Gender - working fathers get some funny advice

Humorous ways of exposing the sexism that still exists in our discourse are a really valid way of shifting attitudes. When we notice something, we can change it :http://www.breakingnews.ie/discover/if-we-gave-fathers-the-same-nonsensical-advice-we-give-working-mothers-700862.html

recommended Twitter Language blog

If you tweet, or just listen in, follow this acount for some juicy little tidbits that might spark some ideas or memorable quotes for the exam:

https://twitter.com/EngLangBlog

If you recommend it, please say why in the comments section of this post.

Language and occupation - Whitehall jargon

I came across this on a recommended Twitter account which I will link to in a separate post. There are plenty of examples of this kind of euphemistic language in other professions. Please collect and share other examples in the comments as a few memorable quotes are useful for the exam.

AS Language and Literature work in my absence 22/1/16

Clevernesses,

I hope that you managed to find some interesting things in the work I set you for Tuesday. I wanted to do the essay on the theme of 'home' in class but time is of the essence, so please spend 50 minutes of the lesson time posting the essay you planned to your blog (or emailing it to me if there is a problem with that). The support sheet is copied at the bottom of this post in case you were absent - email me to let me know if that was the case but do your best to do the essay anyway.

Then I would like you to post the analysis you did on Tuesday - it can be in note/bullet point form or you can practise your PEE. Here's a reminder of what I set:


Read pages 166-182 “We get applications.” Choose 4-6 key quotes to explore what the reader learns about Dave in his work with the Might team – annotate the quotes, exploring techniques, themes, structure etc.

For homework for Tuesday, please read the interview section of Heartbreaking (pages 182-237) making notes on what we learn about Dave.

And here is the text of the support sheet I gave you for the essay on the theme of home:

Your essay on the memoir in the exam will be on Eggers’s presentation of key themes or characters. It is a good idea to collect examples that you could use in a discussion of each of the key themes as you go.

Here are some ideas that you can choose from (and add to) for the essay we are going to write – pick what you think is significant and that you can apply terminology about form, language and structure to; remember to cover form - memoir, language – literary and linguistic techniques, and structure – linking different parts of the text together.

Examine the presentation of the theme of ‘home’ in (the first 104 pages of) ‘AHWOSG’

Theme of home (in first 104 pages) ideas:

·         p.1 “house is a factory” shoes in the dryer

·         p.2 mother can’t check if he has cleaned up, effects of her illness on the home environment in this section

·         6-8 interior décor, thrift, and descriptions of the father – hints about alcoholism

·         34 “party at home” – effect of outsiders – link to “everybody knows”

·         37 sleeping in parents’ room “weird”

·         Contrast family home with following homes – e.g.  p51. Sublet

·         P.61 living arrangements “re-create domestic life from scratch”

·         Use of diagram p.62

·         72 search for a new home – contrast with family home in a “nice town” (p.76) and the sublet

·         77 laundry

·         78 neighbours

·         80 chores and power play

·         82 entropy (gradual decline into disorder) of living conditions

·         86 menu

·         88 cooking and D’s responsibility weakening

·         89 lack of boundaries – Toph feeling unsafe

·         90 “Daaad!” role play

These are just ideas of what you could include in an essay that explores how Eggers presents the theme of home, so feel free to choose others – in the exam, you will have to choose ideas from the whole memoir without support – you won’t be given a page range either.

In the exam, you have to answer in an hour and hit the following objectives:

AO1 terminology  applied to appropriate quotes, effectively organised essay (PEE and linked points), formal and accurate expression 20 marks

AO2 analyse (and appreciate the effectiveness of) how techniques, conventions of the form and the structure Eggers has used make meaning, mature understanding of the text 20 marks

AO3 evaluate the impact of context in the production (Eggers’s context when writing) and reception (different contexts of diverse readers) of the text, showing an overview 20 marks

AS Language work in my absence Fri 22nd lesson time

Diligents,

I haven't had many emails with questions or updates and I hope that this means you are getting on well with the gender research.

