This course asks you to understand issues of world englishes, dialect, gender, style, usage, and correctness by becoming language ethnographers of the written and spoken word, by observing and recording language uses in your readings and in your academic and personal lives, and by describing your experiences in written analyses. You will be asked to do quite a lot of discovery writing–keep journals, write letters to the class, ask questions of others in the class and respond to their questions–and write alone and in collaboration with others several formal texts. You will be expected to draft, revise, and polish some of the discovery writing and to help other students to do similar work on their compositions. In the next 16 weeks, you will be expected to complete approximately 20-25 pages of polished text and at least that many pages of discovery writing; some of the this will serve as draft material for the polished texts.

The assigned readings will serve as springboards for thinking about your own experiences with language. Much of the semester's writing and thinking will be directed toward the culminating assignment, which you write in leiu of a final examination, in which you develop your own position on the major issues we have taken up over the course of the semester.

To provide hands-on language experience. I am asking you to integrate your language study in this class with a 25-hour service learning project in the community. Service learning projects combine volunteerism in the community with the fieldwork typical of educational internships: the purpose is to serve recipients while providing learning experiences related to course content. The idea behind service learning is to help you gain a better understanding of the academic content of this course by applying your skills and knowledge to benefit society. Philosophically, service learning is grounded in experience as a basis for learning. If you wish your service-learning experience to be documented on your transcript, you can sign up for one credit of IS 291. If you elect this option, you will offer 30 hours across the semester in service.

Although you have the opportunity to tailor a service learning project to your own disciplinary interests and career goals in conference with me, I suggest two projects through which you can integrate your study of language while serving the larger community:

Mentor in the Teens Reading the Pacific Program.
In this option you meet regularly with a small group of intermediate and/or high school students to discuss three or four books chosen from the Teens Reading list (one book on the list is the Yamanaka text assigned for this course). Each reading circle will have four or five teenagers, and be led by you, a college student acting in the role of mentor and discussant. The circle members can meet either on school grounds or at branches of the public library to discuss the books. The purpose of this group, called a literature circle, is to provide an attractive, out-of school, interactive setting so that young readers can discuss books in a non-threatening, non-graded way. You can help them develop a love for literature at the same time you reflect on the language issues from our own class (language dialect and variety, language and gender, style, etc.) as they come up in the literature circles.

Tutor in a local public school classroom.
I'll put you in touch with teachers who will identify students and describe their language needs so that you can develop tutoring strategies.

I'll expect you throughout the semester to integrate the language experiences in your service learning projects with our discussion of the assigned readings. Much of your discovery writing will, I anticipate, focus on your service learning experiences. Once you get your project set up, I'll ask you to write bi-weekly journals, reflecting on the experience and connecting it with class readings and discussions. Near the end of the semester, you'll draw on the journal reflections to write an essay that analyzes your service learning experiences and the language lessons you learned as a result, of it.

Grades will be based on the following:
Discovery writing (journals, letters, questions and responses, drafts) – 20%
Language and Literacy Narrative 15% (to be published in a class magazine, lab fee $5)
Gender and Language Project 15%
Style Analysis 15%
Service Learning Essay 15%
Language Position Paper 15%
Contribution to discussion, collaborative group work, etc., 5%

Required Texts:
Clark, Eschholz, and Rosa, eds., Language: Readings in Language and Gulture, Sixth Edition; Yamanaka, Saturday Night at the Pahala Theatre; Hurston, Spunk. Selected Short Stores; Best Essays 1997; and selected articles to be handed out in class.

Overview of class schedule:

Weeks 1-2 Introduction to issues; language and personal identity. Set up
Service Learning project.
Week 3 Historical linguistics and language change, world englishes.
Language and literacy narratives.
Weeks 4-7 Language variations and discourse; language variety and culture.
Preliminary observations on language variety in service learning.
Weeks 8-11 Gender-based Language Differences. Gender and language project;
service learning reflections.
Weeks 12-15 Style and language; Style analysis; service learning reflections
Week 16 Service Learning Projects
Final Exam Language Position Paper