Wednesday, August 12, 2009
Wednesday, July 16, 2008
My interest in Linguistics
My interest in linguistics began at the dinner table when I was very young. The linguist and my father, Samuel Jay Keyser, played language games with my siblings and me, while we were growing up. I began to understand, at those dinner time sessions, what it meant to be able to speak a language. I learned that I had an intuitive command of a vast and systematic body of knowledge called English and that I could trust that intuition. More than anything, my father provided me with the ability to ask questions about language, a gift I continue to use to this day. When it came to school, my teachers taught a different kind of “grammar,” mostly associated with writing. This became increasingly confusing because it flew in the face of my intuitive understanding of linguistic grammar. There were so many exceptions to the rules taught in school that the rules seemed worthless. It was not until I took a syntax class at The University of Montana as a graduate student that some of those questions were finally answered. This class also provided me with some information that connected the dots between the lessons at the dinner table and the ones at school. In fact, what I learned in this graduate level class made so much sense to me that I asked myself why not teach it when I become an English teacher? Linguistics in education became a part of my Master’s Thesis (Keyser, 2001). Since I graduated, I have taught syntax and phonology, syntax to grades five through nine and phonology to grades seven and eight. Those dinner conversations with my father have turned into collaborations inside and outside the classroom.
Fun with Puns
My father and I decided we wanted to incorporate some semantic lessons into the class. We thought puns might be a fun way to open the door to ambiguity. Here is the lesson and the worksheet associated with it. My students found the assignment challenging but had a good time making up their own puns.
Lesson Plan for Puns and Fun with the Trombone
The whole lesson should last 30 minutes on Wednesday May 21, 2008
∑ First define pun: A pun is a joke that depends on a word having two meanings. The joke comes from the unexpected association with the second meaning after setting up the listener to expect the first meaning.
∑ It starts with the dictionary in your head.
It has one entry for the sound [bIl] (Bill) that includes two meanings.
a. An account of how much something costs.
b. The nose of a bird.
∑ Give examples:
∑ A duck walks into a pharmacy and asks for some chapstick. How are you going to pay for it? asks the pharmacist. Just put it on my bill.
∑ What does Land-O-Lakes and an angry ram have in common? Both are a kind of butter.
∑ What is black and white and read all over? A newspaper.
∑ What’s the difference between a face and a wrestler? The wrestler knows the holds and the face holds the nose.
∑ What do you call a groupie that can’t stop spinning? An electric fan.
∑ A vulture boards an airplane, carrying two dead raccoons. The stewardess looks at him and says, 'I'm sorry, sir, only one carrion allowed per passenger.'
∑ Two hydrogen atoms meet. One says, 'I've lost my Electron.' The other says, 'Are you sure?' The first replies, 'Yes, I'm positive.'
∑ I went to a concert and heard a woman play a Baroque violin. It would have sounded even better if she used a violin that worked.
∑ You may have to explain the first two to show how it works.
∑ Give students some words that could be used for puns and put the class into two groups. The two words are:
∑ Horse/ hoarse
∑ Subject
The students then have five minutes to figure out the best pun and Dr. Keyser judges the best one.
Here is the worksheet associated with the lesson.
Worksheet for Puns and Fun with the Trombone
Definition of a pun: A pun is a joke that depends on a word having two meanings. The joke comes from the unexpected association with the second meaning after setting up the listener to expect the first meaning.
Directions: With the examples below, use the dictionary in your head to first figure out which word has two meanings and write it in the blank space provided. Next write the two meanings in the next two blank spaces. Finally, explain the joke in the final space.
Notice that for puns 1-2 the word in question sounds the same and is within the sentence
1. What is black and white and red/read all over?
∑ Word in mental dictionary _________________.
∑ Meaning one_____________________
∑ Meaning two_____________________
∑ Explain the pun __________________________________________
2. Two hydrogen atoms meet. One says, 'I've lost my Electron.' The other says, 'Are you sure?' The first replies, 'Yes, I'm positive.'
∑ Word in mental dictionary_________________
∑ Meaning one _____________
∑ Meaning two _______________
∑ Explain the pun _________________________________________________
For numbers 3-5, the word in question is not within the sentence itself, but the sound is the same.
