Respite

This blog will resume on January 4, 2010. It consists of ideas from a variety of English education publications related to my book, published in July 2004, Teaching English, How To.... RayS.

Topic: Censorship.

One-minute review: What is the essential issue in censorship? Do students imitate behavior described in books?

Quote: “While literature may not eliminate homophobia, nor alleviate the risks stemming from it, well-written books may help subvert the culture of silence still current in many school environments and offer a supportive framework for self-understanding by gay and lesbian teens. Moreover, books such as the ones discussed here may help heterosexual students who are homophobic to question their traditional assumptions in order to lead lives not bound and threatened by prejudices and fears. These recent works will generally affirm the lives of gay and lesbian teens and may expand the horizons of their heterosexual peers.”

Source: TL Norton & JW Vare. English Journal (November 2004), 69. The secondary school publication of the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE).

Comment: Who’s to say that these books, on the other hand, will not turn homosexuality into an attractive life style for their heterosexual peers?

In other words, we do expect books and language to influence the attitudes, actions and lives of students. Censors don’t want books that will influence students to copy the use of profanity, engaging in sex, etc. For example, the use of the word “N…….r” with the tone of hate and contempt in Huck Finn could generate feelings of racism in the reader. How deal with these characteristics of books in such a way that the students remain objective and are not unduly influenced to the degree that they use them as models of behavior? RayS.

Topic: Censorship

One-minute review: What are some of the reasons that books are censored? Edward B. Jenkinson’s list of reasons books are challenged and banned:

children question authority;

profanity;

characters speaking non-standard English;

African American literature and dialect;

portrayal of women in traditional and non-traditional roles;

mythology;

non-Christian culture;

supernatural;

ethnic;

violence;

sex acts and language;

invasion of privacy;

too many cartoons;

homosexuality;

do not champion work ethic;

don’t promote patriotism;

negative view of parents and authority;

SciFi;

questionable authors;

“trash”;

nontraditional family;

promoting self-awareness and self-understanding;

promoting critical thinking;

unfavorable to African Americans;

use of masculine pronouns to refer to male and female.

Source: LK Winkler. English Journal (May 2005), 49. A secondary school publication of the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE).

Comment: That’s a pretty comprehensive list of reasons for censorship challenges. RayS.

Topic: Why Read Literature?

10-second review: “The poorest human in the world is he who is limited to his own experiences….”

Source: SW Lundsteen. “A Thinking Improvement Program Through Literature.” 512.

Topic: Images

10-second review: How help students understand the concept of “image”? Begins with a dollar bill and questions about the images on it. Proceeds to images of American minorities and majorities. Raise questions about the images and their origins and the impressions they give. Does the same with literature of the decades—what image of the decades do the works of literature project?

Source: R Petrone & R Gibney. English Journal (May 2005), 35-39. The secondary school journal of the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE).

Topic: Testing a Person's Competence in Using Language.

10-second review: “Transformational grammarians often use the ability of native speakers of English to interpret ambiguous sentences as evidence of linguistic competence. For example, the person who perceives two interpretations of a sentence like "Visiting relatives can be bothersome" must be able to process the grammatical relationships involved in each interpretation.”

Source: Sr. JM Jurgens. “Perceptions of Lexical and Structural ambiguity by Junior and Senior High School Students.” 497.

Comment: Interesting, but I’m not sure how this information can be useful. RayS.

Topic: The SAT 25-Minute Writing Sample

10-second review: I have been reading criticism lately about the response of colleges to the SAT writing sample, mainly that it is not very useful. Could the following be part of the reason?

Source: Braddock, 1963, pp. 43 and 44.

Summary: “Doubtless one reason that the CEEB has given up grading the composition it includes in its examination is that colleges differ in their emphases in composition instruction. How can the CEEB rate papers in a manner valid for all colleges if some colleges emphasize narration, others exposition, still others argument or literary criticism? And within these emphases, one college may stress content and organization, another style, still another ‘correctness.’ ”

Comment: Do all colleges agree on what they emphasize in teaching writing? When I was in college (1952-1956), I was given a book of literary excerpts in my writing course. The instructor never used it to help teach writing, and, in fact, the instructor spent most of his time commenting on the literary passages rather than in demonstrating to us how to write. I think it would be interesting to find out how many colleges agree on teaching writing. RayS.

Topic: Composition Grading

10-second review: Does the method of grading compositions help students to improve composition?

Source: “A Comparative study of Three Methods of Grading Compositions.” John H. Womsbecker. (Unpublished M.A. Thesis, University of British Columbia, 1955).

Summary: Working with six teachers and 213 sixth graders in three of the Vancouver elementary schools, Wormsbecker investigated the effect on writing improvement of three different grading methods: 1. an overall impression method; 2. split grade, representing content and form; 3. a single point per theme method, in which the teacher graded each set of themes for a different single consideration each time, the pupil not knowing before hand which consideration would be used. No significant differences, although the time of the study was only eleven weeks, and, perhaps a longer period of time might have produced some differences.

Topic: Composition Grading

10-second review: Does the method of grading help students to improve composition?

Source: Buxton, 1958.

Summary: “College freshmen whose writing is graded and thoroughly marked improve their writing more than those whose composition receive a few encouraging general suggestions, but no grades or intensive marking.” p.36.