I am going to struggle this year. I accept that. My big hope is that I struggle this year only. If I struggle every year moving between MLA and AP, I am going to have to build my journalism so big they can't get me in an English class any more.
Either that or I receive treatment for split personality.
So, I plan to get to know AP intimately- and hopefully I don't confuse the rules on a daily basis. Does anyone struggle between the two? Does it eventually get easier?
Janice Johnson
Vista del Lago High School
Folsom, Calif.
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| My completely legal AP photo. Suck it MLA. |
This concept is also a problem for my students. I will teach them one thing in journalism and language arts teachers will tell them another in their class. I have to make sure to let them know it is two different types of writing and they should stick to the rules in each specific class. Always a concern and something I have to think about and stress.
ReplyDeleteThe concept is problem for me as well, Janice. I need to figure out how to use that book first. Things are in places you don't expect them to be. It's confusing, but I think the more we use it, the more we'll get used to it.
ReplyDeleteBidjan Aminian
Dublin High School
Dublin, CA
Janice,
ReplyDeleteDon't get too nervous, but I think California's mental institutions are filled with broken down English-Journalism teachers who suffer from split personalities. Probably the best way to handle it is to think of yourself as Eve and completely compartmentalize your personalities. One should put her hair up in a bun and stand at her classroom door with arms akimbo making sure that her students enter in a serious, no-nonsense frame of mind, while the other needs to have a green eyeshade and learn quotes like, "Great Caesar's Ghost."
Seriously, you won't have any problem greater than someone who learns to speak two languages
Like Steve said, "you won't have any problem greater than someone who learns to speak two languages."
ReplyDeleteI deal with that issue - code switching - every day. And not just in the AP v. MLA arena. If you want to communicate, if you want to really be heard, figure out which code to use for each situation/setting/audience. This is what Greg Favre was talking about when he said students shouldn't use text language in English class. I don't think he meant they shouldn't use it, just that there's a time and a place.
In my class, it's about Black English. And, no, I don't mean slang; I mean the language my students learn at home, and in the neighborhood, and (Oy!) from my most recent principal. I don't want them to lose their first language; I just want them to add standard English to their bag of tricks.
Sara Hennes