Using precise language is critical in good writing as well as in good--well, even just decent--teaching.
I've been thinking recently about my students' writing, and one of the flaws I see is that their language is often not very precise. They'll sometimes write things like, "Richard is always rebellious" when, in fact, he's not *always* rebellious--as they know. Or they'll say "everyone" does such and such when in fact it is just most people who are doing such and such. Even worse, several have written theses such as "Racism led Richard to become a more mature person" when "mature" really does not say what they mean. When pressed, they admit that "mature" just kind of gets at age; they eventually explain verbally the more specific things they mean, such as that he begins to think for himself and make his own decisions, which says so much more than that he is "mature." In another brutal example, I had a couple of students write in their character analysis of Atticus Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird that he is "fatherly." One student actually wrote that "Atticus is fatherly in situations that involve Scout and Jem"! The fact that he is their father makes this not the biggest insight or revelation. When pressed, they'll say that they define fatherly as loving or wise or respectful or fair--all of which say so much more than "fatherly."
Meanwhile, I shot myself in the foot Friday when using imprecise language myself. In my 10th grade class, they are working on an essay that is due this week. The homework I assigned them was to "revise their essay" and to "work on their essay" (I wrote one thing on the overhead and said the other), but in neither case did I explicitly add "and bring in your revised draft on Monday." OOPS! This sucks because I'd like for us to do more peer review Monday, yet I know some of the students won't have brought their paper simply because I didn't assign them to! They could have done the homework to revise their essay and yet not bring it in. Ugh. So, after deliberating about whether to call all 31 of my students to tell them to bring in their draft, thanks to Tomas, I am going with a Plan B to work on grammar revision and giving them one extra day to work on their essays. They better be good. And I better learn--and teach--the lesson to be precise in saying what we mean.
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3 comments:
Oh, yes. Word choice is *so* important... but don't give yourself the false hope that if only you can be precise enough, there won't be any misunderstandings or missed/bungled assignments. My students are expert mis-hearers, for example.
On a side note, I'm heading into To Kill a Mockingbird in a few weeks. Do you have a good unit for that?
I think you can do a wonderful job in being precise and still not necessarily have your intention be perfectly understood (which you'd still deserve some responsibility for), but you can at least reduce the risk of misunderstandings by choosing your words more intentionally. Too often I have just not worded things carefully, not anticipating the confusion that can result from this. Some are content related while others are about giving more specific details. One annoying example is assigning a paragraph written for homework in response to the reading. When I say a paragraph, I've been asked, how many sentences should the paragraph be? How many words?
I do have stuff for TKMB that I can email you. We're working on our essay this week.
Cool. Sent my address to NG to forward to you. Then again, you may already have it.
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