Does Spelling Count Reflection on Jack Connors story

[Adell 0]

To understand what I'm talking about, you may research Jack Connor's Will Spelling Count?

 

 

Jack Connor is not your typical English teacher ? and no, I am not going to reveal that he is actually the real Superman?s alter ego nor does he have superpowers. He is just an ordinary and everyday person who teaches at Drexel University for a living in a rather different way.

 

In his first few years of teaching, he is the laid back and fun professor everyone wants to have but nobody really listens to. Mr. Connor was ? he said and I quote; ?convinced that to have a significant effect on my students? writing, I had to demonstrate that I was not the stereotypical English teacher?. This shows him using the tactic of ?reverse psychology? on his student where he cares less for the students to probably care more? But this tactic quickly backfires and explodes in his face with rather bland and mediocre results from his too laidback students. He as quickly as the tactic explodes in his face just as fast realizes his mistakes and decides to shape up (or probably ship himself out and forget about teaching altogether). He adopts the total opposite of his previous little act and dons the intimidation tactic, which makes him the devil students so hate to see, but get slightly better results when it comes to their output, the worse in him bringing out the best in them.

 

?Will spelling count?? is how our essay opens up and it brings our attention to look for the answer. This is mainly because this is not a question you really just ask in an everyday situation ? most of us jump to the conclusion that when it comes to an English or a composition class that, spelling does count; but this essay throws Jack Connor in our face and he tells his students ?No. Of course it won?t? and we get to think ?Why?? It grabs our attention in a rather strange way.

 

He tells us through time, helping us see how this man, Jack Connor, relays his experience as time passes and how he had changed overtime. He points out the difference of his ways in his first year of teaching freshman composition and how he went through his weekly classes. It goes on like that through his second year of teaching, then his third and until four years of teaching have passed where he finishes his narration until ?last year? (which would be 2002 if this was written in 2003, etc.) This chronological unraveling is clearly pointed out when he states things such as ?In my first year of teaching?, ?So, in my second year? and so on.

 

Meanwhile, as commonly as the chronological approach is utilized in this essay, Jack Connor also utilizes rather simple yet effective modes of development such as narration, illustration and comparison and contrast.

 

The narration is most likely the easiest and the most effective (as well as the most eye catching) form of development any writer (whether amateur or professional) can use. We can easily relate to a story rather than any explanation of quantum mechanics a genius may try to tell us. The use of quotation indicating the use of speech is the easiest way we could spot the use of narration (although this is not always the case), something really evident mostly in Jack Connor?s first, sixteenth and last paragraph.

 

Frowning, taking a pipe out of my mouth and hesitating, I would try to look like a man coming down from some higher mental plane. Then, with what I hoped sounded like a mixture of confidence and disdain, I would answer; ?No. Of course it won?t.?

But of course, narration would not be the only mode of development utilized by our writer. He also illustrates examples of how his tactics had affected those who he had taught. Situations where his authority over his students was lax and ignored led to poor outputs from his tutelages, while a stricter and more aggressive front had them scratching their pens on papers like there was no tomorrow for even a decent grade resulting in better work.

 

In that first year, I was convinced that to have a significant effect on my students? writing, I had to demonstrate that I was not the stereotypical English teacher ? It was not to be. Week after week, students handed in papers that had obviously been dashed off in 30 or 40 minutes.- I stopped trying to make the class interesting. ? The students spent more and more time pushing their pen across paper in class.

And just like how he had illustrated certain situations and certain outcomes, he had compared and contrasted those two different events ? his initial tactic of reverse psychology and his more recent intimidation tactic. He had told us how each and every action he had done had affected it ? both situations garnering different results. So to speak, he had shown simple causes and their simple effects, as quoted previously.

 

Then we have the notoriously strange paragraph fourteen. We see a list of questions and followed with Jack?s answers to said questions and I find myself laughing at how silly yet how serious the answers are. We find the man?s rather subtle sense of humor, though his students must probably found him to be uptight. It would take a true genius to even think of doing a syllabus such as this (or so I believe). But, when comparing that paragraph with the rest of the essay, we see that the inevitable question; ?Does spelling count?? does not appear in the syllabus, prompting one of the student?s to ask it. It could have been done on purpose on Connor?s part.

 

Finally, we get to the last paragraph and when we do a once over of the whole essay, we see that the introduction and the conclusion, we see the similarities and the differences. ?Will spelling count?? and he replies ?No. Of course it won?t.? or ?Yes. Of course it will.? and we see how greatly the change of two words (Yes or No and Won?t and Will) affects practically the whole idea of the content itself. It leaves us (or at least me) to wonder which one he felt was truly correct. I just want to read it again and again, just trying to figure out which is which and I could probably never get any closer to ?his? truth because it is his. I guess, when it comes to the importance of spelling, you?ll have to ask that question to yourself, won?t you? It probably does for me, but it?s a little instinctual on my part.

 

?Will spelling count?? Yes. No. Maybe? I could still never figure out what Connor?s was truly trying to say even if I had read it about a couple dozen times, which may mean that I am being rather dense or that was how he intended it to be. He might have intended it to be rather open ended ? a question floating in the air, just right there in front of you, but you can never grasp wholly. But I guess it does really take a true genius to write up something that keeps you wondering, doesn't it?

[inea 0]

Does spelling count? This question can be make bigger by asking for whom and in what context and for what reason and for what goal. This might make it more easy to answer the question. And it is possible to set some points to what the subject in question, being spelling in this topic, has to agree to in order to be able to judge the subject. So this means that an attempt can be made to set some questions that need to be answered in order to give an answer that is based on a sort of fundation.For instance the importancy of communication can be considered. And the writer can find it important that the reader understands what the writer wrote. And so spelling can help to make the ideas of the writer clear to the reader. So if the cause of information and the desire to be clear are taken in account and when spelling helps the communication and when correct spelling helps to make the text and the meaning of the text and the meaning of the writer more clear to the reader it can be concluded that taken those points in account and for those points correct spelling can be of use.

Edited October 1, 2010 by inea (see edit history)

[mamer 0]

Ok, we still understand the words even if they're misspelled. But is it a good thing to encourage?Language became a system for communication by obeying certain rules. The written language wouldn’t have been there without sticking to some rules.It’s true that those rules have certain degree of flexibility which allows languages to develop and evolve. From time to time an irregularity becomes a rule, that’s fine as long as the majority of language users agree.English in my opinion is a special case as it doesn’t belong to the English native speakers alone. Many other cultures share the natives that language and do whatever suits them with it. But does that mean it’s a good practice to have multiple versions of written English? And how many dialects of the written language can English cope with?For me, spelling counts even if I made spelling mistakes myself. I still try to correct them.