3. What do Land-O-Lakes and an angry ram have in common?
∑ Word in mental dictionary________________
∑ Meaning one ____________________
∑ Meaning two _____________________
∑ Explain the pun _____________________
4. What’s the difference between a face and a wrestler?
∑ Word in the mental dictionary__________________
∑ Meaning one ______________________
∑ Meaning two ______________________
∑ Explain the pun _____________________
5. What do you call a groupie that can’t stop spinning?
∑ Word in the mental dictionary____________________
∑ Meaning one _________________________
∑ Meaning two ________________________
∑ Explain the pun _____________________________
If you finish early, try 6-7 as a challenge.
For numbers 6-7, the word is within the sentence, but the sound is slightly different. There are three spaces provided. In the first space write the word as it is spelled in the sentence; in the second space create your own spelling of the way the word sounds to you (phonemic spelling). For example, vulture could be spelled the way it sounds: vulcher) In space three write the word that is sounds similar to with phonemic spelling, finally explain the pun in the final space provided.
6. A vulture boards an airplane, carrying two dead raccoons. The stewardess looks at him and says, 'I'm sorry, sir, only one carrion allowed per passenger.' _______________, __________________, ________________.
_____________________________________________________________
7. I went to a concert and heard a woman play a Baroque violin. It would have sounded even better if she used a violin that worked. ______________ , ______________, ________________
_____________________________________________________________
Here are some words that could be used for puns. In your groups, try to create a pun from the following words: You many use the dictionary to figure out the two meanings.
On the back of this worksheet, write out the pun that you create. Mr. Keyser will judge them and decide the winner.
∑ Horse/hoarse
∑ Subject/subject
If you would like a copy of the lesson and/or worksheet, email me at bkeyser@sd3.k12.mt.us or check them out on TeachLing.
Lesson Plan for Puns and Fun with the Trombone
The whole lesson should last 30 minutes on Wednesday May 21, 2008
∑ First define pun: A pun is a joke that depends on a word having two meanings. The joke comes from the unexpected association with the second meaning after setting up the listener to expect the first meaning.
∑ It starts with the dictionary in your head.
It has one entry for the sound [bIl] (Bill) that includes two meanings.
a. An account of how much something costs.
b. The nose of a bird.
∑ Give examples:
∑ A duck walks into a pharmacy and asks for some chapstick. How are you going to pay for it? asks the pharmacist. Just put it on my bill.
∑ What does Land-O-Lakes and an angry ram have in common? Both are a kind of butter.
∑ What is black and white and read all over? A newspaper.
∑ What’s the difference between a face and a wrestler? The wrestler knows the holds and the face holds the nose.
∑ What do you call a groupie that can’t stop spinning? An electric fan.
∑ A vulture boards an airplane, carrying two dead raccoons. The stewardess looks at him and says, 'I'm sorry, sir, only one carrion allowed per passenger.'
∑ Two hydrogen atoms meet. One says, 'I've lost my Electron.' The other says, 'Are you sure?' The first replies, 'Yes, I'm positive.'
∑ I went to a concert and heard a woman play a Baroque violin. It would have sounded even better if she used a violin that worked.
∑ You may have to explain the first two to show how it works.
∑ Give students some words that could be used for puns and put the class into two groups. The two words are:
∑ Horse/ hoarse
∑ Subject
The students then have five minutes to figure out the best pun and Dr. Keyser judges the best one.
Here is the worksheet associated with the lesson.
Worksheet for Puns and Fun with the Trombone
Definition of a pun: A pun is a joke that depends on a word having two meanings. The joke comes from the unexpected association with the second meaning after setting up the listener to expect the first meaning.
Directions: With the examples below, use the dictionary in your head to first figure out which word has two meanings and write it in the blank space provided. Next write the two meanings in the next two blank spaces. Finally, explain the joke in the final space.
Notice that for puns 1-2 the word in question sounds the same and is within the sentence
1. What is black and white and red/read all over?
∑ Word in mental dictionary _________________.
