Culture: August 2008 Archive Page

I'm teaching a 200-level "Writing for the Internet" class, with students ranging from seniors to first-semester freshmen.  Our opening unit is on social, academic, and professional conventions, foregrounding the fact that the internet on which young people play and learn is the same internet in which the adults in their lives are teaching and working (and playing, and learning).

Senior Denamarie Ercolani, responding to an April NYT article about the prevalence of IM shortcuts in high-schoolers' written work, writes

I, personally, have never used emoticons, text shortcuts or omitted proper grammar and puncuation in my schoolwork, but outside of essays and other schoolwork, I find myself using this new form of communication frequently. Any type of writing is real writing even if it is improper.

You can see for yourself what some other students had to say about that article.  In a comment on Denamarie's blog, MS replied:

As an English teacher, all that I have to say is that these IM's and text messages are destroying the English language faster than anything else... This abomination of our language is not cute, hip or expressive; it is dangerous.

I sympathize deeply with MS, and expect that any student of MS's will be well prepared for the rigors of college writing.  Yet I can't share MS's hatred of txtspk -- a wildly successful, specialized offshoot of English, characterized by its reliance upon thumb power, creative use of abbreviations, and the expectation that any useful bit of communication will likely involve numerous rapid back-and-forth sallies.

As homework for another class, a student asked me to give her my definition of a story.  I didn't pull out any narrative theory books to refine it, and I didn't try to put any special cybertextual spin on it, which I would have done if I'd spent more time thinking about it.  Anyway, here's here's what I came up with.

A story is a casually causally-connected sequence of events that focus on a central character's moral choices, or that present for the reader's judgment the central character's obligation to respond to events outside of the character's control, or that expect the reader to make a moral judgment responding to the character's actions.  I don't mean that a story has to be preachy, just that the events described have to be significant enough that we can see a change in the central character (or that we see the central character choosing not to change, which is, of course a moral choice). 

 

I'd say that the same story (such as Cinderella, or The Prodigal Son) can be presented in verse, prose, on stage, in a painting, etc., but that any one particular telling of the story (such as the Egyptian version of Cinderella, or the Disney Cinderella, or Sesame Street's CinderElmo) shouldn't be confused with the core elements that make up the essence of the story (the fact that you need a lowly person, the magical intervention, the person in a high position falling in love with the transformed lowly person, the clue left at the separation, the search, and the searcher's acceptance of the transformed person's true identity).

Am I a bad person because I found this Language Log posting hilarious?

Which word is grosser?

#27	Moist	Used
Men	48%	52%
Women	56%	44%

I remember the Biden law school incident. Not long after that, during the Clarence Thomas hearings, I remember reading that law school students were secretly photocopying homework assignments submitted by their arch enemies, in the hopes of one day using that information to torpedo a big political appointment.

By choosing Joe Biden as his running mate, Barack Obama has insulted academics -- students and teachers alike -- a constituency that was significant in bringing him the nomination of his party. Especially in a year that has seen two prominent political careers hamstrung by sex scandals, and in an era where choosing vice presidential candidates seems to be foremost an exercise in avoiding skeletons in the closet, it's surprising that Biden's record of plagiarism did not disqualify him from Obama's consideration.

Joe Biden, you will remember, ran for president in 1988. He delivered a speech that presented the thoughts of British Labour Party Leader Neil Kinnock is if they were his own, and was slow to explain or apologize for this transgression. The ensuing scrutiny of Biden's record revealed that he had also plagiarized in law school, failing a course for doing so. Shortly after these revelations, he dropped out of the race. -- Jonathan Beecher Field

Our provost sent this link to English faculty members this morning.

One of my recent juniors was particularly eloquent on the subject. After having sat in my classroom for a year forcefully projecting his boredom, he started an e-mail dialogue with me over the summer. "The reason for studying fiction escapes me," he wrote. "Why waste time thinking about fabricated situations when there are plenty of real situations that need solutions? Cloning, ozone depletion, and alternate fuels are a few of the countless problems that need to be addressed by the next generation, my generation."

Okay, you may think, this is a kid geared to excel in history and science, not literature. But read his closing words: "Granted fiction has a place in this world, but it is not in the classroom. It is beside the night lamp next to your bed, the car ride to the beach, the soft glow of a fireplace. Fiction is about spending beautiful days indoors because you can't wait to get to the next page. Because I like science fiction, my Shakespeare, my Fitzgerald, my Dickinson are Haldeman, Asimov, Herbert. They dare me to think and question my beliefs."

So there you have it: A smart teen and motivated reader goes to high-school English class and discovers that the classics have nothing to offer him. "The reason I did not participate in class," he admitted, "was that I found the reading a chore." -- Nancy Schnog, The Washington Post

While I think it's an important part of a liberal arts education that a student know something about the great, formative stories of his or her nation and/or tongue, I can sympathize with Schnog. Several students in my "History and Future of the Book" course last term reported that school made them fall out of love with reading. And I'm not surprised, when I see how many English majors arrive on campus with the idea that studying a work means memorizing the contents of the Big Dusty Book of Literary Meanings (you know, the one that says blue symbolizes peace, and that if you can match up a detail in the story with a detail from what Wikipedia says about the author's life, then your job interpreting the text is done).  I realize that high school students generally aren't ready for college-level critical thinking, but I'm still surprised at how tightly some students cling to the expectation that my job is to tell them what a passage means, and that their job is to memorize what I say and spit it back.

I enjoy teaching "Introduction to Literary Study" and "Writing about Literature" because I'm free to sample different time periods, genres, and geographical zones.  Likewise, I get a lot of flexibility when I teach "Drama as Literature" -- I can cover anything that counts as drama.  I always hope that somewhere along the way students will encounter a text that inspires them to dig beneath the surface. 

