This blog is prospective, not retrospective! Blog on one or more of the “bad ideas” you’re reading about for Monday. First of all, I honestly kinda... in a way... did snatch this chapter away from Lee. So if you're reading this Lee, I'm sorry, but I mean... I kinda had to :( lol!
Now, from reading the title, the idea about this chapter may throw you off a bit, but I promise it's a positive article. Many in our society consider African American Language (also called Ebonics, slang and etc.) to be a form of incorrectness, broken English, or bad English. This mindset continues to support the stigma around the complexity of AAL. AAL is neither good or bad English because it is in itself, its own language; it is independent from the "Standard American English." "AAL combines an English vocabulary with an African grammar and phonology." Therefore, linguistically speaking, AAL, like other languages and dialects, follows rules and is correct in specific contexts. A common grammatical feature among AAL is the negative concord, also known as double negatives. For example, the grammatically correct, "I ain't got no time." Which, in Standard American English means, "I don't have any time." Many languages such as French, Spanish and Portuguese include double negatives. So why should AAL be penalized for doing the same? A phonological sound found among AAL is the replacement of the th sound. The th sound is uncommon and a difficult sound to produce if it's not a part of someone's native language. For example, in French, they replace the th with a /z/. So, zis, zat, zese and zose. While with AAL, they replace the th sound with a /d/ or /t/. Overall, African American Language is different from Standard American English and should be treated as such. AAL has its own set of grammatical, phonological, and morphological rules and... As teachers, we need to be able to understand that AAL will be spoken within our classrooms and just because some of us may not be familiar with using the language, does not mean that our students are incorrect. In order to overcome trying to "correct" our students, we instead, must validate them by welcoming their language, cultures and identities into the classroom, while also trying to help them understand that "...different audiences and contexts expect different language choices and that AAL is different then SAE, but neither is better or worse than the other..."
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To first introduce the internship, I'm in one of the English 130 workshops where 10 students attend to get extra help on their assignments, and the mentors that I am working with are Kasey and Cristina.
So far, I've noticed that the students are really quiet and like to keep to themselves and their groups. I'm not quite sure if it's because they're not that comfortable with us yet, or simply because they like to just focus on doing what they have to do. Either way is fine with me, but it would be nice to get them to talk a little bit more. I'd like to start to get to know and build some kind of relationship with them Hopefully over time, that can be reached. The first week I walked in, the students had already written an essay on one of their assigned readings. After the essay, the students had to make an artifact that represented themselves and honestly, they did such a great job at it. Some made videos that you can tell had a lot of effort put into, someone made their artifact using Piktochart and someone even made a comic strip. I was very proud of them and the work they put into their projects. Choose one or both of the readings and write a response on your site. Consider some take-aways, explore some challenging sections of the reading, think about the ideas in relation to your internship if that seems relevant. First and foremost, LPP is the process of which newcomers become a part of a community of practice and it provides a way to speak about the relations between newcomers and old-timers, and about activities, identities, artifacts, and communities of knowledge and practice. The process of learning knowledgeable skills is configured through becoming a full participant in a sociocultural practice. Now, not even going to lie to ya, after reading the first chapter of Legitimate Peripheral Participation, I. Was. Lost. BUT. After reading chapter three a couple times and actually seeing the different examples of apprenticeship, I started to gain a better understanding. After reading about the Quartermasters and learning that once they leave home to become a part of the institution for a few years, I compared it to us college students and future teachers. Once upon a time we all (well, most of us) left home to become a part of an institution for a few year, just as the Quartermasters. We have instructors and so called “officers” that work with us so we can have access to gain knowledgeable skills that pertain to our specialty. Speaking about teachers specifically when being compared to quartermasters, we have to do various similar things when it comes to working in these fields. Just like quartermasters, we go to specialized schools (aka the credential program) before we can complete the journey of becoming a teacher. We go into these schools not completely “trained” and without having quite that much experience. Then, once we’re in our actual field, we find that we need some extra guidance by our colleagues who have years of experience. Now, when it comes to this specific class and our internship, I compared ourselves to the tailors because the apprentice negotiates with a master tailor to take a newcomer into his house and make sure he learns the craft. Even though we newcomers aren’t assigned with “masters” we still are taken into the classroom to observe and learn some of the craft. I like how in the chapter, it states, “The developmental cycles that reproduce domestic groups and other communities of practice, the relations of newcomers to those who are adept, and the way in which divisions of labor articulate various kinds of communities of practice in communities in the larger sense all shape the identities that may be constructed, and with them, knowledgeable, skillful activity.” I liked this quote because of how true it is. As future educators, going through the process in this class the upcoming process that follows along after, all shape our identities through the knowledge and experience we obtained throughout the years. |
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