∑ Meaning one_____________________
∑ Meaning two_____________________
∑ Explain the pun __________________________________________
2. Two hydrogen atoms meet. One says, 'I've lost my Electron.' The other says, 'Are you sure?' The first replies, 'Yes, I'm positive.'
∑ Word in mental dictionary_________________
∑ Meaning one _____________
∑ Meaning two _______________
∑ Explain the pun _________________________________________________
For numbers 3-5, the word in question is not within the sentence itself, but the sound is the same.
3. What do Land-O-Lakes and an angry ram have in common?
∑ Word in mental dictionary________________
∑ Meaning one ____________________
∑ Meaning two _____________________
∑ Explain the pun _____________________
4. What’s the difference between a face and a wrestler?
∑ Word in the mental dictionary__________________
∑ Meaning one ______________________
∑ Meaning two ______________________
∑ Explain the pun _____________________
5. What do you call a groupie that can’t stop spinning?
∑ Word in the mental dictionary____________________
∑ Meaning one _________________________
∑ Meaning two ________________________
∑ Explain the pun _____________________________
If you finish early, try 6-7 as a challenge.
For numbers 6-7, the word is within the sentence, but the sound is slightly different. There are three spaces provided. In the first space write the word as it is spelled in the sentence; in the second space create your own spelling of the way the word sounds to you (phonemic spelling). For example, vulture could be spelled the way it sounds: vulcher) In space three write the word that is sounds similar to with phonemic spelling, finally explain the pun in the final space provided.
6. A vulture boards an airplane, carrying two dead raccoons. The stewardess looks at him and says, 'I'm sorry, sir, only one carrion allowed per passenger.' _______________, __________________, ________________.
_____________________________________________________________
7. I went to a concert and heard a woman play a Baroque violin. It would have sounded even better if she used a violin that worked. ______________ , ______________, ________________
_____________________________________________________________
Here are some words that could be used for puns. In your groups, try to create a pun from the following words: You many use the dictionary to figure out the two meanings.
On the back of this worksheet, write out the pun that you create. Mr. Keyser will judge them and decide the winner.
∑ Horse/hoarse
∑ Subject/subject
If you would like a copy of the lesson and/or worksheet, email me at bkeyser@sd3.k12.mt.us or check them out on TeachLing.
Friday, July 11, 2008
The Phonology of Poetry Unit
To see the complete lesson plan and a variety of excellent lesson plans written by linguists, teachers, and student teachers go to TeachLing
I collaborated with my father in order to teach rhyme scheme in poetry. After several conversations about poetry, rhyme, and phonology, we realized that unless my seventh and eighth grade students were able to identify the stressed and unstressed syllables of polysyllabic words and to locate the primary stress in a word, they would not fully appreciate the principle behind rhyme scheme. When it came to writing rhyming poetry, they would be at a disadvantage as well.
The unit of rhyme scheme had some unintended benefits. One was that this lesson reached all students including struggling readers whose biggest challenge was to read polysyllabic words. For example, even if students were able to decode polysyllabic words correctly, the words continued to elude them unless they were able to locate the primary stressed syllable as well.
It also helped to heighten their awareness of how stressed syllables and word meanings are closely related. For example, when they hear the word cónduct with the primary stress on the first syllable, it means something completely different than condúct with the primary stress on the second syllable. This kind of word awareness helps students tremendously when they approach new words in their reading.
Here is how the lesson is taught. The first thing I teach my students is to hear stressed syllables in polysyllabic words. Students have trouble at first counting syllables and deciding which syllable should be stressed. They have not looked at this in a deliberate and explicit way since perhaps 3rd or 4th grade, when they are still learning to read. We revisit dictionary lessons and look at the way the pronunciation key can help them with new words.
The students become familiar enough with locating primary stressed syllables in polysyllabic words that we are able to move on to the next step. That is to see how rhyme and stressed syllables works in poetry. I use “Ad-dressing of Cats,” by T.S. Elliot. This entertaining poem helps students hear the rhyme clearly since the rhyme scheme is so very regular. I teach them how to represent the rhyme scheme of the poem (AABB), that is, its couplets. There is one couplet, however, that is not a perfect rhyme. That works well as a contrast to the rest. Students really need to tune into the sound of words to hear the difference.
