ENGL 110-64

By: Samuel Levis

Classmates

English Education: Grading

Many students in college and even high school struggle with grades, dreaded grades that almost everyone dislikes. They are determining factors when it comes to have good knowledge of a subject such as Math and English. Speaking of English, this language as many sorts of varieties according to Vershawn Young’s work “Should Writers Use They Own English?” As you can tell this writing of Young’s work is original involving his own way of writing. In many people’s eyes there are mistakes and punctuation issues, but in Young’s eyes they aren’t. He claims that his writing is correct and should be respected because it’s not wrong, right? Stanly Fish, the writer of “What Should Colleges Teach?”, has a different point of view, different from Young. Fish claims to think that there is only one way to write English and that way is “standard English.” Standard English is “proper English” as fish states, but doesn’t that mean every other dialect is improper? According to fish, “Using your own language (variation of English) to write an academic paper is vulnerable to prejudice.” (Fish, 2009) It seems like this “you own language” seems to be rude to people’s eyes and should be avoided. It may be inappropriate in a professional setting because you must use “proper English.”

In academic school such as primary, secondary, and post-secondary, students, especially in high school and college, have the opportunity to take a course based on the English language and it’s not really learning more English, its more about making connections with the English language in forms such as reading for example, literature. As students read and comprehend reading assignments, they are expected to write some sort of essay or summary of what they read. And of course, when it comes to school, there are grades to be mastered upon meaning you must earn a certain number of points to get a “good” grade showing that strength of the knowledge you know about that subject. The problem with grading in English language assignments is that students perceive their grade as an insult because the teacher does not agree with a certain student’s writing such as it being not clear or having grammatical issues, it seems to be wrong. Points are awarded low when either the teacher notices errors or does not understand the writing itself. This grading must be done by a teacher meaning that it’s under the influence of someone else judgment. Does that mean the correct way to right is influenced by others? So, when fish explains that your writing is susceptible to prejudice it’s because of peer pressure. If fish says that there is only one way to write English, doesn’t that mean that if 1 student in an English literature class gets 100 points but everyone else didn’t write the paper like that one student. After this instance, students start to perceive the assignment as incorrect writing which therefore need to be banned, this causes a bad image for those who happen to speak a certain dialect. Students learning English is almost the same as learning any other subject for that matter. Yes, there is a “right or correct” answer to a problem but you can find the right answer and not know how you ended up with the answer. An alternative would be that I show you the steps to solve this problem but, in the end, I just made it up with no logic behind it. Young has this approach to it, as it can be just another way of communicating.

Is there always a right answer? According to Young, yes, but it can be right in different ways. Young encourages people to continue writing the English that they grew up because its just a way of communicating a story such as a problem, solution, adventure packed literature or whatever motivates you tell a large audience about something. The English that we, students learn in school is what we’re used to writing and reading. If we write in any other way, “improperly”, students are marked down by our teachers because of that. This low mark in the grade is not really because the teacher doesn’t like you but more of how the teacher is taught or learned is correct and should be monitored in the teaching of others. This constricts our writing into a box, not allowing us to cultivate our ideas so that its creative, unique, and original the way we want to. The writing standard that has been instilled in us closes off many creative possibilities in writing. With the grading system in US school its thought that if you have a low grade, it means you are not intelligent or not understand the subject at all, you’re dumb! That’s not the case at all, People who write are trying to tell a story, that story is unique to every. Fish argues that people should be code-switching while Young encourages code-meshing to write. Code-switching means to switch the dialect you’re speaking between different settings such as the way you speak at home versus at an academic setting of in a professional work environment, this includes writing as well such as texting your friends versus emailing your boss. Code-meshing is the idea of using all the dialects you speak and putting them together as one “English” resulting in writing just one dialect which can be uniquely your own. Young encourages that people should be free to speak and write however they want because they can express a message in a way that is not restricted. I do also agree with Fish’s point of having a correct English because I can’t just write gibberish such as, “iuwrhgbvfkjbv”, and call that English. That is nonsense even if I “translate” it to you so that people would understand. People simply won’t recognize that language that I totally made up.

In school, if a student of higher education has a “passing grade” in a certain subject, does not mean that they are demonstrating it correctly or even have the knowledge at all. Many of these grades are based on judgment of the teacher, especially English language courses. This judgement is a level of expectation so they set the bar somewhat low so that they can keep teaching or make sense on their reasoning for the grade. This does not address that fact that a grading system is useless, but it doesn’t make sense in certain settings. For example, in a math course there will always be a correct answer and there will almost always be correct way to solve that problem. So if I take a math test involving algebra and I get all the questions correct but do not show any evidence of solving the problem, I have not demonstrated the knowledge of solving a problem using algebraic equations.

The language “English” first became a way in which we can communicate to one another, and it wasn’t perfect at first and it still isn’t but sure is effective in conveying a message to someone. This language has changed through humanity due to societal norms in which we change, many factors my include environment, attitude, and pronunciation. The problem with these changes is people may not accept it due to it being new and somewhat harder to understand without studying this new dialect. Not everyone speaks the same dialect as one another. For example, Fish speaks/writes differently than Young, now the argument here is which one is easier to understand. Fish seems to treat different dialects as a completely different language such English to Russian, but because of this Fish sounds to be confused if he heard a variation in the English language assuming it “not normal.” So if a teacher/professor doesn’t understand what the students writing due to errors, imperfections, “UNUSUAL DIALECT” and the teacher gives them a low score or even a failing score, well now the student can argue they were using a their own English in the writing. What happens now? Does the teacher argue the fact that they are wrong? So, whose right here Fish or Young? I can’t just tell my teacher/professor “I used my own language, so change my grade.” There are other factors to change that grade such as explaining to the teacher is a language that they may understand.

In conclusion, everyone who speaks/writes English knows how to speak/write at home or in a professional setting. However, whether you are writer a paper of have a writing assignment for an English course, there will be times in which the English you write is not “correct” and should be corrected to write proper English. Despite thing argument, you should also consider that you are free to speak/write you own language if and when you are conveying a message because you know what’s appropriate. Of the dialect you are speaking/writing to someone such as a teacher should be clearly understood by you and the reader.