Colloquium on English - Research Institute for Waldorf Education

98
It names the parts and modes and marks
It’s a taxonomic rite—
And multitudes are led through it,
And still they cannot write,
And go as ones that have been stunned
And are of sense forlorn,
Much sadder and unwiser wights
Than ever they was born.
(quoted by Schuster, Edward H. in Breaking the Rules : Liberating Writers Through Innovative Grammar
Instruction, New York: Heinemann, 2003)
What then are we to do?
GRAMMAR IN A WALDORF HIGH SCHOOL: POSSIBLE EXERCISES
1. Code Switching: Given what Steiner has said about the importance and “life” of dialects, the first step in
a conscious understanding of language might be to have students do comparative research. The first place
that many linguistics professors suggest as a beginning is to record spoken English. It is interesting for older
students to attempt to record the language of young children, those in kindergarten or first grade, or
younger siblings. From such an exercise they might discover how young children are attempting to discover
pattern as they learn to speak the “code” of those around them. They will probably discover, for example,
that children expect logic in plurals and say such things as: ‘foots” and “mices,” or look for consistency in
past tenses and might use “I goed,” or “I holded.” It is unlikely that older Waldorf students will have much
exposure to others who speak an extensively different dialect, but some students will have examples. Literature
is also a useful resource for examples of dialect. We might even use transcriptions of talk shows that are
available on-line. (see: Rebecca Wheeler: Codeswitching: Tools of language and culture transform the dialectally
diverse classroom)
Students should then be encouraged to discover some of the differences between spoken English
and written English that they may encounter is a variety of sources: in newspapers, magazine articles,
popular books, various genres in literature. This will lead them to understand some of the ways in which
spoken and written English are different from each other.
2. Audience: Students might then be encouraged to give an account of the same experience to an imagined
variety of audiences. How would they describe a weekend party to a friend, a parent, a grandparent, a
teacher? They immediately see that they are “code switching” as determined by their perception of audience.
Within most later middle school and high school classes, there are examples of “sub groups” (skateboarders,
computer aficionados) all of which use particular “codes”. In fact, asking students to make a small
dictionary of words that they use with each other that parents and teachers may not know reveals the
quickly changing adolescent code. It is an easy step to looking at how written language also shifts according
to audience. Newspapers and magazines are a rich resource for this.
This will lead them to understand that choices in spoken and written English are determined by the
speaker’s or writer’s perception of audience. They will also understand that language is always in a process of
change.
3. Purpose: Engaging students in a discussion of the variety of purposes for spoken and written language
use is a delightful exercise. Many keep diaries and journals, for example. Who is the “Diary” in “Dear