If the sentence above was separated from the picture of a slice of pizza, would you understand the meaning? How would you know? Or just as importantly: why would (or wouldn’t) you know?
Whether you’re ordering a slice of pizza, explaining to your professor why you missed class, or asking for help with your essay at the Writing Center, you rely on language to make yourself understood. Here, at CUNY, although many members of our campus community speak several languages, we mainly speak English in the classroom--and in the Composition classroom, we write only in English. This is where frustration sets in, even for native English speakers: how to make our thoughts, which make perfect sense in our heads, clear to our readers who are our classmates and your instructor. Here is where you know more than you think you do. You know how your language works, or at least some of how your language works. In the comment section below, “teach” the readers of this blog about two significant features of your first, spoken language. Make sure you include links to the sources where you found your information.
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About this blogA blog is an online conversation. This one is for students of writing and is an extension of our face-to-face classroom. Here is where we can continue a discussion started in class, ask questions, and test new ideas. Archives
March 2020
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