Rutgers English Department to deemphasize traditional grammar ‘in solidarity with Black Lives Matter’

[Metaphor]

I am 100% certain that you could write something of a technical nature relating to your discipline that most of us would have difficulty following and would find poorly written. I am equally certain that I could do the same for my discipline as could probably any of the other respondents in this thread. That's what happened here. Someone wrote to professional colleagues using the technical vernacular that is used in their discipline and its meaning seems unclear to you. Different disciplines have different conventions in writing. So what? This is something my husband and I have noted when discussing or proof reading each other's technical writing.

It wasn't a piece of technical writing. It was an email to staff and students.

In a way, your sentence above, which I bolded, is the entire point of what you linked in the OP. I am also equally certain that you could write something in an Australian vernacular that we Yanks would have difficulty parsing out and would think was poorly written. I know that I could do the same for you--or even just quote some great American literature for the same. And that's the point: People from a variety of backgrounds may have different speech patterns, different uses of words or even different vocabularies that they use to express themselves---and that should not be punished by poor grades or overly correcting grammar, syntax, etc.

I have not anywhere criticised the idea or use of critical grammar. I criticised a particular paragraph that was about critical grammar as being poorly written.

 

[Trausti]

Everything must be politicized. No aspect of life free of the approved political narrative. Like fundamentalist religion or North Korea.

 

[Gun Nut]

The gist I am getting here is that a school that offers a major in English is dropping elements of English from its curriculum because there are students that do not have the knowledge of those elements in advance? Or are they saying that to support anti-racism they are removing content that is too hard for black people to learn, but has historically been core to what they taught white people? How is that anti-racist?!?? - isn't that like saying the cafeteria, to support anti-racism, will only be serving BBQ ribs and watermelon.

I'm just axing a question here.. what's a metathesis and what does using one mean?

 

[ruby sparks]

Critical pedagogy is defined by the questions you ask, not the conclusions you come to. There are a multitude of teaching strategies that might conceivably result from critically considering the social context of knowledge production. But it does sound like Ivanic's example comes close to what Rutgers is proposing. Note that John is now aware of the rule he is supposedly breaking, and how it might impact reception in certain contexts while being appropriate for others. The idea is not to eliminate grammatical rules, only to reduce their value and utility as a weapon of class warfare, restoring them to their original role as facilitators of clear communication.

First, in the example given, a conclusion was reached, that it is fine to use Aids instead of AIDS.

Second, I am not sure about 'supposedly' breaking. How is it not just 'breaking' (it's an acronym not a word)?

Third, where is the 'weapon of class warfare' aspect in Aids versus AIDS?

Fourth, allowing Aids as well as AIDS seems to make things more unclear. What is Aids campaigning anyway? Is it to do with the disease AIDS, or something else? If I stick to AIDS campaigning, it's much clearer, assuming that's what I am talking about.

It looks to me as if he just should have used AIDS. Unless you can find me usage of 'Aids' as regards the social context of the disease AIDS in a medical ethics discussion, and capitalised in that way, in which case I'm just unaware of a usage.

 

[Politesse]

The gist I am getting here is that a school that offers a major in English is dropping elements of English from its curriculum because there are students that do not have the knowledge of those elements in advance? Or are they saying that to support anti-racism they are removing content that is too hard for black people to learn, but has historically been core to what they taught white people? How is that anti-racist?!?? - isn't that like saying the cafeteria, to support anti-racism, will only be serving BBQ ribs and watermelon.

I'm just axing a question here.. what's a metathesis and what does using one mean?

They haven't dropped anything from the curriculum, everything is still being taught. They have modulated how value judgements about student-produced texts are handled. Evaluation, not instruction. In upper division coursework, I imagine they are even offering more diverse instruction in dialectology and class issues alreayd, directive or no, but that wouldn't affect the kinds of intake classes this was aimed at, nor would it, still, involve removing anything from the curriculum.

In your analogy, it would be more like ensuring that watermelons and BBQ ribs are occasionally in the menu rotation, and that people who order them aren't shamed for doing so by the staff.

