For this paper, we'd like you to focus on a particular aspect or challenge of teaching writing, one perhaps unique to your present teaching situation or, if you have not taught, a topic or challenge r
Running head: CAPSTONE PAPER
Unlearning A Language to Relearn English
Marcus Padgett
ENGL 607
Liberty University
Unlearning A Language to Relearn English
There are many difficulties when starting a new job. You have to be the new person which is always nerve wrecking. Then of course you have to learn new things and how the company, or whatever you work for, operates and eventually become a functioning member of that organization. The same can be said for switching career fields or retiring from one job and transferring to another. Many within the military face this struggle when transitioning from military life to civilian life. Above all else it is a culture shock because you have to not only learn new things, but you have to learn how an entirely different culture operates outside what the former member has known for the past 20+ years.
I say culture because the military is like its own society outside of what you would consider the norm. We wear a uniform which is not uncommon to do in a civilian workplace. However, the uniform represents an entire nation of people and comes with many rules, regulations and stigmas for wearing it. Most jobs do not require you to lay down your life for another and learn to simply follow orders without having an opinion to some degree. Military members use a lot of jargon and I can tell you from interacting with my civilian friends that we have a lot of strange terms, applications for those terms, and how we relay a message. That is what I find will be one of the greatest challenges when it comes time for me to make the switch from the armed forces to educator; delivering a shared message than everyone seems to have the advantage in knowing.
Military jargon and writing is hard to overcome after a while because it is instilled into your everyday life. We find ways to abbreviate words and terms that may not require such truncation or use words found in civilian society that already have set formats and change them to something almost unrecognizable. When writing awards, resumes or technical guidebooks, the military trains you to do so in a way that blends our unique lexicon into its own language. I can tell you that learning to write this way and trying to take normal English classes is hard because I may use a term unfamiliar to others or be speaking about the same thing but have to translate it in my head to remember what the common, non-military term for it is. Writing the aforementioned documents, to me, is a complete butchering of the English language. Standard punctuation and formatting go completely out of the wayside to make a product that reads awkwardly to most civilians and anytime I try to apply for a job in the civilian sector to make a little extra money, none of them have any idea what my military records mean or even say at times.
An example of this are my job titles and duties. I have been a military teacher before and taught college accredited material. On paper, my records read something like “Air Education & Training Command Formal Training Instructor” which many misinterpret that I was a drill instructor or something who spent most of their time yelling at people. This is far from the truth as I have over a thousand classroom hours providing lectures in small 8-10 student sized classrooms where I graded papers and employed many public speaking skills that everyday teachers use. It is similar training using the same skills that many companies require, but the wording does not make sense and in the world of writing, if it does not make sense in text then the context and understanding is lost on the reader.
The example above and the lengthy introduction are necessary here to paint a picture of the differences – at least perceived differences – that come from these two cultures. Breaking this down to a fundamental level finds the major problem in trying to teach non-military students English and Literature; specifically, writing in English and not military speak. As mentioned before, punctation in common military writing does not exist in standard methods. An awards package – a document containing sentences relating to what a person accomplished during a timeframe – would not contain proper sentence structure that a typical graded paper would. You can abbreviate and make up abbreviations for almost anything and common rules such as when to write out numbers do not apply if it does not allow you to meet spacing; each sentence is confined to one line on a preformatted electronic document and must start with a dash. This modified bullet formatting forces us to word things almost completely as we see fit in order to meet spacing requirements and regardless of whether or not the sentence actually reads and flows like a normal sentence.
This unnatural structure in civilian classrooms would present a problem for me in regards to teaching and grading writing assignments. Most students are learning how to write and format sentences, whereas myself or other former military individuals will have to unlearn our established lexicon, translate it into something that hopefully makes sense, and ensure that we are going by traditional English guidelines and not simply making it up on the spot or using uncommon terms. On a side note, the same thing could also be said about writing college papers as many of my English teacher friends say that writing in a college paper is almost written in a different language than what they teach inside their classrooms in regards to writing effectively and not dragging out sentences for the sake of spacing/paper length, or the avoidance of using contractions such as don’t or doesn’t and having to write the word out fully.
Back to the matter at hand, it will take time and practice to reorient myself to using proper grammar. The fortunate thing that civilian classrooms have over military ones is their willingness to accept different mediums of instruction and the ability to experiment and try new methods to see how things work. The military is very rigid in their approach to learning as much of it is teach how we tell you and student’s can have opinions but still must respect protocols and do not always have the chance to speak their true intent. Having the chance to try new things that were not available when I was a student or during my military instructor tenure is an aspect that I am greatly looking forward to.
