Article: Learning how to write

[TheEarl]

I reread Gauche's and Earl's posts and wonder how they came to write as well as they do.

Cause my parents taught me to read at a very early age, encouraged me to buy books and made the whole thing very fun. I read everything there was to read in the school library, ergo my literacy. I think that's the key.

The Earl

 

[oggbashan]

When I was young (if ever I was) local children spoke at least two languages.

There was the language they spoke among themselves and normally used at home; there was the 'standard English' they heard on the radio and television, that their teachers used and that they themselves would use when talking to authority figures such as the policeman, the teacher, the minister and even their grandparents.

Children could switch from one to another instantly and knew when which was appropriate. Street language was the language of the playground. The other language was for school.

Street language has been accepted as a valid language form to the exclusion of formal language and has become too many people's only language. That means they can no longer communicate with potential employers at an appropriate level.

My children still speak several languages. The language they use with their friends; the language they use with their parents and relations; the language they use at work and several foreign languages including 'street' and 'formal' versions of some of the foreign languages. They are not exceptional yet so many school students have been deprived of the formal teaching of 'standard' English. How then can they appreciate the classics of English Literature?

Og

 

[gauchecritic]

All the signs said "more pay for cafeteria wokers" and "support the cafeteria wokers" and "Cafeteria wokers deserve more money" and this is an elementary school they are marching in front of.

This is an overused effect originated (the first time I saw it) by a protestor in the 70s or 80s when he deliberately misspelled a word on a placard (I think it was to do with something educational) and managed to make national television news footage of an otherwise humdrum, seen-it-all-before protest.

Still works though eh Lisa?

I'm still with The on the reading helps to write. I was reading library books before I went to school (at 5). This was the best teacher of what writing should look like. What I write may well be technically wrong but if it looks right then it's readable.

And I'll dangle anyone's participles who disagrees.

 

[BlackShanglan]

And I'll dangle anyone's participles who disagrees.

Hmm. I don't disgree per se, but that sounds so inviting ...

 

[Evil Alpaca]

Thank gudeness! Nowh I kun start lurnin to rite bettuh!

 

[BlackShanglan]

Thank gudeness! Nowh I kun start lurnin to rite bettuh!

Senator Kennedy, don't they need you back home?

 

[yui]

Senator Kennedy, don't they need you back home?

Maybe you could swim if you can't find your car?