Swimming, Not Drowning

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elements

Illustration of Australian swimming goddess Annette Kellerman displaying her remarkable swimming and diving skills. It is this type of prowess and effortless grace that I hope to inspire in my students as they swim (not drown) in the Sea of Morphological Knowledge!

Concerned by the tsunami of linguistic terminology in which students have recently been immersed, Sharon Peters, co-presenter in the school’s word-study workshops and grade 6 humanities teacher extraordinaire, and myself devised a lesson to help students swim, rather than drown in these exhilarating, terminological waters.

Students of all ages are capable of using the correct terminology. This is a crucial part of the precision we expect of students when thinking about words and applying this to literature. I note, when linguistic terminology falls like pearls from my tongue, the whites of my students’ eyes and sweat bead upon their brows! At this stage of the year we talk about the need for rigorous terminology in order to communicate understanding with clarity. Using this terminology from day one and with young students all the way through the grades makes sense as it is the same terms applied to every word that is explored and certainly within a month, students are using these terms effortlessly.

I felt certain that students would soon be comfortable with these terms.Yet the terminology focus of this week has led to far greater clarity sooner rather than later. At the beginning of class students indicated their degree of understanding over the terms: thumbs up for feeling comfortable, thumbs sideways for moving towards understanding and thumbs down for “this is like a foreign language and I’m wandering lost and confused”. We discussed the importance of asking questions, testing ideas rather than expecting an instant ‘right’ answer. We discussed the idea that learning is a two way partnership…powerful though I am, I cannot read their minds! Students must question, ask for clarity and at times be persistent and work hard to achieve understanding. We discussed the idea that asking questions is a sign of intelligence.

We had begun class by listing qualities that we felt made a hero. Are there some universal traits? Students had gone home, thought about the list and narrowed this down to five words that they felt were essential to the concept of heroism. Some discussed this with their parents. Students ranked these five traits in order of importance, then compared their list with others at their table groups. We will go further with this in the next few lessons and it will inform our discussions of The Odyssey as we consider which of these traits applies most strongly to Odysseus. Why is he regarded as a hero?

In preparation for these later discussions that will involve understanding a word deeply in order to justify its application to Odysseus and the other heroes we encounter in this unit, students need an understanding of morphological terminology, hence Getting to Grips with Morphology.

Watch as students sort through the elements suggested by the list of heroic qualities. These qualities have been divided by me into elements, cut up, mixed and placed in an envelope to create an ‘element sort’. There are no hyphens on these elements  to indicate whether an element is a prefix or suffix ( a hyphen to the right if a prefix and to the left if a suffix).Students were asked to create words from the elements, indicating this in a word sum, and make any necessary changes that occur near a morpheme boundary. In order to show their understanding of the terminology they were asked to label each element.

Interesting discussions occurred, as students rapidly sorted between prefix and suffix, discovered connecting vowels and decided whether a base was bound or free. It was interesting to see how often my assumptions about what words were possible to create were challenged. I had not anticipated both <compassionate> and <ate>. In  <compassionate> of course the element <-ate> is a suffix and when alone, unattached to other elements, as one group told me, it can represent the past tense of <eat> with <ate> being a free base. Of course it bears no relationship to the suffix <-ate> as the students swiftly understood. Challenging for them were the base elements <vent> and <pass> in <adventure> and in <compassionate>. Were they free or bound? One group could not see how vents , which indicated the movement of air, bore any meaning connection to the word adventure and so concluded that the base in adventure was bound. I prompted one group to go beyond a speedy acquiescence to one member’s assertion that the base element,<pass> in <compassionate> was free.

More word building from elements and applying the morphological terms

Collaborating to build words

Collaborating to build words

Qualities of a hero

Heroic qualities: images and words

Heroic qualities: images and words

Heroic qualities: images and words

Heroic qualities: images and words

Heroic qualities: images and words

As an exit card from class, students spelled aloud a word they had created from the elements, pausing between the morphemes.

So what was gained from what I assumed to be a simple lesson in categorization?