The first thing in order to unlearn what I know and incorporate what I do know as well as what I hope to learn during my interning hours, is reintegrating myself in the methodology of learning and what that means to both the student and teacher. This process requires working towards the goal of understanding and appreciation of writing fundamentals which in turn requires “…a methodology that fosters interpretation of the literary text as a dialectic process by which the reader surpasses both explanation and understanding and appropriates the text (Harper, 1988). This goal is the foundation I will need to set my focus and direction in how I approach teaching writing in the classroom. One of the things in the material of this current English course spoke to the importance of goals as a foundation. Everyone sets them, but it is important to understand the potential barriers to them in order to note pitfalls along the way and orient your methods to combat such pitfalls as they arise. Setting a goal is a basic process but also an essential one in hopes of measuring success.
Breaking this goal down into smaller categories, Harper suggests focusing this into four backgrounds of approach: “1.) establish a common background of essential information, 2.) enhance linguistic skills, 3.) verify comprehension, and 4.) direct students’ reading to develop perspective abilities and “channel the way thy build schemata to make sense of the words on page.” (Harper, 1988). While specific teaching strategies and curriculums change over time, the basics typically do not vary to drastic degrees. In order to teach writing, there first needs to be a common background which comes from guidelines outlined in the curriculum; but this also comes from what knowledge has already been learned from previous studies/grades. As the educator I would assess in the beginning what is known or not known in order to decide what needs to be reworked on and define areas of strengths and weaknesses. “Consciously on related prior knowledge, experiences and beliefs that come to mind while we are trying to learn helps us to build bridges to new information.” (Weinstein, Ridley, Dahl & Weber). Using what Weinstein et al. are saying, you create building blocks using what is known and then expand upon it with the curriculum and assignments to enhance and ensure comprehension.
In order to teach writing, I start with the foundations listed above. But that is only step one. The real challenge presents itself in finding a teaching practice that works. It is always important to know one’s audience and by understanding multiple literary mediums and how you can diversify your delivery of content to reach audiences in a wide variety of ways. One of the things I have seen in my curriculum courses since starting my Masters at Liberty is that it is vital to adapt your teaching style using whatever mediums you can. Reaching the endgame of higher learning is always essential, but a lot of messages get lost along the way in the delivery whether it be because of archaic methodologies, an unwillingness to change, lack of resources, or any other barrier that prevents diversity. All in all, the end goal is the promotion, delivery and acceptance of your message.
As I mentioned earlier, one of the things that excites me for this upcoming transitional journey is the chance to experiment and utilize different technologies and teaching methods. A common one that I already used because the military is big on PowerPoint – as we call it, “Death by PowerPoint” – visualization is a one method I will always defer to. There are many different types of learners: visual, audio and tactile. Personally, I am a visual learner and I need to see something in order to learn it. One great thing of teaching literature is that there is always a visual aid in the form of the textbook or literature book. But there are other methods outside of this that can be used such as video/audio clips or slides on a smartboard, TV screen, whiteboard or chalkboard. Pairing visual aids with hard to understand literary concepts such as understanding Shakespearean dialogue or proper punctation gives the student something they can physical pair and see to build mental associations. It also makes the classroom more interactive and promotes question building as the students can visually and audio wise follow along and ask questions along the way for clarity or answer questions as provide by the instructor.
Incorporating technology into teaching in this manner promotes active learning by engaging the students in a relatable way and especially as the youth of today are heavily technology ingratiated and immersed in the various social/digital media available. The interactive whiteboards mentioned above are one tool to aid in visual learning. My own children are allowed to use their cell phones in the classrooms for certain media projects/delivery, and some classrooms even have tablet devices for further interactive learning. The root similarity in all these is that the student is physically engaged during lessons and can instantly research their ideas and information at their fingertips. In turn, this works towards lifelong learning by developing an autonomy of sorts to freely explore and learn to define ideas and subject matter. At times in the military w are restricted on such mediums due to classification restrictions and other things, so it will be great to be able to branch out and move beyond simple PowerPoint. Another side note, these varied visual mediums also allow student to follow along at their own pace to a degree which would help me in regards to one of my observed fast talking behavior during the micro-teaching lesson and would help students catch things should I fall into that bad habit.
