Coma Toast Students Mall the Language

Not sure if I posted this before, but even if I did, it's funny enough to repost.


Coma Toast Students Mall the Language
by Julie A. Davey

 I was grading papers this weekend when I realized that, in addition to Ebonics and Hebronics, there is another non-standard English in which teachers need to be trained.

Stubonics.

This is a written and spoken language used by students that crosses ethnic, racial and gender boundaries. Example" One of my evening students wrote, in an article on travel, " When you go to Hawaii, you need to take along a lots of incest repellent be but mate." I thought it might have been a typo, when I called it to his attention, he stared blankly at me. And only a few in the class chuckled.

Grading another paper recently, I read the words "curb few" in an essay. After questioning the student who wrote the paper, she said, matter-of-factly, "You know, the law that says you can't stand around on the sidewalk after certain hours -- a curb few." She said that she thought it was some sort of gang-prevention law. Many nodded their heads in agreement.

A new term this year was discovered when a foreign student turned in a paper that used the words, "I mall." I asked her to use it another sentence for me. hoping I'd understand. She wrote, "I mall, like scared. ya know?" Then I got it right away. How silly of me not to recognize it as "I'm all like scared." I'd heard that a thousand times, but not as often as when I taught in the San Fernando Valley.

Teachers also need to know that, "He goes and then I go," stands for "He said, and then I said." Nobody is actually going anywhere.

Well-grounded is another term of which teachers need to be aware. "Students should take courses in art, music and dance so they can become well-grounded," one student wrote.

And just recently, I've learned that "thank you" now means that "I agree completely." The teacher says in a lecture on the media, "Watching too much television is thought to cause violent behavior." The student echoes, "Thank you," as if he were in church saying, "Amen."

Last semester I had a hard time keeping a straight face after I asked a journalism student to explain what it meant to libel or slander someone. She thought for a moment, and then blurted out, "I know, I know. Defecation of character." I had to agree with her, at least on a literal level.

Another legal term teachers may hear is "bail lift," as in: "The bail lift is the guy you pay money to when you want to get out of jail." And when referring to court terminology, "A rain mat is the time in court when you tell the judge your sob story."

Today, though, as I graded papers, I learned a new descriptive term I'd like to share with my colleagues in education.

A student athlete had written a commentary article for the college newspaper explaining how hard it is to arise each morning at 4:30 to make it to swim-team practice. "At that hour of the day, I'm in a coma toast state."

Aren't we all.

Thank you. 

 Source: Coma toast students mall the language. By: Davey, Jukie A., Black Issues in Higher Education, 07420277, 04/03/97, Vol. 14, Issue 3

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I'm starting a new thematic unit with my students this week, combining elements of persuasive writing and critical thinking skills – the goal is to get students to not only get comfortable with using persuasive techniques, but to recognize when various persuasive techniques are being used on them.

Where better to look than the world of advertising?

It's been estimated that U.S. Corporations spend approximately $450 billion a year on ads. And that's not just billboards and TV spots, that's market research, focus groups, psychologists, sociologists, and a horde of other assorted ologists. All of this, I explained to my students, was to design ads that make us want to buy, but not necessarily want to think. Today, I told them, they would be thinking instead.

I chose four advertisements – cigarette ads, because I figured that since people already knew that smoking was dangerous, so advertisers would have to go the extra mile to make it glamorous. I wasn't disappointed, but I've noticed something interesting – most cigarette ads show people outdoors, socializing, having fun, generally doing all sorts of things... except actually smoking. I plan to bring that up for an upcoming lesson on subtext – getting a message across without being explicit.

I had the students choose an advertisement and answer five simple questions: First, describe the ad – what do you see; what's going on? How does the ad get your attention? Who is the target audience – the people the ad was designed for? What ideas or values are being presented in the ad? Finally, how is the ad trying to get you to buy the product?

The next step was a short essay about an unintentional message from advertising. A year ago, Dove released a body wash ad which stirred up some controversy. I presented a copy of the ad to the students and asked them to prepare a short essay giving their opinion.

Here's a copy of the ad: http://www.teachablemoment.org/images/dovead.pdf the issue was a subtle message of racism based on the positions of the women – from “before” to “after.” Much ado about nothing, or did Dove drop the ball?

It's a good lesson, one which emphasizes the more hidden messages about advertising – including unintentional ones. My next step is going to be getting my students to design their own ads – I only need to decide what the product is going to be.

Politics, Politics, Politics...

I make it a professional rule that while I want my class discussions and student assignments to be topical, I don't necessarily want them to be too politically charged. I've had plenty of professors who've made no secret of their political leanings, and have been more than happy to share their views, sometimes to the point of preaching, other times far beyond – I had a history professor once who was such a stanch Republican that he joked that he was impotent during the entire Carter administration.

In keeping with my “keep my personal life out of the classroom” policy, I've avoided inserting my own political views in class discussions and assignments, and in the interest of keeping order, I've tried not to touch on too many politically charged topics. Current events are all well and good, but I don't want to cause any arguments, nor do want to even appear to influence my own students with my own views – there are too many who hold on to the lingering belief that it's wrong to disagree with their professor.

But current events in an election year are inevitably political, and while I've avoided topics on the election directly, it's impossible to avoid the big issues for long – especially when the theme for the assignments happens to be argumentation and debate.

This week, I had discovered three interesting articles which were prime examples of persuasive writing, and clearly demonstrated several of the key elements I had wanted to illustrate – claims, inductive and deductive reasoning, rebuttals, the whole works. The problem? Not only were all the articles on the same topic (capital punishment), they all espoused the same view (they were against it).

Incidentally, I'm not against capital punishment – I support it, albeit only in the most extreme of crimes. The point is that I made sure to explain to my students that these articles were being offered only as examples of argumentation, and the fact that they were all on the same topic was unintentional.

The ensuing discussions were lively, but controlled – students were able to analyze what was said and how it was said without any heated debates going on as to capital punishment. Some of them chose to write about the topic in an in-class essay – some agreed, some rebutted (not very well, in either case, but they're trying), and others were content to analyze the message of one or more articles, comparing and contrasting the various authors' approaches, choosing the best. All told, I was pleased with their results.

As teachers, it is our responsibility to teach our students how to think without telling them what to think. The potential to abuse our authority (even unwittingly) over our students is great, but it is not something that should scare us away from keeping our lessons on-topic and interesting.

Happy Easter!

No post this week; just getting ready to enjoy my Easter break, and I hope you do too!