 

[Politesse]

Critical pedagogy is defined by the questions you ask, not the conclusions you come to. There are a multitude of teaching strategies that might conceivably result from critically considering the social context of knowledge production. But it does sound like Ivanic's example comes close to what Rutgers is proposing. Note that John is now aware of the rule he is supposedly breaking, and how it might impact reception in certain contexts while being appropriate for others. The idea is not to eliminate grammatical rules, only to reduce their value and utility as a weapon of class warfare, restoring them to their original role as facilitators of clear communication.

First, in the example given, a conclusion was reached, that it is fine to use Aids instead of AIDS.

Second, I am not sure about 'supposedly' breaking. How is it not just 'breaking' (it's an acronym not a word)?

Third, where is the 'weapon of class warfare' aspect in Aids versus AIDS?

Fourth, allowing Aids as well as AIDS seems to make things more unclear. What is Aids campaigning anyway? Is it to do with the disease AIDS, or something else? If I stick to AIDS campaigning, it's much clearer, assuming that's what I am talking about.

It looks to me as if he just should have used AIDS. Unless you can find me usage of 'Aids' as regards the social context of the disease AIDS in a medical ethics discussion, and capitalised in that way, in which case I'm just unaware of a usage.

Well, it depends on context, doesn't it? The same sentence might be completely inappropriate for a medical journal, but acceptable in a poem or a political treatise. What she did was explain to the student in what context either spelling might be appropriate, and allowed him to make the call. HE still knows, now, that the capitalized spelling is what would be correct if talking about the disorder. He just hasn't been shamed for "getting it wrong", and then given no real explanation as to why (the "traditional" approach to proof-checking).

It's okay if you don't agree with this approach, but speaking as a college instructor myself, I can definitely see the virtue in what they are trying to do and will be interested in seeing how it affects success and retention in the years to come, if at all. I'm not an English teacher, so my usual response to spelling/grammatical errors has been to straightforwardly ignore them unless they impact comprehension of the sentence or disrespect an individual or group somehow. For time reasons alone, this is likely to continue to be my policy; I can't teach English and Anthropology at the same time without sacrificing one. But my job would be a lot easier if the English department were actually instructing students on the purpose and context of formal grammars, rather than shaming them for fluency in their own dialectic speech community and hoping that a purely punitive approach will somehow result in belated, magical mastery of an inconsistent acrolect that was never explained to them as anything other than a baldly hypocritical moral judgement (academics obviously make up words and speak incomprehensibly all the time, it just isn't called slang when a racially advantaged kyriarch does it).

 

[Politesse]

I'm just axing a question here.. what's a metathesis and what does using one mean?

Oh, and metathesis is a phonological phenomenon in which syllables are transposed within a word, usually a flow-of-speech correction in spoken language such as "axe" for "ask". Small changes like this are common as languages evolve over time. For instance, modern English "Thrill" is a metathetic shift from Old English "Thirlen".

 

[ruby sparks]

Well, it depends on context, doesn't it?

A medical ethics paper, apparently.

I'm a bit more sceptical about this than I was before I read that example.

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

I hate getting drawn into discussions like this. They have little value and huge cost. My approach has been to mitigate the high cost ratio by not investing huge amounts of time into reading up on these drama issues...for example, to stop at first contradictions and do not delve further into the rabbit hole. I've now made an exception by examining the primary source.

So, it's an email...directed to "staff and students" as the Reich wing biased website says. However, that is extremely misleading to write. The email has sections with titles. The part currently under most scrutiny in the thread is under one section that would be of most interest to English professors and graduate students studying in the Graduate Writing Program (emphasis added):

The Graduate Writing Program serves graduate students in all SAS disciplines as well as students in select programs outside SAS, has undertaken. In response to current events, it will undertake the following initiatives:

• Workshops on social justice and writing. These will address topics such as the politics of citation and knowledge (the "Cite Her" movement and the "Gray Test" on citing women and people of color).
• Increasing focus on graduate student life. We plan to increase curricular content and also programming to focus on managing graduate student life especially for first-generation students, including issues such as the student-committee relationship, self-advocacy, etc.
• Incorporating “critical grammar” into our pedagogy. This approach challenges the familiar dogma that writing instruction should limit emphasis on grammar/sentence-level issues so as to not put students from multilingual, non-standard "academic" English backgrounds at a disadvantage. Instead, it encourages students to develop a critical awareness of the variety of choices available to them w/ regard to micro-level issues in order to empower them and equip them to push against biases based on "written" accents.

