My final project

I can't remember all the questions I was supposed to answer in this, but here's hoping I'm comprehensive enough to answer them without realizing it! Here is the plan:

I am going to design a unit plan that will focus on language as identity. Doing a very basic google search turned up this: http://www.ncsu.edu/linguistics/filsoncurriculum.php To quote Andy Dwyer, "Awesomesauce!" Obviously there will be more poking around, find out what's being taught and what I would want to do.

I want this unit to get high school students thinking about language and how it is used. Some of the things we've done in this class could be brought into a high school setting. I think looking at pieces of dialect literature would be able to help students get an idea of how language is a part of an identity. By looking at these pieces of literature, the students could infer where the author (or speaker) is from, their race, possibly their social class. I think there could be some writing involved. I really enjoyed the activity we did in class earlier this year about writing in a dialectal style. I think that's something students could do at the high school level. It may be a formative assessment to see if students are getting the idea that 1) dialects have rules and 2) dialects can relate to identity.

I was also thinking of having the students look at their own language. Take note of what they say to their peers, to their parents, to other authority figures, and see if there are differences.

Because I like the idea of having a companion novel, I was thinking I'd teach Huckleberry Finn. In a different unit I'm designing, I am reading the novel first and then taking a look at some of it's themes in the following week. I'm thinking a similar format might come into play here, where the class would read Huckleberry Finn, paying attention to how language is used as an identity, and then over the next week or so having them explore that idea more in depth.

I've chosen this topic because I think that it is something that not a lot of people think about. We use different language in different situations without thinking about it. I feel it might be interesting to high school students to take a look at this phenomenon. It would give them an idea of how powerful language can be. I think this could also very easily tie into the question that some others are wrestling with of "how do you accept dialects while teaching Standard English?"

There are several different ways to go with a unit like this, but I was thinking of focusing more on how language can define race and class. If students wanted, they could focus on how language defines other aspects of their life such as gender, age, or social group.

It was suggested in my group that a website might be an interesting way to format this project. I think it could be an interesting way to put the information out there, but I'm not sure if it's the direction I'll take. Perhaps it will depend on how quickly the research goes!

Your feedback in the comments is always appreciated. I'll do my best to reply.

Write me a letter
And post it on my refrigerator door,

Alan

Thoughts on discussions

A few things that I noticed during the class discussions:

~ There was a lot of "half-thoughts". A student would say something and then trail off a bit at times. Perhaps through their actions they conveyed their point, or were only wanting the teacher to realize what their point was, and once it was established that they had gotten their point across, they'd stop talking.

~It happened on a couple occasions, but I enjoyed when teachers would add in something that had nothing to do with the discussion, such as "did everyone sign the reading list. I wonder if there was a point to throwing in this bit of class business in the middle of the discussion. Maybe to get the attention of people drifting off or maybe to make sure those that are really engaged don't forget to do something simple and not get credit (that has happened to me).

~I think you could really tell when a teacher had a goal and when they didn't. Teachers could really steer the conversation to where they wanted it to go, but at other times teachers were just content to let the class figure things out. Something that I've started to notice my professors saying is "I'm not looking for one answer", to help keep the conversation going and encourage more participation.

~I felt that the high school transcripts displayed a lot more familiarity with one another than the few college transcripts we had. Students and teachers knew each other better in the HS setting and it showed. I thought the conversations flowed better there than they did at the college level.

What I want from discussions:

I want discussions in my classroom to be a way for students to learn. There are days that I like to just sit back and listen to what fellow students are saying so that I can get a handle on their thoughts. It can help me analyze a text better, for example. So I want my students to feel that they can learn in these discussions. I want to explore the issues in literature that we've read and help students make sense of it.

Now, how does one make sure that discussion is worthwhile? I think developing that report, getting students comfortable with talking in class is essential. It takes time, I would not expect great discussions right off the bat, but I think that as students get more comfortable in the class than they'll be more likely to take part. From that discussion would come the generation of ideas, and that becomes part of the learning process. I think it would be important to guide conversation when necessary, but other times let things ride. Knowing when to do which is probably a skill honed over the course of several school years, but I think its an important one to develop so that students get the most education out of class discussions.