• consolidation of linguistic terminology through application
• reinforcement of spelling aloud each morpheme. The kinasthetic nature of this activity with hands fluttering up emphasizes the morphemic boundaries. This helps to make students aware of the joins where vowel suffixes can force changes to a base element or another suffix. This also gave an opportunity to reinforce the reasons for removal of single non-syllabic <e>, the basis of the previous inquiry.
• an opportunity to note the infinite possibilities in which elements can be attached to form words
• an opportunity to consider the meaning carried by a base element and the importance of not leaping to swift conclusions. Just because a base may look like a free base element, does not necessarily mean that in a word it is. Evidence must be gathered and research into the roots (etymological investigation).
• Just because a suffix has the same letter string as a base element does not necessarily mean that in a word it is e.g. <ate> and <compassionate> , <able> and <comfortable>). Neither suffix or base are etymologically related.
• opportunities to discuss why in fact <immortal> has two ‘ms’, no foolish mnemonic needed here, simply a matter of the joining of a prefix <im-> to a bound base element <mort>.
• Many of these words will be examined throughout the year where further research into words sharing the base elements will be considered and an examination into the root to see how the root meaning has carried through to all current related words.

Norman Juster in The Phantom Tollbooth brilliantly sums up the value of word  inquiry:

“In his box are all the words I know”, he said. “Most of them you will never need, some you will use constantly, but with them you may ask all the questions which have never been answered and answer all the questions which have never been asked. All the great books of the past and all the ones yet to come are made with these words. With them there is no obstacle you cannot overcome. All you must learn to do is use them well and in the right places.” (p.98 King Azaz, the Unabridged, monarch of Dictionopolis to Milo as he ventures on his quest across the Mountains of Ignorance, beyond the Foothills of Confusion to rescue and restore the Princesses Rhyme and Reason to the Kingdom of Wisdom.)

To badly parody the Kellerman text above, I see that an activity such as this can lead to feats of word analysis and critical thinking ‘showing the splendid development students have acquired through the use of proper linguistic terminology’!!

And who is Annette Kellerman? Read Annette Kellerman- Australia’s forgotten icon and read here. At 15 Annette beat men in sprints and mile swimming races, she supported her family through difficult times by diving into an aquarium, donning a mermaid’s tail and swimming with seals and eels! In 1908 at a Boston beach at the age of 21 she was arrested for indecency by attempting to swim in a skin tight one piece men’s bathing suit that ended slightly above her knees. Perhaps her defiance of gender boundaries and courage to follow her passion, qualify her as a hero. I am impressed by the mythological status she acquired that was reinforced by silent film success with Siren of the Sea (1911),The Mermaid (1911), Neptune’s Daughter (1914),Daughter of the Gods(1916) and Venus of the South Seas(1924).

From here it’s just a simple ‘back dive’ ( see Kellerman image above!)  to … ‘Swimming Song’ performed Loudon Wainwright III

Should ‘e’ Stay or Should ‘e’ Go?

Tags

suffix patterns

I discovered this image when I stumbled upon a site” Funny shirts for Science Geeks”. Check this out and, given the previous post and the title of this blog, I love the nerd shirt!

Should <e> stay, or should <e> go? This was the question that sparked an inquiry, ‘The Case of the Disappearing <e>’ during the week with grade 7s.

Our task, to investigate a series of words, some free base elements and some stems. A stem is a base element with another bound element attached and to which you are adding another suffix or prefix such as ‘replay’( stem: prefix +base) +ing) We then considered the effect of a suffix on these words. Sometimes the <e> disappeared when adding a suffix, yet in other words, the <e> remained. Was there a consistent pattern ? Could the students come up with a clear, concise hypothesis that accounted for this? Could they then translate this hypothesis to a flow chart?

Students were asked to analyze words into morphemes. This was a challenging exercise in itself as these students, new to morphology, peeled off the affixes. They used the charts on their table to do this. I find the use of a prefix chart from Real Spelling and a suffix chart that previous classes have helped to compile, a useful springboard for students as they plunge into the heady waters of morphology. Our suffix chart is by no means complete and students must examine the possibility of the existence of a suffix by confirming it with other words sharing this. This stage of ‘the case’ took several days. It was homework as I asked students to think about one word.

Here’s an email I received from one student one night:

‘This is what i think the word sum is.

de+term+in+a+tion

is this correct?

thanks’.

My response then as I hope to go beyond the ‘right answer’ fixation to push his thinking further:

‘Interesting hypothesis my friend! More work needed:

What if I said the  word <action> What would the suffix there be?

Then think about <operation> and peel back the suffixes

and peel back the suffixes from the word <elongate>?

Another hint: think about the word <bovine> which means cow like or <marine>’

Student again:

Hi this is me again,

is the word sum

<De+term+ine+ate+ion>?

Thank you.

I am pleased that this student has ‘had a go’, but hope to see him expressing more justification and backing up his theory with evidence for each morpheme as the year and inquiries into words progress.

