The Politics of Correction

Wow. This piece really hit home for me.

Firstly, because I was in a pretty widely criticized "bad" school district from kindergarten until my senior year of high school. 

Secondly, because I attend an urban college that is teeming with people of different backgrounds who shamelessly express themselves in the languages they are comfortable using, and rightfully so.

And lastly, because the idea of correcting self-expressive language rubs me the wrong way…yet I still have a hypocritical, annoying habit of correcting people when they're not conventionally correct in terms of their language or writing. 

Some of the most beautiful novels, poems, lyrics and stories were conceived through self-expression, and innovative language. Some of the most raw, heart-wrenching, relatable pieces of writing or spoken language are those that come from the heart, from a comfortable and confident place… and yet we use red pens to mark up papers and find it strangely annoying to hear someone say “ax” instead of “ask”, mispronounce a word, or use jargon or slang to express themselves. Why? Because the language of success in America isn’t the one we are most comfortable using, it is the proper, conventional, correct use of the English language. We tell kids that they won’t be able to pass state tests, or get into college, or find a good job if they cannot speak the language of power in all of its politically correct, painfully dull, and conventional glory. As much as I’d like to bash the idea of using proper English, I cannot. I’m using it right now, and it has been drilled into our heads from the moment we entered a classroom. I do not disagree with the notion that language = success, but as educators, we need to stop discouraging our students from using “home language” because it is fundamental to their self expression, and the growth of their language.

Linda Christensen is one of the most well-known and renowned English educators in America, and yet she even admits to using words that aren’t seemingly “correct” in the eyes of the proper American like “chimbly” instead of “chimney”.

I have lived through this all of my life. In every single one of my classes since I was four years old, students were getting called out and embarrassed over the way they spoke, the words they used, their pronunciation, annunciation…you name it. As a future ELA educator, I’m going to have students who expect me to do the same to them, and I will have to. Linda Christensen says that English educators have become so accustomed to looking for errors, that they fail to acknowledge if a student is doing something right.

Although the language of success is necessary, educators have to nurture every single student’s desire express themselves the way they feel the most comfortable. We need to teach them the proper way to speak, write, communicate, etc. because they will inevitably be judged, and we want the future judgments made about our students to be good ones. We need to properly equip them with knowledge of the language of success so that they can access it when they need it, like in job or college interviews, while networking, and in professional settings when proper English is expected.

I like Christensen’s notion of “The Teacher as a Scientist”. She uses Mina Shaughnessy’s Errors and Expectations as an example to elaborate on how educators need to examine their student’s writing, looking for patterns and explanations so that you can determine exactly what errors the student is making, why, and figure out how help the student acknowledge and correct these errors. You cannot simply mark up a paper and expect the student to take anything away from a bunch of red ink on their work. It’s one thing if a student isn’t putting any effort into their work, which results in multiple errors, and it’s another thing if a student’s paper is riddled with mistakes they don’t know they are making. For instance, students who have learned, or are learning English as a second language. They may be incorporating bits and pieces of their home language, or the rules applied to their home language in their English writing and speaking. It is up to the educator to identify each individual’s problem, speak to the student, and see if they can correct it on his or her own. If not, then the teacher can step in for further assistance.

Christensen also places emphasis on how important it is for students to revise their own work and hold them accountable for their own errors. She speaks about one of her student’s, LaJuane, who handed in a paper full of errors, but was written with a lot of passion and enthusiasm. It’s hard to just shoot someone down over errors, especially when it’s evident that they enjoyed writing it so much. So what she did was tackle one issue at a time, despite the fact that he had numerous issues with capitalization, spelling, apostrophe’s and basic sentence structure. She began with capitalization because it was the easiest to solve, after showing him a few examples, she held him accountable for correcting the rest of the capitalization errors in his writing, then moved on to the next issue. I like this idea because although it does sound time-consuming, you’re not overwhelming a student with a marked up paper that could possibly be destroying their self-esteem and any enjoyment they might’ve had during the writing process.

In my future classroom, I plan on letting my students do free-writing activities and self-expressive projects where they are free to use the language they are most comfortable with. “Translanguaging” will be a fundamental feature in my classroom, as well as teaching them the language of power and success we call “proper English”. I hope that my future students will be able to seamlessly toggle between conventional English and the language they’re most familiar with whenever need be. Although we live in a world where “proper English” is expected, it simply isn’t realistic. There are so many different cultures in America and so many different people immigrating here that we cannot expect people to be “proper” all the time. Students may not be able to use conventional English with their families, so it’s not ok to discourage students and continuously correct their way of speaking because it can potentially offend their entire lifestyle, family, or culture.

For me, the ideal English classroom can teach the language of success to produce successful individuals, yet still encourage and cherish the unique use of language of every student, every culture, every background and way of life.

