CITI Training & Discussion Norms Check-in (2-10 min)

Any issues since last class? Want to finish registering now and get a sense of how to do the course?

Here is discussion code of conduct based on your brainstormed ideas from last class on Aug 30. I’ll also put the link to the code of conduct on our Course Website in the main menu.

Linguistic Facts of Life and Language Ideology (30 minutes)

Let’s look at this PowerPoint to talk about some linguistics research that can be helpful for thinking about how “who we are” impacts what we say, write, and how both are perceived.

Take 2 minutes and go back through annotations you made on both readings, skim through the readings themselves. Start to note what stands out to you as useful for answering the same questions we talked about in the PowerPoint. For 5 minutes, write in response.

Let’s share some responses in pairs and groups for 5-10 minutes.

Other possible questions:

1. What is a wild tongue? Anzaldúa says they can only be cut out, not tamed. Why do you think they say that?
2. What was it like to read the Chicano Spanish that Anzaldúa uses? Why do you think Anzaldúa uses Chicano Spanish in her essay?
3. How many languages do you think you have? How do you know? How can you use them as a writer? Or should you never write certain languages? Why or why not?
4. Why do languages change? How come Spanish became Chicano Spanish in a certain region of the southwest US and Mexico? How come there is a thing called AAVE? Or, really, anything? How come there is not just an “English”?
5. One of the section titles of Anzaldúa’s essay is “Linguistic Terrorism.” What do you think that means in the context of this essay?
6. Looking at annotations and picking ones that stand out to us.

So what?

I think these two readings display how many (all?) of us carry around with us several languages, but we might feel embarrassed or shamed into only using some of them in certain situations. What do we do with that shame? How do we balance that with goals we want to achieve with our words?

How do we get the most joy we can out of using the languages that we want to use?

How do we deal with stigma?

How much is up to us and how much should be up to readers/listeners?

What do we do with all of this in regard to writing we do?

Our Languages Exhibit (20 min)

Here’s my languages:

Here are my unofficial languages, for an example:

• US White Mainstream English
• “Academic” English (e.g., “let’s unpack that”; “problematize”; “dissertation”)
• US government / military English (e.g., “get the digits for that,” “what are the due outs?”, “shut up and color”)
• South Philly / South Jersey English (e.g., “looka dis strapper,” “wooder,” “don’t need no beggels”)
• Western Pennsylvania English (e.g., “nebby”, “dippy eggs,” “slippy,” “chip-chop ham”)
• Restaurant Work English (e.g., “right behind ya”, “fire”)
• Italian American English (e.g., “galamar,” “moozarell,” “greaseball”)
• Gaming (e.g., “gg”)
• US Sports Fan (e.g., “defense wins championships,” “establish the run game,” “want the shot”)
• Parenting English (I speak a different way to my young kids!: “potty,” “bye bye”)
• Internet(??) English (from computers in general, Twitter, Reddit, etc.: “evergreen,” “tweet through it,” “tl;dr”, “hard restart”)
• Very Basic School Spanish (e.g., “ir a la playa,”—I liked to go to the beach when I wrote essays for Spanish classes)
• Very very Basic School German (e.g., Don’t make me try to remember this 6 week class)
• Italian Curse Words (really, just part of Italian American above) (e.g., “fongool”/”fanculo,” “marone”)

Take 5-10 minutes and do the following:

• List all of the languages, dialects, and registers of English you speak.
• Choose one word, phrase, grammatical construction, or pronunciation from one of your languages that an outsider would not understand the meaning of (or at least not completely understand it). Then, define that word and use it in a sentence. For instance, “jawn” is Philly English and it can be used to replace any noun like “you wanna go to that pizza jawn for lunch?”
• Write all of these on the paper I hand out to you. Write neatly! Everyone is going to walk around the room to see everyone’s work as part of our languages exhibit.

Let’s see it all! As you walk around, choose: one that you are also part of and one you are interested in learning more about.

Why do this? What good is any of this, to have all of these languages and ways of writing? I say we forget all of this stuff and everyone should talk and write like me. What do you all think?

Introduction to Information Literacy Assignment (30-45 min)

On Blackboard, you can find the prompt for the Information Literacy assignment. I want you to have some version of a draft (i.e., a “shitty first draft”) for September 13.

Let’s talk about the assignment.

Let’s try some freewriting. Either on your device or on pen and paper. Do not pick up your pen, keep writing. Try write as many associations and possibilities for this assignment as you possibly can.

Next Time (2-5 min)

• Submit your working writer’s journal entry by tonight and update labor log by tonight
• Read “Defining My Identity Through Language: What I Learned about Literacy Narratives” by Kim Liao
• Post at least five annotations
• Complete CITI Training; Upload CITI Training Certificate
• Keep up with your Labor Log
• START WORKING ON INFORMATION LITERACY NARRATIVE