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why I’m lax about grammar
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why Iâm lax about grammar
â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â â 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 â â â â â â â â â â â  â â â â â â â â â â â â â  â â â â â â â â â â â â â âYour kids probably have amazing grammar,â someone told me recently, and I balked a little. [Gaïan and Mo sitting on Tarzan's lap. Tarzan is wearing a black shirt while Gaïan is wearing a blue t-shirt with black and white stripes on the sleeves. Mo is wearing a grey long sleeves shirt. All have big beautiful smiles. ]( For some reason, it felt like an insult. I didnât want to be seen as some grumpy grammar-corrector mom (even though thatâs exactly what I am). As a writer who values authenticity and relatability, I know how important it is to be loose with grammar, even spelling. Maybe thatâs why I was put off, I thought. I want my kids to be able to play with language the same way they play with Legos. But that wasnât exactly it. It only came to me a few days later, like an echo of something Iâd heard someone say before: Grammar is a tool of white supremacy It didnât feel like it came from my brain, but there it was. The idea wouldnât leave me alone. The more I thought about it, the truer it felt. >> If you talk a certain way, certain doors open. Talk a different way and the same doors close. Why is that? >> White people use AAVE (African-American Vernacular English) all the time to sound cool. But we/they would never do that in a boardroom. Why not? >> Whatâs passable for white people on social (âGit dat money!â) would never fly in personâthat would be totally racist, duh! Why is it different in print? It felt important so I looked it up on DuckDuckGo, trying to find the source. The search engine led me to Asao B. Inoue, a professor at Arizona State. Inoue explained that grammar policing (or even in some cases just teaching grammar) is a way of maintaining the white status quo without ever mentioning white people. He suggested that teachers could grade students based on the work they put into their creations, and âdispense almost completely with judgments of quality.â I love that so much. As writers, we already judge our work so harshly. Feedback on the quality of the work is generally unhelpful anyway. In the writing community I belong to, there are incredibly specific rules around how to give feedback. Itâs all about: What did you like about it? At which point did you connect to the character, and how? Which details are most memorable? How did you FEEL reading the work? When the feedback is neutral (or positive, in many cases), I can actually receive it and integrate it into my work. Would I be the writer that I am today if the only writing education Iâd received in grade school was how to say âMay Iâ instead of âCan Iâ? Instead of trying to make my kids sound like they just stepped out of a Jane Austen novel⦠- and I can just hear my son Gaïan: âLegos, as you know, may bring hours of fun, but making my bed I find rather distasteful.â - â¦what if we read books and watched movies of people speaking all different kinds of English, not just âproper Englishâ <---which is itself a racist idea! I donât want to teach my children that one way of speaking is better than any other. Because thatâs usually code for âthe white way is the right way.â This is an observation, not a lecture. Iâm curious, whatâs your relationship with grammar? Do you struggle with it? Does it come easily to you? Does it stress you out to think your grammar might not meet someone elseâs expectations? Iâd love your feedback. You can hit âreplyâ on any of my emails and talk to me and my team. We want to know your thoughts. Xo,
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EDM Keywords (109)
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