The beginning of the email even concedes it's lengthy and one could flip to a particular minimal requirement:

This is a very long email, but please make sure to read right away at least the department section, which contains information about workshops that will be required of all Fall 2020 instructors and information about two department-wide teach-ins held remotely in the month of August.

The email is left up on the university dep of english website. In the digital age, these are things we do--find the pieces of information relevant to our interests or needs...and there is even that cue to do so in context.

So the section intended for those interested in the changes to the pedagogy of the Graduate Writing Program are not intended for average Joe The Plumber students, persons with engineering degrees, or laymen. Nor probably would a person who received a degree in English or Writing Composition 100 years ago be expected to understand it. Some of the technical terminology is on a relatively more recent timeline.

Finally, reviewing the op post, one can see that there are several complaints about the email based on reading the biased secondary source:
Example#1:

I think I need to take a course or two at Rutgers, because I can't understand fuck nothing about what critical grammar is from the words quoted in that email.

The op author is not expected to understand the technical term since it's a relatively recent technical term among degreed persons in the field. The paragraph is under a heading Writing Program about technical changes and the bullet further is in context of the Graduate Writing Program which I empasized above.
Example#2:

I remember English classes when I was a lad, and I have to say in retrospect it was shockingly devoid of lectures about prison reform.

Example#3:

The other day I found out that the sandwich I had for lunch was made by a white person. I couldn't eat it after that.

...a response deliberately misconstruing what was written into reverse racialism.

Recently, the op author focuses on only one complaint which is merely about poor wording, allegedly....instead of his pushback against aniti-racism.

Please do review the op post as well as primary source email to confirm.

 

[laughing dog]

Everything must be politicized. No aspect of life free of the approved political narrative. Like fundamentalist religion or North Korea.

Or conservative snowflake SJWs.

 

[repoman]

I'm just axing a question here.. what's a metathesis and what does using one mean?

Oh, and metathesis is a phonological phenomenon in which syllables are transposed within a word, usually a flow-of-speech correction in spoken language such as "axe" for "ask". Small changes like this are common as languages evolve over time. For instance, modern English "Thrill" is a metathetic shift from Old English "Thirlen".

'Cause this is thirlen
Thirlen night
And no one's gonna save you
From the beast about to strike
You know it's thirlen
Thirlen night
You're fighting for your life
Inside a kirlen
Thirlen tonight, yeah, ooh

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

Everything must be politicized. No aspect of life free of the approved political narrative. Like fundamentalist religion or North Korea.

Why does your side have to be 100% political 100% of the time? I mean really! Seeking out and supporting black-owned businesses doesn't mean ONLY black owned businesses. It means the world continues on inertia of historical unfairness and wealthy white people SOMETIMES have undue advantages. SOMETIMES. A majority white institution ought to therefore seek out non-white persons who may be qualified or have a good business to ensure fairness.

But you and Metaphor have to create a false political narrative about white guilt.

Can't you guys stop yourselves?

 

[Trausti]

Everything must be politicized. No aspect of life free of the approved political narrative. Like fundamentalist religion or North Korea.

Why does your side have to be 100% political 100% of the time? I mean really! Seeking out and supporting black-owned businesses doesn't mean ONLY black owned businesses. It means the world continues on inertia of historical unfairness and wealthy white people SOMETIMES have undue advantages. SOMETIMES. A majority white institution ought to therefore seek out non-white persons who may be qualified or have a good business to ensure fairness.

But you and Metaphor have to create a false political narrative about white guilt.

Can't you guys stop yourselves?

