Language Investigation #2: Rollercoaster of Rules

From primary school to now has been a rollercoaster journey through language. It started as I learned the capital letters and where to put periods and has evolved to complex sentences and in depth writing. I have always enjoyed writing but never really paid much attention to how I was doing it. Looking back I can see different rules I have been taught and how I have used them and have grown as a writer.
I don’t have many writing memories from elementary school. The one thing I do remember is the multiple stories I wrote about my cat. All of them began pretty much the same way: “My cat is black and white. Her name is Thelma Lou. She is fat.” Obviously this is very simple and pretty straight forward. The main rules I know I was careful to use were to capitalize the beginning of each sentence and to put a period at the end of each sentence. Commas really didn’t exist for me yet. However, I remember being told never to start a sentence with “and,” “but” or “or.” I have recently learned that it is actually okay to do this. Everything was simple back then and I could see it in my writing. However, going in to middle school things changed considerably.
Once again, I can’t remember too much from middle school. In language arts I remember learning the format of an essay. You needed to have an introduction, three following paragraphs for three main points, and then ended with a conclusion that summed up everything previously stated. I also remember learning about word choice and remember learning to use a thesaurus. Word choice was very important to me. I really liked to find really good descriptive words that helped my writing stand out. All my teachers were impressed with some of the words I found to use. One of my big memories from middle school is about how to use voice. I never knew what that was even though I had been using voice in my writings for years. I learned this through a science paper believe it or not. I had forgot to write a paper and wrote on at the last minute about the digestive system. It was horrible. I received a low grade on the paper, but the teacher was letting me re-do it for a chance to bump my grade up to passing. This time I sat down diligently and wrote a paper about the journey of a cookie through the digestive system. My use of voice is what really came from this paper. My teachers were amazed at how I took on the persona of a cookie and how real and fun it sounded. They still use my paper as an example.
High school was where I really began to blossom as a writer. I was learning so many new things and these things were relevant and I remember a lot of them. I learned about paragraph structure, sentence phrasing, and punctuation rules, and learned various techniques for writing different genres. There has been one thing however that has remained incredibly inconsistent throughout high school. That thing is the topic or thesis statement. I’ve learned many different rules regarding this. I had one teacher who told me as long as it was in my introduction somewhere that was good. This teacher also said my introduction could be two paragraphs if I wanted. Later on I learned that my introduction must be one paragraph and no longer and that my thesis statement needed to be at end of my intro. I’ve also heard that the thesis goes in the middle, and have been told it must go at the very beginning. At this point I don’t think there are any real rules for this. It’s up to the writer, or in this case, the person grading the paper.
At this point in my life I feel that I don’t truly understand any rules of grammar or language. I’ve been told so many different things so the real rules are just in a scramble with the others. I don’t even think rules are that important for most of my writing. What is important is what my teacher wants. I want the good grade so I will write my paper in the style that my teacher wants rather than how maybe it truly should be. Somewhere along the way rules have gotten lost and pushed aside. Now that this class is about the real rules and those are the things the teacher wants, hopefully I’ll gain a whole new set of skills. I need to keep my mind open to learning and trying new things in my writing to make my writing use the best language possible.

Language Investigation #1: Word Jungle of tiny people

“No thank you!” “Walking feet please.” “Use your words!” Would you use these phrases to talk to your best friend, or your mom? Probably not. However, these are the words I use everyday at my job. Working with four year olds requires a whole new set of vocabulary that one is not used to. You see a four year old jetting full speed across the classroom do you yell out to him, “STOP IT NOW!” Well, you could. However, this would result in the four year old stopping abruptly, turning to look at you with wide eyes and shortly following the boy would throw his head back and tears would pour out of his eyes while a loud shriek rang from his lungs. It takes patience and a lot of thinking to become accustomed to the vocabulary needed to truly reach these four year olds.

One big part of my work vocabulary is referring to everyone around as “my friend” or “my friends.” I can’t go around in my classes and say, “excuse me friend, can you tell me the homework assignment?” The person I asked would probably look at me with a wary expression and turn away. At work I’m used to saying, “you need to be nice to my friends,” and “Excuse me friends, we need to be quiet.” When you are four, everyone can be your friend no questions asked. No one passes judgments or thinks on kid is the “un-cool” kid. Everyone is cool in their eyes, and to help the kids stay equal with each other I help them by calling them and my co-workers my friends.

Another saying we use at work is, “Listen to my words please.” When talking to a friend or a co-worker you would simply say, “Listen please.” But with four year olds things need to be broken down. I need to explain to them exactly what I want them to listen to. Four year olds are so crazy and tend to want to be on their own and act how they want. However, if I let this happen my classroom would be total chaos. To avoid a whirlwind of four year olds terrorizing the classroom and taking complete barbaric rule I give them specific orders and break things down to the most simple things to help them understand and give them more of a chance to adhere.

I could spend five pages explaining the vocabulary of “Miss Jessica” and her four year olds, but I think you get the point. When talking to my four year olds I need to simplify things down to the exact detail and I need to keep my kids on an equal level basis. I can’t talk to them like I would talk to a fellow adult and sometimes I forget who I’m talking to even when I’m with my friends. I’m with my kids so much quite often I find myself telling my friends to “listen to my words,” or I’ll tell them “no thank you” when they do something I don’t like. A person’s vocabulary changes depending on the situation they are in and what kind of point they want to get across. I like my “no thank yous,” and my “use your words,” and my “walking feets” while I’m at work. I feel my words help maintain balance in what could become a jungle of tiny people, and they help those tiny people develop their own words on their way to becoming adults.

Memory Vignette about languate for CO301D

We were terrified. My partner and I stood frozen outside the door. Our turn was next. It’d been years since anyone has made it to the final rounds in a speech tournament from our school. We were competing in improvisational pairs. We got our two characters, a brown bear and a polar, and our setting, at the zoo. From this we were to prepare a 7 minute skit with only 5 minutes of preparation time that would be better and well developed than the other 5 teams competing against us. The door opened, “Will the team of Johnson and Click please come in the room,” the judge asked. We entered. The judge gave us the “go ahead” signal and we began. My partner and I glanced at each and just started speaking. We had a rough outline of what we wanted to happen, but the words flowed out of our mouths effortlessly and effectively. No only did we make the judge laugh with some of our jokes and silly phrases, but we also left him with a moral, something to think about. Seven minutes went by quickly and our use of language seemed to guide us through it easily.

Three hours later, and the awards ceremony, they called the 6 of us improve pairs teams up on stage. One by one, starting with 6^th place they began to give out awards. As they got down to 2^nd place there were only two teams standing; my partner and I, and a team of two boys whom we had befriended. Our whole team awaited anxiously in their seats, holding their breath. I could see my coach was on the edge of her seat. “2^nd place, from Lakewood High school, the team of Morris and Smith,” the announcer called.

My partner and I were floored. The next thing we heard was that we got first and we were given our huge first place trophies. My team was on their feet clapping with joy. This was the first award Standley Lake High School’s forensics team had gotten in over six years! Because of our use of language, we were able to bring some fame to our school and make our coach and administrators proud. Our administrators even caved in and gave us some more funding for tournament fees and we were able to buy team t-shirts. Once the rest of our school had seen what could be done in the Speech team through language, more and more people joined. That year there were eight members of the Speech Team. Today I went back to visit and the team is now up to well over thirty members!

First Post!

This is the first post of my blog for co301D. Yay!