In the assigned readings, Alexie (“The Joy of Reading and Writing ”), Tan (“Mother Tongue ”), Baldwin (“If Black English Isn’t a Language, Then Tell Me, What Is? ”), and Anzaldúa (“How to Tame a Wild Tongue ”) all talk on the purposes and depth of language. Let’s call these examples “linguistic autobiography”. Each author does this in their own way and uses their own experiences and knowledge. They also make claims (arguments) of what ways language has shaped their own lives or their community. (Review Week 2’s PowerPoint to be clear what I mean by “claims”.) (four articles would be attached) Now think about your own language experience. Here are some questions to get the ball rolling (this is not a checklist, just questions to get some ideas)— 1. Where are you from? Where have you been? How does that influence the way you speak and understand language? How has space influenced your language? 2. What types of language do you use with different people? With a family member? A professor? A celebrity or someone you really respect? 3. What sort of registers (varieties of language used for a particular social setting) do you tend to use? How much jargon or slang? How does situation influence word choice? 4. Have you ever had someone comment on the way you speak? What were they saying about your language? 5. In what kind of situations are you able to communicate with ease? Task— Write (or create) a linguistic autobiography, reflect upon and analyze your own experiences and your own development with language. This paper needs to be 2-3 pages (around 600-900 words). Unless you want to choose otherwise, your target audience is other college students your age (although I will be the only one who needs to read your paper). I have had students fulfill this assignment through written accounts (the most common), through recorded audio (including some of the best autobiographies), or through a comic with both text and images. Be creative with how you fulfill the assignment. If you’re unsure what “2-3 pages” translates to in other genres, please send me a message. Each of you brings a distinct and unique experience with language—in this assignment, you can (but do not need to) model after any one of the styles or genres used by Baldwin, Anzaldúa, Alexie, and Tan in order to write your own personal discourse on your experience with the language. Writers memo [Outcome 4 (Links to an external site.)]- Include a writer’s memo (less than 250 words, which don’t count toward the above word count) IN THE COMMENTS of this assignment. (Comments can be entered when you upload your assignment or by clicking “Submission Details” on the Assignment page after submitting.) Describe your writing process and where you tried to make conscious rhetorical choices in this piece of writing. This is a tool to help me understand your writing and a tool for you at the end of the quarter to help you write a portfolio reflection. This will not be graded and will not be included in your final portfolio, but will be considered for your participation grade. Some questions to consider for the writer’s memo: Why and how did you choose to write on this? What was your claim? How did you support your claim? What do you think you did well on in this assignment and where do you feel you could improve? FEEDBACK OUTLINE (this is what I’ll focus my feedback on)— Does this paper 1. Provide context for the reader. [Outcome 1 (Links to an external site.)] 2. Make some kind of claim about language (a claim is a statement that is supported with evidence). [Outcome 3 (Links to an external site.)] 3. Critically analyze your own language. 4. Don’t just describe how you speak but why you speak that way. Why is it important? 5. Consider how situation/environment affects the way you speak. Since it is an autobiography, I would like to talk about myself a little bit. I am Chinese and Chinese mandarin is my first language. We started learning English in Elementary school, but it was not enough to prepare me to live here and study with my second language even though I was the top three in my English class. then I decided to come to the US for high school. In high school, I was a little self-conscious about my English, which limited my social life and other opportunities. Luckily, I met some great teachers, especially my tutor Miss Kowolenko, who is very supportive and encouraging. My English got better and better over the years. And the way how I view things started to change because I adapted to American thinkings, subconsciously, in the process of turning into a more fluent English speaker. I use different English with my host family and my friends, just like any other students, I use a lot of slangs while talking to my friends or classmates. and I use more formal English while speaking to my host parents and grandma. Now, I’d say making small talks are the easiest for me. I don’t know why it just comes easy for me. And I really like to get to know people. And small talks are always the first step for that.