Another go to strategy would be the use of mnemonics in aiding with learning. Being already accustomed to using numerous acronyms and forming common terms into acronyms as a method of mnemonic learning. One thing that all learners have in common is that they all put things into their own interpretation in order to create an understanding. This will not be done in the same manner for each student, but the internalization in order to promote comprehension is something we all do in our own unique way. A supervisor once told me that she creates acronyms of common ideas in funny ways to help her remember something. If she wanted to remember a process, she would convert it into song or makeshift acronym. While singing in the classroom may land me a few laughs, it would more so hurt a lot of eardrums. But using acronyms to associate common terms is a strategy that I have used time and time again with myself and other students that seems to work in most cases. For instance, when teaching young Airmen at my last squadron how to route paperwork and process changes, I made the acronym “DUMB” – Distribute, Upload, MYPRO, Brief. They had to distribute the paperwork to every involved party, upload it to the common drive on our network, put it in a local program called MYPRO – completely aware that this is an acronym within an acronym which is an unfortunate military habit which I would never utilize in a civilian classroom, and brief the process to the involved parties because no one wants to just read something in the military without hearing a briefing on it. While the process was tedious in this example, none of my Airmen had any issues with routing things. In regards to teaching writing and helping learn, this technique could be used in the same manner to associate common and like terms. “Students generally reported that acronyms increased their motivation to begin studying, that it was helpful to solve review sheet acronyms [i.e., to review their notes to fill in what each letter stood for] on their own, and that they would try to use acronyms or other mnemonics on their own in future courses.” (Mocko, Lesser, Wagler & Francis, 2017).
Having mentioned experimental methods, some I discovered while researching and reviewing items for this paper led to an interesting article on innovative teaching strategies for the modern student. They seemed a bit unorthodox at first glance to me, but perhaps that is the appeal of it in branching out and trying something new. This first one for example would not likely be one I would use initially, but I like the potential it has and how it could be used. It is called RAFT (another mnemonic device for you) which stands for: Role, Audience, Format and Topic/Tone/Theme. It involves the students taking on the role of a speaker or other character associated with a story (i.e. one reads Hamlet as Hamlet), having the other class serve as an audience and respond in the role of viewers seeing the presentation at the time (i.e. other characters or as an audience viewing a play). You would then present it in different formats (videos, animations, songs, etc.) and allow the students to interpret the topic/tone/theme, or analyze it from the antagonists/opposite topic/tone/theme (i.e. viewing it as the good/bad guy). Again, this would be interesting but probably difficult in my early stages of getting my feet wet teaching a civilian classroom.
Other interesting experimental methods included: 1.) Having students analyze diverse media forms (digital vs. classic or video vs. literature) for their strengths and weaknesses and then compare and contrast which served to better help them to learn, 2.) Have students turn essays into videos or podcasts like we did with the micro-teaching lesson, 3.) Allow students to choose the media while the teacher chooses the themes, academic standards, and obviously controls the quality to not let things get out of hand, and 4.) Choose the media first when designing lessons and then develop the standards (Heick, 2017). The last was a personal favorite as it breaks up the monotony of standard curriculum and allows the teacher to put their unique spin on things to give some more freedom to the material.
Utilizing any method on non-standard instruction poses a great risk in the classroom specifically in how it may be received or perceived. Some parents may be worried if a technique seems to unorthodox as would other teachers, principals or the Board of Education. It is important to make sure when using these practices that they are still in accordance with what is allowed and that the overall lesson is still being learned. Someone once told me that there is no reward without risk. While these may seem impractical or otherwise strange, innovations in the classroom are what have expanded the education process beyond streamlined methodologies of the past and allowed educational environments to expand over the centuries. “Encouraging expression of student texts and diverse points of view also helps the student to go beyond the literal meaning of the text to what it represents.” (Harper, 1988). Pioneers of education continue the advancement of how educators do business. Not all methods may seem effective or valid (common core math in my opinion) but the foundation of the research and someone continually trying to improve and grow the process is always respectable and necessary to evolve and change to meet the times and ever-changing student.
Feedback is an essential part of any military career and one thing that universally transfers over to the education world. If you do not inform your students how they are doing, good or bad, then they only have a grade to determine their level of learning. While this may seem strange to say here, grades are not everything as the ultimate goal of the teacher is to promote lifelong learning and appreciation for the subject matter. Good grades are important, but helping students grow and learn and develop an investment in the material outside of the classroom and for the “long run” is the ultimate reward.