Students then listen to two other poems with more complex rhyme schemes: “The Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner” and “Paul Revere’s Ride.” These poems are recited in a podcast made by my father. The students represent the rhyme scheme in several stanzas for both. They work more closely on “Paul Revere’s Ride” since it is closer to their reading level. They listen for the stressed syllables and mark the rhyme scheme.
Once these preliminary lessons are in place, my father teaches his lesson through a web-cam and Skype. He begins by focusing on the exception in “Ad-dressing of Cats” and talks about how this is not a perfect rhyme. This opens the door to teaching different types of rhyme like perfect rhyme, near rhyme, end rhyme, internal rhyme, etc.
He then rereads four or five stanzas from “Paul Revere’s Ride” and asks students what it sounds like to them. The rhyme scheme is seemingly irregular in this piece, but by bringing back the phonological element of rhyme and rhyme scheme in poetry, students are able to hear that the rhyme sounds like horses hooves beating on the road. They would not have been able to hear this if they had not understood that rhyming poetry is as much sound as it is orthography. Their understanding of reading and interpreting poetry grew in depth by recognizing the way in which form enhances meaning. The closing lesson was to ask the students to paraphrase and summarize each stanza to ensure they really did understand the poem. Without breathing life into this poem phonologically, the closing exercise would not be as successful. As a final project for this unit, students write thank you limericks to my father who responds with his own limericks to each of them.
The experience has been enriching at many levels. First, it has deepened my knowledge of phonology and learning. Second, it has brought a linguist into the classroom to interact with students about language at a level they have not experienced before. Third, students have learned more than how to represent a poem’s rhyme scheme. Poetry has become the vehicle, a beautifully creative one I might add, to teach students how important phonology is to language enrichment. Finally, it has reached students at many academic levels. Struggling readers and advanced readers now have another strategy to approach unfamiliar words.
I collaborated with my father in order to teach rhyme scheme in poetry. After several conversations about poetry, rhyme, and phonology, we realized that unless my seventh and eighth grade students were able to identify the stressed and unstressed syllables of polysyllabic words and to locate the primary stress in a word, they would not fully appreciate the principle behind rhyme scheme. When it came to writing rhyming poetry, they would be at a disadvantage as well.
The unit of rhyme scheme had some unintended benefits. One was that this lesson reached all students including struggling readers whose biggest challenge was to read polysyllabic words. For example, even if students were able to decode polysyllabic words correctly, the words continued to elude them unless they were able to locate the primary stressed syllable as well.
It also helped to heighten their awareness of how stressed syllables and word meanings are closely related. For example, when they hear the word cónduct with the primary stress on the first syllable, it means something completely different than condúct with the primary stress on the second syllable. This kind of word awareness helps students tremendously when they approach new words in their reading.
Here is how the lesson is taught. The first thing I teach my students is to hear stressed syllables in polysyllabic words. Students have trouble at first counting syllables and deciding which syllable should be stressed. They have not looked at this in a deliberate and explicit way since perhaps 3rd or 4th grade, when they are still learning to read. We revisit dictionary lessons and look at the way the pronunciation key can help them with new words.
The students become familiar enough with locating primary stressed syllables in polysyllabic words that we are able to move on to the next step. That is to see how rhyme and stressed syllables works in poetry. I use “Ad-dressing of Cats,” by T.S. Elliot. This entertaining poem helps students hear the rhyme clearly since the rhyme scheme is so very regular. I teach them how to represent the rhyme scheme of the poem (AABB), that is, its couplets. There is one couplet, however, that is not a perfect rhyme. That works well as a contrast to the rest. Students really need to tune into the sound of words to hear the difference.
Students then listen to two other poems with more complex rhyme schemes: “The Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner” and “Paul Revere’s Ride.” These poems are recited in a podcast made by my father. The students represent the rhyme scheme in several stanzas for both. They work more closely on “Paul Revere’s Ride” since it is closer to their reading level. They listen for the stressed syllables and mark the rhyme scheme.
Once these preliminary lessons are in place, my father teaches his lesson through a web-cam and Skype. He begins by focusing on the exception in “Ad-dressing of Cats” and talks about how this is not a perfect rhyme. This opens the door to teaching different types of rhyme like perfect rhyme, near rhyme, end rhyme, internal rhyme, etc.
