind the authority of the all-knowing book o’ answers.
Explanations of grammar and usage should be a natural, fluid part of teaching reading, writing, and literature, with a focus on everyday usage and function that is not isolated to the written word alone. Ultimately, because our goal (in my particular classes) is to make better writers of the students, the written word must have significant focus. Though it will not be a singular focus, this point may be pressed by putting the differences between descriptive and prescriptive forms on the table, in addition to offering concrete explanations pertaining to venues in which these uses of the language are expected and appropriate. [The key is to teach Standard written English while not putting down non-Standard English speakers, as one’s style of talking is often heavily tied to identity.] One way that this can be done is modeling shifts from the spoken word (non-standard) to situationally appropriate uses of the written word (formally standard).
One cannot hand out worksheets on grammar and expect improvement in student essays. Because research shows that active, contextual explications of grammar are most beneficial to students, I will model revisions by taking a raw source and molding it into something more formally acceptable in front of, and with help from, the class. The overall goal is to identify where meaning breaks down, why it breaks down, and how to change it.
Daily Oral Language (DOL) is a long-term, repeating lesson in usage that not only turns students into editors, but also into researchers. They are encouraged to observe their world to find real-world examples of questionable grammar and usage and discuss and revise them as a class. Though DOL is generally used in elementary and middle schools with the above-mentioned pre-fab curriculum, this method has been revised for an older classroom to allow greater discussion for grammar and usage in context. Some of your children have probably been exposed to this method in a different form.
Still with me? Here is where I want help from you.
I need to have a slew of examples on hand to use in class for days when students have not contributed their own examples. These should preferably be oral phrases written down verbatim, phrases that are acceptably sensible in conversation that are obviously not formal Standard English.
For example:
Governor Perdue of Georgia I thought did a — showed some leadership by saying we’ve got to — anticipating a problem, here’s what we need to do to correct it. There’s going to be some — by the way, and here’s what we have done and will continue to do.
— George W. Bush, praising the Georgia governor’s energy policies, Washington, D.C., Sep. 26, 2005
There are many ways this sentence could be revised (ahem) to rebuild the breakdown in meaning. If you’re a brave soul, try it in the comments.
For another example, one of my friends adds the phrase “and stuff like that” to the end of nearly every utterance. This is an example that doesn’t require traditional revision. Instead we could discuss what function this oral tic serves, if any. Comparable examples include the recent studies released on the functions of like and dude. See this amusing post for more.
Another example that happened in real time, as my professor modeled a DOL lesson for us, occurred as she explained how DOL can be a venue to discuss socio-linguistics. As she wrapped up her thoughts, she said:
It is a safe environment in which for you to do that.
She slowed about halfway through the sentence as she realized what she was saying, in part because we all whipped out our pens and scribbled the phrase into our notebooks.
Though I would prefer the examples to be oral, I will gladly accept others. My friend Chuck, a linguist, has written several posts on his blog from which I will pull examples.
In one post he writes about the gender implications of the uni- in unisex.
In another post that I still bounce around my head, he writes a note to the mailman on how to handle a delivery:
My note said to “Please leave the package in the plastic bag under the doormat.” I suspected that this would be an interesting test of the interpretation of constituent structure, because as I wrote the note, I realized I was introducing a delightful ambiguity in the meaning.
…If the delivery person interprets my message as 1a., in which the PP “under the doormat” modifies the NP “the plastic bag”, the package will be left in the usual location next to the door, but inside a plastic bag, which I left under the doormat.
If, however, the delivery person were to interpret the message as 1b, the PPs are treated as basically conjunctive (i.e., [in the plastic bag] *and* [under the doormat]), which makes the second PP locative not for the NP “the plastic bag”, but of the NP “the package”. The unambiguous result of this interpretation would be that the package and the plastic bag are both left under the doormat.
…When I got home, the package was indeed in the plastic bag. And under the doormat.
If you have gotten this far and are still remotely interested, you are clearly a dork like me.
Any suggestions, pointers, resources, and examples are appreciated, though we need to lay off the Dubya quotes — he’s just too easy. Feel free to out your spouses, your kids, your boss, your friends. Skewer song lyrics and political speeches, and make fun of people on daytime television. No one is sacred, not even me.
Hopefully I have made this clear enough to solicit more than one or two comments. Because the comments automatically close after fourteen days, future examples can be emailed directly to me.