More comments are needed on the articles on my blog and they need to show that you have engaged with the posts: you can ask a question, state a linguistically-focussed opinion, challenge what is said, link to another article or your own example or make any other kind of relevant comment but you must use these posts as inspiration for connections you could make in the exams, so it is important you do wider reading based on the ideas that interest you and that you ensure you really understand what was said.

For Friday's lesson time, please comment on three posts that I have put on my blog. You can use the search bar at the top left of my blog to search for key words within my archive of posts, so it would make sense for at least one of the ones you read to be on gender - just make sure you scroll down to evaluate them until you choose one you think you would like to get to grips with - don't just choose the first! There isn't much on occupation but there is plenty on power, gender and accent and dialect or you could just browse the archive until you find something that captures your interest.

If you were struggling to find something on women's voices from my research prompts, if you search 'Mary Beard' within my blog, you will get to an article that discusses her ideas.

I will be able to read your comments through the Blogger dashboard no matter which article you comment on so I will see who has and has not done the task. Use the lesson time so you should all have finished by end of Friday and I will look at the comments on Saturday. I will accept two thoughtful comments on longer articles if I think what you've done represents a lesson's work.

Edit: if you haven't done six comments across all the blogs from the eearlier set work, you need to catch that up. I want to make sure you have a really good range of wider reading to apply as we start doing more practice papers.

A2 work in my absence

Sorry I am still not back, fantastics.

I hope you are getting on well with the conclusions/evaluations. Please have them ready for draft marking by Tuesday's lesson. Drop me an email to let me know how you are getting on with that and any issues - I would like an email from everyone, please. Remember, no late work will be accepted unless you have negotiated an extension for very good reasons.

If that's all done and dusted and you have also polished your media text and sent it off for target readers to give you feedback, please post the answers to the child language aquisition research questions I gave you a couple of months back - we are about to move on to Language Change so that needs to be done asap.

You can't just work on coursework, so I would also like you to pick one of the articles I have posted on my blog to comment on - your comment can be an opinion, a question, an example that links to it or anything else that strikes you as worth commenting on.

Please use the lesson time to send me the email and comment on an article then the rest of the lesson time and the homework time to work on coursework and/or posting the CLA research answers.

Thanks,

Halla

AS Language work in my absence

Clevernesses,

I am rotten ill (I've been in and out of hospital over the past few days) with a resurgence of the chest infection that knocked me sideways a few months ago - apparently I didn't let it get better properly!

When I've been able to do a little work between heavy doses of painkillers, I've read some great comments on my articles and really perceptive ones that you've written on one another's articles. Try not to repeat what others have said - make new points about style or grammar as well as content. On the articles that I have posted, really try and engage with the ideas by stating opinions, asking questions, identifying what is problematic/puzzling and doing some follow-up reading (finding out about content but also paying attention to the style in which ideas are written and ensuring you understand the finer points of vocabulary and grammar that have been used).

If possible, always read the comments that people have left on articles that I link to (what Dave Gorman refers to as the 'bottom half of the internet') - they are always stimulating!

I've read all of your assessments so I know what you need to find out more about with regards to gender, so here are some research points to work on (in any order):

• Deborah Cameron's discursive approach to gender (the effect of context, 'doing' gender)
• Dale Spender and Pamela Fishman's challenges to what other theorists have said
• O'Barr and Atkins's challenge to deficit theory
• Mary Beard's ideas about women's voices not being valued
• Beattie's challenge to Zimmerman and West - evaluating data
• John Grey's popular book 'Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus'
• The effect of written and computer-mediated forms on gendered language

Keep a bibliography and make notes ready to feed back - I hope I will be back on Friday. We will be feeding back from the assessment and will be re-writing the essay you did in the assessment, so do some preparatory work to ensure you know enough theory and terminology and examples to use.

In between doing that, do some more reading and commenting on the class blogs, including mine. Work on basic grammar too - there is a fixed post at the top of my blog, but if you search the archives (or the internet!) you will find others.

That should keep you productively busy.

If you need any support, please email me.

Halla