He then rereads four or five stanzas from “Paul Revere’s Ride” and asks students what it sounds like to them. The rhyme scheme is seemingly irregular in this piece, but by bringing back the phonological element of rhyme and rhyme scheme in poetry, students are able to hear that the rhyme sounds like horses hooves beating on the road. They would not have been able to hear this if they had not understood that rhyming poetry is as much sound as it is orthography. Their understanding of reading and interpreting poetry grew in depth by recognizing the way in which form enhances meaning. The closing lesson was to ask the students to paraphrase and summarize each stanza to ensure they really did understand the poem. Without breathing life into this poem phonologically, the closing exercise would not be as successful. As a final project for this unit, students write thank you limericks to my father who responds with his own limericks to each of them.
The experience has been enriching at many levels. First, it has deepened my knowledge of phonology and learning. Second, it has brought a linguist into the classroom to interact with students about language at a level they have not experienced before. Third, students have learned more than how to represent a poem’s rhyme scheme. Poetry has become the vehicle, a beautifully creative one I might add, to teach students how important phonology is to language enrichment. Finally, it has reached students at many academic levels. Struggling readers and advanced readers now have another strategy to approach unfamiliar words.
Syntax Trees Make More Sense Than Traditional Sentence Diagramming
In order for seventh grade students to understand syntax, they need to understand grammatical categories. Therefore, I teach parts of speech by their morphological, syntactic, and semantic properties. My students and I spend several weeks looking at the basic parts of speech like nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, pronouns, prepositions, determiners, and coordinating conjunctions. I have to spend a lot of time undoing their previously taught notions, for example, that nouns refer to people, places, or things. Instead I show them that nouns are words that follow certain markers like a/an, the, some, and no.
I continue to teach syntactic categories during my vocabulary lessons. When I introduce a new vocabulary word, I put it in a sentence on the board. Students must attempt to figure out the part of speech, through syntactic and suffixal clues before they figure out the possible meaning through contextual clues. We have had some interesting conversations and observations about words as a result of this exercise. For example, the students discovered that the regular –ed ending for a verb’s past tense can also be an adjectival suffix and that –ed adjectives can become adverbs using the suffix –ly. This discovery came about while discussing the past tense of the verb agitate:
V agitate
Past tense V agitated
Adj. agitated
Adv. agitatedly.
We have also encountered particles that look like prepositions. This provoked rich discussion. For example, when a student was asked to identify a verb from the sentence, the boy jumped over the fence, on the board, he bracketed the verb with the preposition (The boy [jumped over] the fence). We talked about why [over the fence] was the prepositional phrase, which lead to an explanation of particles in contrast to prepositions. I showed them the example, “The boy looked up the street,” in both of its meanings. The boy looked up the street in the phone book. The boy looked up the street to see his friend running down it. However, when mucking around language, I have learned that one must step gingerly, or one can step into deep holes of linguistic complexity. I am very careful how I choose my sentences. I believe that is key to keeping the objectives of each lesson few and focused, thus using students’ innate ability to illuminate syntactic rules rather than overwhelm them with burgeoning complexity.
While I teach parts of speech, I teach students about phrases and ultimately Subject, Verb, Object (SVO) word order in basic declarative sentence structure. Students begin to understand that certain grammatical categories are closely connected to other grammatical categories; for example, determiners to nouns in noun phrases and some syntactic categories are connected to entire sentences like sentential adverbials. I do not discuss transitive verbs vs. intransitive verbs until I have given my students what I consider an excellent tool to teach them phrase relationships: the syntactic tree diagram. It is a wonderful visual representation of sentence structure. I color code parts of speech for students to enhance that visual knowledge. For colorblind children, I substitute font styles for color-coding.
I begin with intransitive verbs mostly because they involve the least complex trees. I also show students that sentences are much more than just a string of words put together. There are some unexpected advantages in having students build sentence trees. One is that it levels the academic playing field. Unless students have a language disorder, all students understand this at a deep linguistic level. My highly academic students no longer have an edge.
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