New for many students was the suffix  <–ate> which they discovered when asked to check whether inspiration could be analyzed as <*in+ spire+at+ion> or <in+spire+a+tion>. Many students were surprised that <*tion> was not a suffix. They could think of examples where this letter string occurred but when asked how they could account for this in the word <action>, their eyes widened as they realized where the morphemic boundaries lay!

I adapted a flow chart from Real Spelling by removing all text except for the words START,” “Yes” , “No” and the final boxes  “Just add the suffix”, and “Replace the single silent <e> with the suffix.”  This <e> often referred to as ‘silent’, is non-syllabic, always final in a base, and also in some suffixes.

Watch as students are challenged by  ‘The Case of the Disappearing <e>’…

Sadly, these videos all too often reveal that I still need to remain silent longer in order to “hear” and understand a student response, as well as develop a steadier hand – less of the Blair Witch Project hand held camera effect!. While this public exposure can be confronting, I find this recording of students extremely helpful. This has allowed me to reflect on the questions I ask of students and has assisted removing the tendency to rescue or overwhelm my students with a tsunami of information. I have learned to be patient and allow more time for cognitive struggle. Students develop more pride in their efforts when given time to reflect and justify rather than give out the answer but the balance is fine- too much time and interest wanes, too little time and students become dependent on the right answer rather learning the habits of persistence and data gathering to support an hypothesis.

This was challenging for all students from the most competent (or those whose writing appears error free) to those who need to internalize this pattern in their writing. Just because writing is error free, does this mean that students understand and justify the why of an orthographic pattern or convention? This understanding and analysis of patterns and conventions is exactly what those who are new to English seek in coming to grips with the English language. This too is exactly what those students whose writing appears to be filled with miscues need to understand. Too often these students  are misled by mnemonics and half truths purporting to be rules. All too often students are told  rules rather than challenged to investigate, gather and  analyze data they have amassed. All too often we “tell” students rather than allow the time to explore. All too often we rush this stage rather than give them time for this to settle and allow for reflection and refinement of their ideas.

Completing the flow chart too was demanding for students. Many struggled converting statements into questions. However, I was struck by high student engagement and by the fact that students did not want to be corrected but guided –  they wanted their efforts heard and challenges to be given. Creating the flow chart demanded precision of thought  and refinement of language. It allowed for me to clarify many of the linguistic terms I use from the first day. I expect students to use these in their charts and discussion. I expected the flow chart to be consistent, to work for every example. This meant each word needed to be worked through the steps on the chart. I asked for the language to be simple, precise and elegant- in effect to apply Ockham’s razor. (An interesting night of reading there for me!)  I explained to students Willliam of Ockham , Franciscan friar and scholar and philosopher (1288-1348), is frequently attributed for the theory expressed as :“Don’t multiply entities beyond necessity.” In my reading I came across this statement:  “The question, of course, is which entities are needed and which are not” and that is precisely what students were struggling with in this task. While being challenged to express this understanding of a suffixing pattern with clarity and economy or parsimony, Professor Massimo Pigliucci , philosopher at CUNY, warns about this notion of simplicity and economy:

“There is no shortcut for a serious investigation of the world, including the spelling out of our auxiliary, and often unexplored, hypotheses and assumptions.’

In reference to word inquiry and this investigation by grade 7, I take heed of Piglucci’s warning and have taken the liberty of slightly adapting this: “There is no shortcut for a serious investigation of a word, including the spelling out of our auxiliary, and often unexplored, hypotheses and assumptions.” This is the basis of word inquiry- serious investigation and questioning of hypotheses with data and evidence.

And yes we did come together as a whole class to consolidate our understanding, refine our language and to establish if <e> should stay or should <e> go.  I am sure you can anticipate what’s coming next, yes a time warp to the 80’s with the one, the only “The Clash”

Celebrating Word Nerdery

Tags

fool, geek, nerd

A Sketch: ‘Bookish Fools’ by John Madsen

‘Foolery, sir, does walk about the orb like the sun, it shines everywhere’.
—William Shakespeare, Twelfth Night (3.1.39-40)

  ‘Why, thou sayest well. I do now remember a saying, ‘The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool.’ -William Shakespeare, As You Like It, Act V, sc 1)

‘Better a witty fool, than a foolish wit’– William Shakespeare, Twelfth Night,1,v

The header image of this new blog is a detail of a print by my father John Madsen after an illuminated Flemish manuscript image of fools, 1340. The exuberant cavortings of these figures in the blog header and the studious reflection in the sketch above, is a hopeful symbol of the atmosphere involved in this grade 7 class and represents the joy of critical thought, as when we are engaged in word inquiry.

