Em dashes are my absolute favorite punctuation. Almost every English teacher I have had, both in grade school and now in college, has told me that I use them too frequently. I find them to be more powerful when trying to emphasize something than other choices–and if I want to emphasize something, of course I’d use the more emphatic way of doing so. But, at the end of the day, I understand that this is a stylistic choice I have made that does not undercut someone else’s choice to use a comma or a full stop. I haven’t listened to my English teachers–clearly–but for students who are learning English as a first language or, even, students who are more apt to taking their professor’s grammatical/stylistic rules into account, their more “standardized” English feels like it lacks passion or emphasis. I’d be interested in knowing how other people feel about the matter–does punctuation inherently change something’s meaning? Does that mean we should allow writers more or less freedom when using punctuation? How do you teach punctuation, with all of its connotations, rather than just “here is what is and here is what isn’t appropriate in academic writing”?

I came across this diagram when doing some research on a history project. The diagram is of the trends in amount of speakers of the top languages in the US. It connects to our class discussions on language preservation and endangerment.

http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/02/28/chart-of-the-week-the-decline-of-yiddish-the-rise-of-tagalog/

https://www.audible.com/blog/science-technology/hear-what-scholars-think-english-will-sound-like-in-100-years/

This is a really interesting read that just talks about what scholars think English could potentially sound like in the near-distant future. What was most interesting to me is that they bring up one main reason the way the English language is already changing in sound is because of the non-native speakers influencing it. By learning English and speaking it with their non-native “tongues” words are being pronounced differently then many of us would pronounce it, but these people are the ones teaching “our” language to others overseas. So our language is spreading far beyond our natural walls and our language is becoming owned by “the other” many are so scared of. It is an interesting idea that soon we may have to pronounce English words the “correct” way, which may be the way we personally never learned it ourselves.

I just rediscovered an old favorite slam poem of mine about teaching English to students as a second language in schools. It highlights a lot of the frustration and power imbalances that comes along with teaching a student content they don’t even know in their own language, much less another. I highly recommend taking the three minutes to listen to it; Dylan Garity is a fantastic poet.

Tuesday, April 17th: Reading due: Hairston, “Not All Errors Are Created Equal”: Link

Work due: Idea for what you want to learn about for the Grammar Police assignment

 

Thursday, April 19th: Work due: Rough draft of survey or interview questions for the Grammar Police assignment. Or, materials and a clearly articulated plan for analyzing prompts/professor comments/style guides.

Resources: Writing Survey Advice

Using Qualtrics for Assessment

Qualtrics Link: wooster.co1.qualtrics.com