Looking back to the Shaughnessy reading during the course she pointed this fundamental flaw with the overall system. When it comes to the grading process it is a common pitfall to simply get stuck in just grading to the numbers and per the curriculum; we do this all the time in the military looking only to accomplish the mission but not trying to develop the people to their fullest along the way. Shaughnessy warned against this and referenced looking deeper at the common pattern of errors as well as the difference between performance-based errors and grammatical ones. What this ultimately boiled down to is teaching procedure or educating a student. The former deals with by the numbers thinking that a student does not meet standards because perhaps they cannot punctuate and write a simple sentence or read as quickly as another student. It ignores the potential root problems of a lack of understanding and not knowing/assessing the mindset of the student in regards their background towards learning. This was what still resonates with me because Shaughnessy’s examination of systemic errors is a direct correlation assessing our overall philosophy of learning. She sought to fix the root problem as a whole instead of constantly attacking the symptoms. Again, the goal is lifelong learning and appreciation and this is one of the hardest things I think I will encounter in trying to adapt and tailor my approaches to help students foster this mindset as well as meet the grades.
Another concept that ties into this is Albert Bandura’s behavior modeling which also ties into the feedback process. Teachers serve as role models to their students as they spend a great deal of time with students every year and are thus influencers to their overall behaviors. They (students) spend a great deal of time together in the classroom and this is where the educator can make their mark by showing enthusiasm for the material as well as being the subject matter expert on it. Additionally, through appropriate social relationships, they can establish rapports to help the students emotional and mental health as pseudo-counselors and guardians by use of appropriate positive and negative feedback. Parents, friends and background/upbringing absolutely serve as factors in this. In the classroom, the use of peer reviewed assignments can help the students grow together and be better received as young people tend to the words of their peers better than that of an adult. This does not put the student as the teacher, but it does build investment in regards that they are helping each other succeed and are teachers’ aides of sorts as they help build understanding and foster learning amongst their peers. As for home life, teachers should stay in active communication with parents in order to keep them apprised of their child’s education as well as any potential disciplinary issues or simply just to say something positive like their child is a great helper in class or something of the like. Parents have just as much of an involvement in their child’s success, but the educator can influence this through feedback to help them focus in the right areas as needed; this is not telling them how to parent but what their child may be struggling or doing well in.
The reading by Sommers during this course corresponds to this as she also talks to the importance of feedback in creating effective and efficient students, “…we comment on student writing because we believe that it is necessary for us to offer assistance to student writers when they are in the process of composing text, rather than after the text has been completed.” (Sommers, 1982). She goes on to elaborate that the comments and assistance that we provide our students is what shapes their thought process. If we spend too much time focusing on the wrong things this creates risk in keeping them geared towards the right direction. As an educator, the goal is not simply to teach the subject material, but instill a sense of value in it for the students so that they actually learn something from it instead of just writing for a grade. “Literary texts offer a rich source of linguistic input and can help learners to practise the four skills - speaking, listening, reading and writing - in addition to exemplifying grammatical structures and presenting new vocabulary.” (BBC). This text by the BBC showcases the heart of teaching writing as it is developing core skills that students will need not only in the classroom but in their everyday lives as well.
Feedback is not just limited to students either and should be given to the teacher by themselves and through their bosses. The former references a term called reflective questioning. A teacher cannot tell what a student is thinking nor can they always assess if something has been learned fully or not. Each of us has to ask those internal questions to see if we have accomplished all of our goals or whatever it is that we set out to do. Educators should ponder to themselves on the difficult challenges they faced during a school year and what they learned about the subject matter and the students. They should ask if they ensured to keep parents in the loop, or reflect on how they taught their lessons and how they could improve, and always note their weaknesses but highlight their strengths. Students do the same thing while you are teaching them or afterwards. Reflecting on ourselves is the true critique of how we did during our endeavors as it is absolutely true that we are our own worst critics.
The overall feedback process is something I think I would be good at because I have had good and bad experiences/supervisors throughout my military career and have developed many techniques on what to do and what not to do. While my career is not the greatest, I have mentored and helped my students and Airmen excel and surpass me by learning from all of my mistakes and doing my best to help them succeed. This is a mentality that will never leave me and one I will absolutely bring to the classroom. I have always been my toughest critic and continually seek to improve myself. Also, I always ensure to set clear expectations from the get go and ensure to ask questions along the way to ensure that everyone is on the same page and take the appropriate pauses to stop and mentor someone in need by either going over it again, asking others for their take/aid or making myself available to talk outside the classroom or as otherwise needed.
There are many ways to teach writing to students and being able to find the one that works seems dauting at first as there are multiple teaching strategies available. This brings about the point of lifelong learning for the instructor. I know personally, I will have the tools available from my classes throughout my bachelors and now masters English courses. However, while core fundamentals do not change much, the textbooks and other subject matter does regularly and things that I may have known as truth before may not be applicable today or perhaps have changed and are being taught in a different manner. It is for this reason that professional development is just as important to the teacher as it is to develop students.
