Entry #4: On Grammar (CG)

Backtracking, but determined to contribute and catch-up with these readings...

Earlier in my career, I told my fellow student-teachers that one of my biggest concerns was my deliver of the curriculum, the content that I would be delivering. Grammar was one of the many things I found myself worrying about: How much instruction should I give? How much is too much? How do I know I am doing enough so that the next teacher doesn't come back and tell me I am not doing enough? I always fear of being called out for lacking instruction or not doing it well enough, and I pondered how teachers know that they are doing enough. Rigor, really, was the concern.

Several passages and concepts from this week's reading caught my attention, if only to assure me that questioning my approaches to English and grammar studies is meaningless if for the sole purpose of catering towards my students' next instructor. In Lindemann Ch. 5, thinking about linguistics, it is true that few of us look inward at our own language as being less than everyone else's, which is to say that few of us consider that, perhaps, we are speaking the wrong kind of English to other people in the world. My take-away here is that, yes, everyone brings something new or different to the table, and when thinking of language, my use of English is not perfect, but flawed, so why do I push my students to write in this perfect Standard English? Kinloch continues answering my questions further. Thinking about dialects and different vernaculars, and comparing Kinlock to Lindemann Ch. 5 and Ch. 10, dialects and accents do not impede a student from wanting to learn and wanting to be understood, but it can quickly crush that desire to learn when focusing on grammar as being the one thing that is stopping the student from being successful. Here is where I think the "key point" lies: What if, for a moment, we set grammar aside and focus on the message being stated or produced by the student? What if we focused on constructing cumulative sentences and sentence-combining skills (Lindemann Ch. 10) rather than explicitly teaching the terminology and sentence deconstruction? As the research in Lundsford and Lundsford article emphasizes, these grammatical mistakes that teachers worry about and try to address may never go away, but what can and will go away is a discovery in the power of language and writing when grammar is put as an ultimatum or deal-breaker between "good" and "bad" writing.

In 2019, I began my first year as a teacher, and I was asked to teach AP English Language and Composition to nine juniors. One student in particular had (er, has) a heavy accent (Spanish speaker) and an unmistakable willingness to learn. In one particular assignment that I assigned, she noted that one of her biggest inspirations at the time was Dacre Montgomery because, like her, Dacre has had to work extra hard to overcome people ridiculing him or judging him for his heavy accent. She became very emotional and began to cry during her presentation, which was very nerve-wrecking and heart-breaking for me, for I felt that I had challenging her to expose a part of herself that she did not have felt comfortable doing. I really questioned if I was doing her any justice as a first year teacher (especially an "AP Lang" teacher). Well, this particular student has gone on to winning first place twice in a row in our district's annual poetry contest (I coached her through the first win a month after this incident), and recently, she was admitted to Cornell University. While I know there are countless reasons why she was admitted to Cornell (mainly, of course, being her determination, tenacity, and success as a student), I know deep down that I somehow and somewhere helped her become just a little more confident in her writing. Sometimes as teachers, you don't think you are enough until, later on, you see your students do bigger and better things that you say, "Wow. I was a part of that student's journey." I suppose I mention this because I remember learning how to be a considerate and positive teacher through this vulnerability that she had no control over. Many students won't be as driven as she was, much less when they are made to feel like they are less just because they have an accent, but these different Englishes and understandings of grammar do not make students any "less" than what they are: human beings.