Why does lefty politics have to intrude on EVERY part of life? Even grammar isn’t safe from the commissars.

 

[KeepTalking]

Everything must be politicized. No aspect of life free of the approved political narrative. Like fundamentalist religion or North Korea.

Why does your side have to be 100% political 100% of the time? I mean really! Seeking out and supporting black-owned businesses doesn't mean ONLY black owned businesses. It means the world continues on inertia of historical unfairness and wealthy white people SOMETIMES have undue advantages. SOMETIMES. A majority white institution ought to therefore seek out non-white persons who may be qualified or have a good business to ensure fairness.

But you and Metaphor have to create a false political narrative about white guilt.

Can't you guys stop yourselves?

Why does lefty politics have to intrude on EVERY part of life? Even grammar isn’t safe from the commissars.

Which lefty politician was it that forced this on Rutgers?

 

[Trausti]

Why does lefty politics have to intrude on EVERY part of life? Even grammar isn’t safe from the commissars.

Which lefty politician was it that forced this on Rutgers?

Reminds me of what Issac Asimov said. The problem with fundamentalist religion is not the fundamentalist’s belief. It’s that the fundamentalist wants me to believe it to.

 

[laughing dog]

Everything must be politicized. No aspect of life free of the approved political narrative. Like fundamentalist religion or North Korea.

Why does your side have to be 100% political 100% of the time? I mean really! Seeking out and supporting black-owned businesses doesn't mean ONLY black owned businesses. It means the world continues on inertia of historical unfairness and wealthy white people SOMETIMES have undue advantages. SOMETIMES. A majority white institution ought to therefore seek out non-white persons who may be qualified or have a good business to ensure fairness.

But you and Metaphor have to create a false political narrative about white guilt.

Can't you guys stop yourselves?

Why does lefty politics have to intrude on EVERY part of life? Even grammar isn’t safe from the commissars.

For the same reason that reactionary dumbass politics have to intrude on every part of life. Even education and language isn't safe from kneejerk authoritarian snowflakes.

 

[Politesse]

Well, it depends on context, doesn't it?

A medical ethics paper, apparently.

I'm a bit more sceptical about this than I was before I read that example.

From one example?

 

[Toni]

Everything must be politicized. No aspect of life free of the approved political narrative. Like fundamentalist religion or North Korea.

Why does your side have to be 100% political 100% of the time? I mean really! Seeking out and supporting black-owned businesses doesn't mean ONLY black owned businesses. It means the world continues on inertia of historical unfairness and wealthy white people SOMETIMES have undue advantages. SOMETIMES. A majority white institution ought to therefore seek out non-white persons who may be qualified or have a good business to ensure fairness.

But you and Metaphor have to create a false political narrative about white guilt.

Can't you guys stop yourselves?

Why does lefty politics have to intrude on EVERY part of life? Even grammar isn’t safe from the commissars.

It seems to me that it's right wing politics intruding or attempting to intrude upon academic freedom and normal departmental communications within a work unit.

I'm pretty appalled that someone violated an academic's privacy by publishing an inter departmental email --with little or zero context.

 

[ruby sparks]

Well, it depends on context, doesn't it?

A medical ethics paper, apparently.

I'm a bit more sceptical about this than I was before I read that example.

From one example?

Yes. If, on looking into something for the first time, the first apparently legitimate example you encounter seems daft, I think it's entirely reasonable to be a bit more sceptical. I did not say I dismiss the entire concept.

Well, more specifically, my impressions come from that example and the paper it's from, from googling around a bit, reading the OP material, and looking at some replies here.

 

[Emily Lake]

Nope. It is very clear to me - do not focus exclusively on grammar, spelling and punctuation.

My college level writing classes already didn't focus exclusively on grammar, spelling, and punctuation. They assumed that basic grammar, spelling, and punctuation were already known... and they focused largely on style, organization, and effectiveness. My creative writing class, for example, had a lot of leeway for the basics, if the divergence from standard approaches was used to enhance the story. My public speaking classes and composition classes were far more focused on whether or not my approach was effective at communicating my message effectively.