As this blog is entitled Word Nerdery, I asked my humanities classes about the words ‘nerds’ and ‘geeks’. What was the difference between the two? Which word was more negative? We also considered the word ‘fool’ as this is an underlying concept in both words.

Despite the laughter when introducing these words, this investigation raised interesting points about synonyms in English. We understood that when a word is totally identical in meaning, one of the words will become obsolete or shift in meaning. Synonyms range along a continuum of closeness. While we noted many similarities between the words, we too were aware of slight differences. Both terms ‘geek‘ and ‘nerd’ suggest knowledge, but geeks perhaps are more obsessively narrow in their knowledge. Both nerds and geeks are socially awkward, according to my students, but nerds possibly more so; geeks are more technologically savvy, while nerds more academic. Nerds lack a sense of style – many students referred to the stereotypical braces (suspenders), pants pulled a little too high,tie, and glasses. Both groups felt that the word ‘geek’ to be somewhat more positive in connotation.

After listing the features of ‘nerd’ and ‘geek’, we then consulted our resources – the trusty Mac dictionary, OED, Chambers Dictionary and  Online Etymology Dictionary, in order to investigate the denotation and etymology.

Here’s what we found:

‘Fool‘ came from a Latin root meaning bellows! ‘Latin follem,follis, lit. ‘bellows,’ but in late popular Latin employed in the sense of ‘windbag,’ empty-headed person, fool’ (OED)

The OED gives the denotation that a fool is: ‘One deficient in judgement or sense, one who acts or behaves stupidly, a silly person, a simpleton. (In Biblical use applied to vicious or impious persons.) The word has in modern English a much stronger sense than it had at an earlier period; it has now an implication of insulting contempt which does not in the same degree belong to any of its synonyms, or to the derivative foolish. Cf. French sot’.

The Online Etymology Dictionary discussed the later development of the professional fool in the 14th century as jester or court clown although noting that it is difficult to determine whether it was an entertainer or an ‘amusing lunatic on the payroll’.

The OED says of this sense ” One who professionally counterfeits folly for the entertainment of others, a jester, clown.The ‘fool’ in great households was often actually a harmless ‘lunatic’ or a person of weak intellect.’

And yes ‘folly‘ comes from from this root as does ‘follicle’ so Latin root follis has led to two base elements in PDE (Present Day English): <fool> and <fol>. Another fascinating discovery was the word ‘foolscap’ and this was the literal meaning- a cap worn by the fool or the court jester in the 1630s. However as we saw in Online Etymology Dictionary in the 1700s it became associated with a type of paper which was watermarked with a court jester’s cap!

Nerd: The Oxford Mac Dictionary tells us that ‘nerd’, a noun, is ‘a foolish or contemptible person who lacks social skills or is boringly studious.’ with an additional meaning of ‘a single-minded expert in a particular technical field: a computer nerd.’

The OED provided this denotation: ‘An insignificant, foolish, or socially inept person: a person who is boringly conventional or studious. Now also:Spec. A person who pursues an unfashionable an unfashionable or highly technical interest with obsessive or exclusive dedication’.

While foolish, socially inept and contemptible are negative, the Chambers Dictionary certainly let loose with a flow of opprobrium: ‘A clumsy, foolish, socially inept, feeble, unathletic, irritating or unprepossessing person, although often (eg computers) knowledgeable’

We discovered the connection to Dr. Seuss in the etymological entries of both dictionaries and then confirmed this with Online Etymology dictionary.

We discovered that ‘geek’ is the older of the two words.

Geek:OED: ‘Freq. Depreciative. An overly diligent, unsociable student: any unsociable person obsessively devoted to a particular pursuit (usually specified in a preceding attributive noun). In the 15th century it was written as ‘geke’, 16th century evolved to ‘gecke’, and in 15th, 18th ‘geck‘ ( geek). It came into English via Low German geck perhaps from a Dutch meaning ‘mad’ or ‘silly’. This according to the OED is related (either as source or derivative) to gecken. From Low German the word passed into the High German dialects, Middle High German geck(e, German geck, and into Scandinavian, Danish gjæk, Swedish gäck, Norwegian gjekk, ? Icelandic gikk‘

We discovered that even Shakespeare had used this word, although it may be a misuse of ‘gecke’. In 1616 Shakespeare in Cymbeline 161 ‘To taint his Nobler hart & braine, with needlesse ielousy, And to become the geeke and scorne o’th’others vilany.’

