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Joseph Mottola Professor Jan Rieman English 1101 August 29, 2012 Reading Response to Teaching Standard English: Whose Standard? By: Linda Christensen

1. I read the article, Teaching Standard English: Whose Standard? By: Linda Christensen, in my living room around the same that I read the last reading for class. There is really no specific reason for the consistency of me reading in my living room in the evening time except for the reason of wanting to relax in a comfortable place while I read so that I can focus and not have any distractions. 2. After reading through the passage, three words that I came across that I did not comprehend but researched are: pedagogy which means the teaching of a teacher, reluctant which means unwilling, and protruded which means to project. 3. When reading this passage, I did apply a couple of the strategies I read from the previous reading we did in class. The strategies that I used were determining importance in the reading and I thought about the text while I read. I highlighted what I thought was important and I related my personal experiences to the reading. 4. Something in the reading that I strongly agreed with was the line, When more attention is paid to the way something is written or said than to what is said, students words and thoughts become devalued. Students learn to be silent, to give as few words as possible for teacher criticism. In all four years of my high school experiences, the English teachers that I had made writing unenjoyable to me. Why? It was because everything that I wrote or said seemed to be wrong to them when it made perfect sense to me. I feel like I was limited on the things I could say or put in my papers because I felt that my teachers were too strict of graders, especially for the high school level. I remember an incident in particular that what written on a paper that really made me upset was my teacher underlined a name I had spelt wrong, wrote the correct spelling next to it and felt the need to add duh under it. After that I was nervous of what I wrote in my and very anal about how I spelt words because I didnt want to be criticized like that again. 5. For the most part, I agree with the point that Christensen was portraying in the reading. We all are taught our native language differently. Some of us come from different parts

{Mottola 2} of the world and pronounce things the way that we were taught. Also we should write the way we think and take risks in our writing. We need to explore in our writings and add our own personal touch to them because our papers should be unique in a way that defines who we are and the knowledge in which we have gained. We all look at things in different ways and have our own ideas on certain subjects, so we should not be criticized on the way we think and the way that we were taught to write. 6. Being that I was taught English (reading and writing) from Kindergarten and basic writing mechanisms throughout elementary, middle, and high school, I feel that I am a part of that class on how America writes and speaks. Am I avid writer and reader that speaks, writes, and comprehends perfect English? No, not at all. But do I still feel part of the group? Yes. 7. Something that the class could focus on the quote from the reading, students must be taught how to listen to the knowledge theyve stored up but which they are seldom asked to relate.