A Mature Reaction
Who taught me the discourse? My answer is simple: it's all Nona Horsley's fault. Well, mostly. Mrs. DuBois is partially to blame as well.
Mrs. DuBois was my eleventh grade honors English teacher. The self-proclaimed Lady-of-the-woods was having a love affair with language long before I walked into her classroom. Some days it seemed as though she had randomly chosen large words from a gargantuan hat (with a "press" sign tucked into the band) to use in her lectures for the day. Every two weeks, she would dance around the class as she handed out vocabulary lists.
"Use these words!" she would exclaim. "Make them your own! Incorporate them into all of the papers you write. Bring them up in conversation. Who cares if people think you're crazy at first? You need to exercise a muscle to make it strong. Exercise your vocabulary!"
Mrs. DuBois also used rhythmic sentences to teach us other things. We all snickered behind our hands at first. But before long, conversations in between class included, "William Cullen Bryant wrote Thanatopsis" and words like bugbear and superfluous and beneficent. Once in a while, we tossed a word or two into our papers for good measure, but we enjoyed using such words in conversation too much to confine them to our papers.
My vocabulary was not incorporated into my papers until Mrs. Horsley demanded it. Her one great tool in forcing me to learn how to include words in my papers? Fear. She provided us with list after list of vocabulary we needed. If we did not know this vocabulary, we could not possibly pass the AP English test. I had always excelled at English, but I began to feel inadequate.
"An AP test grader will not be impressed with a student who describes the tone of a poem as being nice," Mrs. Horsley lectured on the first day of class. "You may be able to get away with using 'positive' or 'negative.' But don't count on it. None of you could pass the test right now. You need more writing skills. You need to read more. And you need more vocabulary. Learn to use your vocabulary to your advantage and you have passed the AP test."
"Mrs. DuBois taught you to use your vocabulary in everyday conversation. You have used it to impress people for the past year. Let me tell you now that you sounded like idiots. Nobody speaks like that in everyday conversation because we do not speak like we write. It's cliché, I know, but you've learned to talk the talk. I'm here to teach you how to walk the walk." And she did. At the same time, she taught us the importance of separating the discourse from everyday life.
I do not think a student can survive the university without learning the discourse. I've found that one of the tricks of being a writing tutor is knowing when to shut off the discourse valve. We may be forced to communicate that way in our papers, but communicating that way in person turns a student off a tutoring session faster than bad breath.
I think the trick is to make the discourse your own. Learn it as you must, but twist it as you will.
Mrs. DuBois was my eleventh grade honors English teacher. The self-proclaimed Lady-of-the-woods was having a love affair with language long before I walked into her classroom. Some days it seemed as though she had randomly chosen large words from a gargantuan hat (with a "press" sign tucked into the band) to use in her lectures for the day. Every two weeks, she would dance around the class as she handed out vocabulary lists.
"Use these words!" she would exclaim. "Make them your own! Incorporate them into all of the papers you write. Bring them up in conversation. Who cares if people think you're crazy at first? You need to exercise a muscle to make it strong. Exercise your vocabulary!"
Mrs. DuBois also used rhythmic sentences to teach us other things. We all snickered behind our hands at first. But before long, conversations in between class included, "William Cullen Bryant wrote Thanatopsis" and words like bugbear and superfluous and beneficent. Once in a while, we tossed a word or two into our papers for good measure, but we enjoyed using such words in conversation too much to confine them to our papers.
My vocabulary was not incorporated into my papers until Mrs. Horsley demanded it. Her one great tool in forcing me to learn how to include words in my papers? Fear. She provided us with list after list of vocabulary we needed. If we did not know this vocabulary, we could not possibly pass the AP English test. I had always excelled at English, but I began to feel inadequate.
"An AP test grader will not be impressed with a student who describes the tone of a poem as being nice," Mrs. Horsley lectured on the first day of class. "You may be able to get away with using 'positive' or 'negative.' But don't count on it. None of you could pass the test right now. You need more writing skills. You need to read more. And you need more vocabulary. Learn to use your vocabulary to your advantage and you have passed the AP test."
"Mrs. DuBois taught you to use your vocabulary in everyday conversation. You have used it to impress people for the past year. Let me tell you now that you sounded like idiots. Nobody speaks like that in everyday conversation because we do not speak like we write. It's cliché, I know, but you've learned to talk the talk. I'm here to teach you how to walk the walk." And she did. At the same time, she taught us the importance of separating the discourse from everyday life.
I do not think a student can survive the university without learning the discourse. I've found that one of the tricks of being a writing tutor is knowing when to shut off the discourse valve. We may be forced to communicate that way in our papers, but communicating that way in person turns a student off a tutoring session faster than bad breath.
I think the trick is to make the discourse your own. Learn it as you must, but twist it as you will.
posted by Anonymous at 7:50 PM
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