We discussed society’s view of knowledge and learning or enthusiasm for learning. Why is it, as these words suggest, an object of derision and scorn? The words imply that if you show an enthusiasm for learning, or a passion for a particular area, you are foolish, socially awkward and lack a sense of fashion!When recently browsing through Idioms and Their Origins by Roger and Linda Flavell, I chanced on the expression ‘bluestocking’ to discover how this too is a derogatory term to deride ‘erudite’ women. The Della Calza society, meaning ‘of the stocking’, was formed in 1400 in Venice by learned men and women with blue stockings as their emblem. This was imitated in 1590 by the Bas-bleu club in Paris which proved a hit with learned women. In London, in 1750 Lady Montgomery ‘tired of the trivial round of cards and gossip’ invited intellectuals and literary figures to her house for discussion. One member of this group Benjamin Stillingfleet often wore blue worsted stockings rather than black silk and so this feature was seized upon to label and deride the group. Yet another case of of public contempt and mockery of learning. 

From this discussion about negative attitudes to learning, we discussed the word stereotype and the dangers of this type of categorisation. We had just made identity charts of ourselves and had been struck by the diversity in interests, religions, places lived, and cultures that had influenced and shaped us. We know that humans are complex and more than one solitary aspect such as race or religion or gender or the fact that we love reading or learning.

We also discovered, as my students had sensed, that the word ‘geek’ is shifting from  a negative and harsh categorising of people to becoming more positive. This process is known as amelioration. ‘Geek’ started to ameliorate in the 1990s as, we conjectured, society became dependent upon the technological knowledge and wizardry of geeks.

After researching the etymologies of these words, students divided into groups to build matrices of the words ‘geek’, ‘nerd’ and ‘fool’.

One group’s work on ‘fool’

Another group’s work on ‘geek’

So why focus on these familiar words? In this initial exploration of three 20 minutes sessions conducted through the week, we have learned :

• that what applies to one word can apply to hundreds of words
•  the terms ‘free’ and ‘bound’ base elements. All students were able to identify that these words under investigation were free base elements.
•  to use resources to gather information. We read several dictionary denotations which added to our understanding of the words. We saw where to find the etymological information in the dictionary entries as well began to understand how to find the root in the Online Etymology Dictionary.
• that words have stories and a history. Students are beginning to understand the term root.
•  that words can change over time. Meaning can shift as language evolves and adapts to societal change. Words can shift from negative connotations and become positive and likewise slip to become more negative- we saw this process of  shift in the status of ‘geek’ and ‘fool’.
•  that bound elements, prefixes and suffixes, can be attached to a base or another suffix to form adjectives, nouns, verbs, adverbs that share the same base. We realized that compound words have two base elements. In the case of ‘foolproof’ or ‘tomfoolery’ both elements are free.
•  how related words, those sharing a common base, can be displayed in a matrix. Students learned how to identify the elements and construct a matrix using Neil Ramsden’s mini- matrix maker
•  that synonyms are not interchangeable. There are subtle differences of meaning as we saw with all  three words. We felt ‘fool’ to be the most negative followed by nerd and geek more positive.
•  that dictionaries are not static. Words are being added all the time, shifts in meaning are being investigated and recorded.We saw that as recently as June this year 1200 new words were added to the Oxford Dictionary, including the word ‘geekery’!!(See Tweet Geekery and Epic Crowd Sourcing)

So theses are the first steps in word inquiry and I am hopeful that this new crop of grade 7 students will thrive in their thinking and research about words and take pride in being ‘word nerds’.

And to be absolutely clear about ‘geek’ and its current moves to a more positive connotation, look at the poster below one student found in his ‘geek’ inquiry.

To become geeky about the word ‘geek’ (or is this suggestion leaning to the academic and therefore nerdy?) read these articles from the Oxford Word blog below :

Are You Calling Me A Geek? Why Thankyou

Embrace Your Geekness

Le Geek, C’est Chic

On Geek Versus Nerd (interesting research by Burr Settles based on words associated with geek and nerd using data from twitter and translated into an infographic)

Further fascinating reading about famous fools such as Tarlton, jester to Elizabeth I (r. 1558-1603); Will Sommers, court jester to Henry the V111; a dwarf-jester called Nai Teh (Mr. Little) at the court of King Mongkut of Siam (r. 1851-68), described by Anna Leonowens in Anna and the King of Siam; Jamie Fleeman (1713-78), the Scottish jester to the laird of Udny who ‘complemented his jesting duties with those of a cowherd and goose guardian.’All these and more can be found here: Fools Are Everywhere, by Beatrice Otto.