What's up with Welsh

The American education system is broken. Private testing companies make millions of dollars off "testing" students on their "competency" in given subjects. They promote ideals of what should be learned, which advocates a dominant narrative of education that is not inclusive to all students; rather it is exclusive to new ideas and new approaches to teaching. In the field of English Language Arts, the educators hired by testing companies communicate that the best writing is streamlined writing--the Five Paragraph Essay, the TEETH approach, this approach not unlike a mathematical formula-- is the best way to turn students into sufficient communicators in society. What utter horsesh*t. The fact of the matter is, there is no cookie-cutter method to deliver effective writing. Sure, all one's paragraphs should have a point, and one's essay should communicate a major argument or "thesis," but to box it up and simplify it with a formulaic approach like th...

Up until recently, I never cared much for poetry. To me, writing (had) has rules--one must put commas and semicolons in the correct place, never start a sentence with "and," or always make sure that everything you write is coherent. And yet (see what I did there?) as I learned in ENGL 433: Modern English Grammar, I learned that the English language is always in flux. The rules, regulations, and norms of this dominant language are always changing, so as long as  meaning  is communicated, one's objective is met.  This has been my longstanding issue with poetry until I became an English major. I could understand the inherent beauty of poetry that had meter and rhyme, such as John Keats' " To Autumn ," but for poetry that defies conventional rules, I never quite understood the appeal. The meanings were vague, and because of this vagueness, I could not understand them. However, through gradual exposure to poetry that defied norms like "Knock Knock,...

RESPONDING TO JESSE HAGOPIAN’S STUDENT ATHLETES KNEEL TO LEVEL THE PLAYING FIELD AND CHRYANTHIUS LATHAN’S DEAR WHITE TEACHER Jesse’s writing on the students’ football team kneeling during the national anthem to protest against the “crisis of police terror in Black communities across the country…” in support of Colin Kaepernick who also knelt down during the national anthem, shows the power of youths in fighting for justice.   The Garfield High School football team and other high schools across the country taking a kneel is a way of making their voices heard as young kids, just as Garfield football player Jelani Howard said, “It really affected people and we showed that kids can actually make a difference in the world.” Also, Kaepernick told the Seattle Times, “We have a younger generation that sees these issues and want to be able to correct them… I think that’s amazing. I think it shows the strength, the character, and the courage of our youth. Ultimately, they’re going to be ...

As a white male entering the teaching profession, I have often wondered how I will reach my students who are of different social statuses than myself. Will I be able to connect with my students in a positive and meaningful way that will foster intellectual growth and meaningful learning? It is my hope that through culturally-relevant pedagogy, I can do so. I envision teaching texts such as Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart, Jamaica Kincaid's Annie John,  or Khaled Hosseini's The Kite Runner  in conjunction with other texts that have been produced from white authors, like Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men.  Yet I grapple with how I can do this with strict curricula and Common Core. These are traditionally molded to contain largely white narratives, and as someone who wants to teach in an urban school setting, I do not believe that these dominant narrative texts will resonate well with the student body, and why should they? How can  underprivileged and underserved studen...

Responding to Peter Elbow’s “Sharing and Responding” “Sharing and Responding” is actually a pamphlet extract from a larger textbook, “A community of Writers”. The goal of this writing was to help “writers become comfortable and skilled at asking for feedback and giving it. I believe this is very important to know as writers because most writers feel pushed back in allowing other readers give them feedback or respond to their work, which could be as a result of fear of responders giving bad feedback or making their work look bad. Bringing out these 11 techniques of asking for response to one’s writing will make writers and also students confident, by choosing which of the response they would want from their readers. Also, students (readers) who are asked to respond feel reluctant to judge or evaluate their fellow classmate’s writing and give advice on how to improve the writing. According to Peter, writers do not need an evaluator, they need a thoughtful, interested audience rathe...

As writers, we are all familiar with the innate vulnerability that writing involves. As such, when giving feedback it can be challenging because we acknowledge that the author has made himself vulnerable by writing, and by sharing that writing. Often, people withhold genuine feedback either to preserve the author's feelings, or because they don't know how to give constructive criticism. I've learned this through countless peer-reviews both in high school and college--the feedback many give is restrained, half-baked, and not very thought out. Bland and generic comments are more than abundant in peer-review, with statements like "This was a good essay," or "I liked it because (rephrase thesis)" being all too common because they're easy to say, and are safe comments to make. Yet because of this, they do not promote constructive discourse.  That is why for me, reading Elbow and Belanoff was refreshing and intriguing. I like how they essentially streaml...