Thanks for the link, Rosemary. From The Atlantic.

Economists and ecologists sometimes speak of the "tragedy of the commons"--the way rational individual actions can collectively reduce the common good when resources are limited. How this applies to traffic safety may not be obvious. It's easy to understand that although it pays the selfish herdsman to add one more sheep to common grazing land, the result may be overgrazing, and less for everyone. But what is the limited resource, the commons, in the case of driving? It's attention. Attending to a sign competes with attending to the road. The more you look for signs, for police, and at your speedometer, the less attentive you will be to traffic conditions. The limits on attention are much more severe than most people imagine. And it takes only a momentary lapse, at the wrong time, to cause a serious accident.

If my old shoebox of Meego Star Trek action figures turns up, I'll consider myself very happy. Seton Hill's librarian, David Stanley, reports an even more significant historical find. From the Reeves Library blog.

Kelly Addleman, our public services librarian, received an email from a researcher in Germany who has been making a survey of the illumination appearing in early bibles published by Anton Koberger. Well, it turns out that we have one in our possession. We own a Biblia Latina which was published in 1478. The illuminations are so beautiful that I thought I would share some with you. I am also including a letter that establishes its provenance.

I've cropped part of the letter (apparently written about 60 years ago).  Click the image for a slight enlargement, or see the full original.

From the BBC... thanks for the suggestion, Rosemary.

The 3,000-year-old skeletons were in such good condition that anthropologists at the University of Goettingen managed to extract a sample of DNA. That was then matched to two men living nearby: Uwe Lange, a surveyor, and Manfred Huchthausen, a teacher. The two men have now become local celebrities.

"It's odd, standing here in the same area where my ancestors were buried. I felt really strange when I had the bones, the skull of my great-great-great grandfather dating back 120 generations, in my hands," said Manfred.

An Ohio State press release discusses how a student's psychological profile correlates to academic integrity. An interesting study in rhetoric, focusing on promoting a cultural identity for the "academic heroes" who do honest work, rather than hunting and trapping those whose behavior is less exemplary:

The students completed measures that examined their bravery, honesty and empathy.  The researchers separated those who scored in the top half of those measures and contrasted them with those in the bottom half.

Those who scored in the top half - whom the researchers called "academic heroes" - were less likely to have reported cheating in the past 30 days and the last year compared to the non-heroes.  They also indicated they would be less likely to cheat in the next 30 days in one of their classes.

Wondermark

 

Teaching a large first-year course at a British university, I am fed up with correcting my students' atrocious spelling. Aren't we all!?

But why must we suffer? Instead of complaining about the state of the education system as we correct the same mistakes year after year, I've got a better idea. University teachers should simply accept as variant spelling those words our students most commonly misspell. -- Ken Smith, Times Higher Education Supplement

I sympathize with Ken Smith's frustration, but not the solution he proposes.

There's a good case to be made for being flexible with language. Text-message abbreviations and chat-room shortcuts are not simply degraded forms of idealized English. They are a set of conventions that serve a purpose, such as improving the efficiency of two-thumb typists, or letting members of a group focus on the free flow of ideas (or gossip, or vitriol, or whatever) rather than on the more rigid and time-consuming conventions of standard prose.

Professionals and educators have little to gain by belittling or ignoring the accomplishments of youngsters who are skilled in these kinds of communication, just as today's college students have much to lose if they don't take advantage of their time at university to develop the intellectual habits that are necessary for the reading and writing of complex, well-organized, authoritative texts.

Ken, I'd suggest that you let students know that certain assignments, such as in-class essays or overnight reflection papers, will be evaluated only on creativity, or the student's ability to apply a key concept or to spot the methodological error in a case study.

But for an assignment in which the student has access to a spell-checker, or where the point of the assignment is to model professional behavior (writing reports that could be used to determine a defendant's guilt or innocence, for example), to encourage this kind of compositional sloppiness would be a crime.

I'm not exaggerating when I say that I think the lack of respect for math and science is one of the largest unacknowledged problems in today's society. And it starts in the academy -- somehow, we have moved to a place where people can consider themselves educated while remaining ignorant of remarkably basic facts of math and science. If I admit an ignorance of art or music, I get sideways looks, but if I argue for taking a stronger line on math and science requirements, I'm being unreasonable. The arts are essential, but Math Is Hard, and I just need to accept that not everybody can handle it.--Chad Orzel, Inside Higher Ed

When I teach "News Writing," I include a brief unit on reporting with statistics and percentages, and the "New Media Projects" seminar exposes upper-level students to various computer programming tasks.

I wonder whether Orzel would feel comforted to know that I regularly encounter people who laughingly dismiss their self-proclaimed inability to master the (heart-breakingly simple) rule about when to use "its" and when to use "it's."

From a 2007 report on liberal education, by the Association of American Colleges and Universities.

Knowledge of Human Cultures and the Physical and Natural World

• Through study in the sciences and mathematics, social sciences,
  humanities, histories, languages, and the arts

Focused by engagement with big questions, both contemporary
and enduring

Intellectual and Practical Skills, Including

• Inquiry and analysis
• Critical and creative thinking
• Written and oral communication
• Quantitative literacy
• Information literacy
• Teamwork and problem solving

Practiced extensively, across the curriculum, in the context of
progressively more challenging problems, projects, and standards for performance

Personal and Social Responsibility, Including

• Civic knowledge and engagement--local and global
• Intercultural knowledge and competence
• Ethical reasoning and action
• Foundations and skills for lifelong learning

Anchored through active involvement with diverse communities and real-world challenges

Integrative Learning, Including

• Synthesis and advanced accomplishment across general and
  specialized studies

Demonstrated through the application of knowledge, skills, and
responsibilities to new settings and complex problems