The Coneheads and American Immigration

     A lot has changed in America since 1993. We’ve elected three different presidents, have gone through over two decades worth of technological advances, and have evolved quite dramatically as a society. However, despite all of the unquestionable change that has occurred, there are a few things that have remained constant and we find this notion of consistency expressed in an unlikely place, the movie The Coneheads. Now you might be asking yourself, “What on earth does that movie have to do with American society?” Well, through a zany science fiction plot, it explores issues of immigration, Americanization, and assimilation that were present in 1993, and are still very present today. The comedic aspects of this film definitely distract from the underlying depth of the subject matter at hand, but the oddly realistic and ever-present societal issues that take place in the film are strikingly obvious and will always be relevant.

            The 1993 film version of The Coneheads was an adaptation of a Saturday Night Live sketch done in 1977, and that only goes to show that the inspiration behind the film has continually been present in American culture. America was founded by immigrants, and has made a name for itself as the “Land Of The Free,” and the “Land Of Opportunity,” which is why people have migrated to this “Promised Land” from the very beginning. When America was still the new frontier, immigration wasn’t an issue—at least from the perspective of the settlers—because there was still land to claim and establish, but as the years went by and there was no longer an American frontier, immigration became a problem that required a myriad of legal affairs before one could be deemed an American citizen. Those who forwent the legal process were dubbed “Illegal Aliens.”

In The Coneheads, Beldar and his life-mate Prymaat are actual illegal aliens from planet Remulak who become stranded on Earth after the National Guard shoots down their UFO into the Atlantic. Unfortunately for them, a rescue ship from their planet won’t be able to reach Earth for seven “Zurls,” which is apparently a long time. Prymaat learns that she is pregnant, and both she and Beldar know that they have to make the most of their time on Earth in order to provide for their child. Beldar gets a job as an appliance repairman, a blue-collar job that many undocumented immigrants have, or are offered upon their arrival to America. When Beldar’s employer, Otto, learns that Beldar is undocumented, he arranges to get Beldar a fake identity and this raises the suspicions of an INS (Immigration and Naturalization Service) worker named Gorman Seedling. Besides some very unusual behavior, like smoking a whole pack of cigarettes at once, “consuming mass quantities” of food, and the conical shape of their heads, Beldar and Prymaat do a great job fitting in and just tell people they are from France whenever their eccentric nature is questioned. Beldar eventually becomes a respected cab driver, which is such a stereotypical immigrant job, but it helps the family climb the social ladder and move in to a nice suburban home. Once Prymaat gives birth to her baby earthling girl, they give her an American name – Connie, which is so outrageously normal compared to their own bizarre names.

The Conehead family seems to evolve in a way that mirrors the typical immigrant family in America: clueless and scared at first, then motivated by the reality of having to provide for a family, taking a couple of blue-collar jobs to eventually climb the socioeconomic ladder, becoming more Americanized and giving their children American names until they eventually dilute their native culture. Most of us are familiar with this exact scenario and have seen it play in our own lives, the lives of our friends and family, and the lives of many fictional characters such as the Coneheads. Just because we’ve seen this cliché play out in countless books and movies does not make it less true, for the fiction is based on reality. Both Beldar and Prymaat worked toward having the typical All American dream life. They aspired toward a middle class suburban family with a white picket fence because it’s what they were expected to have, it was the “norm.” Although Beldar and Prymaat retain their eccentricities, their daughter Connie is a first-generation American who simply does not see eye to eye with her parents (how very human of her!). When Connie gets a temporary tattoo on her cone, her father immediately disapproves, which results in a tiff between the two. Just as any first-generation teenager would, Connie rebels because of her parent’s lack of understanding about what it’s like to be an American teenager. Even in matters of relationships, Connie’s boyfriend Ronnie is not too well received by her parents because they don’t understand human love, let alone the American teenage version of it. As if teenagers didn’t already feel misunderstood, with immigrant parents there is not only an age barrier but also a cultural barrier that can significantly hinder healthy communication.

Eventually the INS agents get all the information they need to detain Beldar and Prymaat, but just as they were about to get arrested, the rescue ship from Remulak comes and takes them back to their home planet despite Connie’s displeasure. The INS agent’s insistence to catch the Coneheads causes him to accidentally be taken back to Remulak along with them. Beldar’s success on Earth gets him accused of treason from the Highmaster of Remulak, and for that he is sentenced to fight the vicious “Garthrok.” Beldar uses skills he acquired on Earth through golfing to defeat the Garthrok and is granted a request from the Highmaster, in which he requests to return to Earth in order to “oversee” its conquest. In reality, Beldar just wanted to go back to Earth and continue the American life which he and his family had established and become accustomed to. Beldar spared Gorman’s life, and Gorman gave him a green card to show his gratitude. The fact that Beldar wanted to return to Earth really portrays something that happens to a lot of immigrants who move to America. Most immigrants are able to have a better life in America than they could in their native countries and have assimilated so well that their native countries become more foreign to them than America.

Overall, the humor in this film makes for an entertaining way to watch the process of assimilation for immigrants coming into the United States. You can watch it for sheer entertainment if you wish, but there is no avoiding the stark reality embedded within the film. There is no end in sight for immigration into the United States, and as long as immigration exists, this movie will always be relatable and relevant to people living in the U.S. Just like the Coneheads, immigrants do have their quirks and their customs, and despite the fact that they may seem strange, they are a functioning part of society that has a lot to contribute to the melting pot we call America.