One thing my supervisors have always promoted is seeking education and developing myself professionally. We are even “graded” during our performance reports on the amount of professional development we had partook in and in the Air Force we even have minimum degree requirements to get promoted to higher ranks on the enlisted side of things. Not everyone seeks to better themselves, but if you want to go far it helps to do some school and professional development course. This is true in the civilian world as well as my teacher friends all mention that there are incentives and such for having specialties/development such as IEP.
Engaging in regular professional development programs are a great way to enhance teaching and learning within the classroom and essential to staying current with the changing educational times. With educational policies constantly changing it is extremely useful to attend events where you can increase your knowledge base or simply juts refresh yourself on some concepts. Just like student peer reviews and lessons, teachers can also gain inspiration from other teachers. These sessions can include learning about new educational technologies, online safety training, advice on how to use teaching assistants and much more. It may even be nice just to get out of the daily classroom life and learn something new; I know this is a general mindset I have whenever I can catch a break from the military grind. While these are optional, and it is great to have a choice in doing something mind you, it is vital to stay current in your profession and find time to continue your professional development either in a course, reading topics on your own time, or have meetings with your co-workers. This is another area I do not think that I will have difficulties in as I love to learn and always seek opportunities to do so. I feel it would be something that I would owe to my students to continually be on my best so that they could in turn be their best and have the knowledge of today instead of learning something archaic or obsolete. Mediums change but knowledge is not necessarily limited by resources and can be presented without a smartboard or current text book; although the latter would be problematic and I will admit I am not as versed on the civilian world in regards to teaching outside of available mediums.
What all of this information has really boiled down to is adaptability. It is important to understand that both the teacher and the student are individuals. Each learns at their own speeds and in different ways. Teaching writing and literature may be fun for some but boring for others. Keeping motivations high and sustaining attention and focus are constant struggles. There is also the need to stay current and the potential on funding or curriculum restrictions. Context is everything and you can easily lose a student to simple misunderstandings or only treating them as a number or just another student.
Transitioning to this kind of environment also has its own struggles. I have to shift mindsets from dealing with grown adults to dealing with children and parents. In the military you can simply yell at someone because you outrank them and write them paperwork and give other punishments when they do not do their job. There is not always room for interpretation to regulations and guidelines unless they are unlawful in nature. Inside a civilian classroom, I cannot simply yell at a child and get away with it nor can I give them paperwork that hurts their career or make them do work details and other things as punitive actions. A mother or father cannot tell me that I am being mean to their Airmen, but a parent absolutely can through parent-teacher conferences or other means tell me that I am being mean or not thoroughly helping their child. Most importantly for the aspect of teaching English and Literature, I have to unlearn one language to reacquaint myself with proper English almost as if I were relearning how to format sentences, punctuate and abbreviate as my students will. While I have the advantage of age and formal education, it is different when interacting directly with someone who can perceive your flaws and where those flaws can negatively impact their learning and lives really. It will be difficult but it is a challenge that I want to take head on. Throughout my entire career, I have only truly enjoyed teaching in the classroom and shaping and influencing individuals to reach higher levels and better themselves. When they succeeded, I in turn succeeded and although I have always taken pride in being a member of the Armed Forces and serving my country, nothing has ever brought me more joy than helping others succeed and educating students. It is because of this mentality that I know I will put forth my best effort and succeed in this challenge.
Being an effective teacher is a challenge because every student is unique, however, by using a combination of teaching strategies to address students’ varying learning styles and incorporating various academic capabilities can make the classroom a dynamic and motivational environment for students.
References
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Harper, S. (1988). Strategies for Teaching Literature at the Undergraduate Level. The Modern Language Journal, 72(4), 402-408. doi:10.2307/327752
Heick, T. (2017, June 30). 12 Strategies for Teaching Literature in the 21st Century. Retrieved June 22, 2019, from https://www.teachthought.com/learning/12-strategies-for-teaching-literature-in-the-21st-century/
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Megan Mocko, Lawrence M. Lesser, Amy E. Wagler & Wendy S. Francis (2017) Assessing Effectiveness of Mnemonics for Tertiary Students in a Hybrid Introductory Statistics Course, Journal of Statistics Education, 25:1, 2-11, DOI: 10.1080/10691898.2017.1294879
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Weinstein, C. E., Ridley, S., Dahl, T., & Weber, E. S. (n.d.). Helping Students Develop Strategies for Effective Learning. Retrieved June 22, 2019, from https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Tove_Dahl/publication/265034514_Helping_Students_Develop_Strategies_for_Effective_Learning_What_Are_Learning_Strategies/links/543fae450cf2fd72f99cb3a1/Helping-Students-Develop-Strategies-for-Effective-Learning-What-Are-Learning-Strategies.pdf
