warm up #2

1. Rose thought that it was too soon for him initially to be giving writing assignments to the students. He thought that since he wasn't the teacher and he didn't know them well enough that it was to soon to start this. He came up with an exercises with bringing in some pictures and posters. Many of the stories the students were about their lives outside of school. What kind of places that they lived and sometimes how hard it was to deal with the types of neighborhoods that they lived in. Rose also had them write about what they saw in posers and pictures. Some to me lacked creativity and didn't write much at all, although I'm not sure how much time they had to write. Although some of the writings that the students did weren't long Rose was able to engage them into writing and thinking. Overall the picture exercises went very well. This helped him to come up with future writing assignments and so see where the students were in terms of learning and creativity. It was a way for him to get to know the students.

language investigation #2: Go Nuggets!

It was a little difficult for me to think about a community that I shared a language with. I don't think that my friends and I talk in a way that no one else would understand or if they were present would make them feel like an outsider. The closest thing I can think of as a community with its own language is being at a Denver Nuggets games or being a Nuggets fan. If you don't know that is our NBA basketball team here in CO, just in case. Unless you go to or even watch the games you wouldn't get any of the remarks, who certain people there were or some of the players nicknames. One thing that is pretty big is when the announcer says "Melo" for Carmelo Anthony, everyone repeats him. You can even hear this on TV. If you didn't go to the games you would never know how crazy the mascot is, or even know that is name is Rocky. No who goes has to say, "the mascot Rocky who is the big yellow mountain lion in a Nuggets sweat suit"; its just plain Rocky. Also when the announcer says certian players nicknames and not real names, you might not know who just scored. For example "The Answer" is Allen Iverson. So next time you go to a Nuggets game if you haven't been before, you have a little heads up than all of the other new people there.

Warm up 9/3/08

1. I noticed that most of the post that I read had to do with humor. Many of the words that were unique to each family had to do with something funny or some sort of good memory. Like mine I noticed that a few of the posts had to deal with their families culture or where they came from before moving to the U.S. Only one of the people that commented on my blog said something about the other words I use in my family. The other two only commented on the German part. I wonder if this is because this really was the most interesting of the three or that they only read that part because it was the first part.

2. It seems that many families get their language from where they came from, such as country or what area they come from. A family on one side of the U.S. may not have the same language as another even though both families are from the same country. I also think that families get thier language through experiences with one another.

3. To be an insider of language means that you may have been there for the "creation" of the word and may know a little bit more about it than others do.

Language Investigation #1

Many of the words that we use in our family are German words. All of my mom’s side of the family is from there any many of the words have stuck for using within English. One word in particular is “waschflekle” (which is probably not spelled right, since no one has really tried to spell it) waschflekle translated into wash cloth. The “le” on the end makes the word more unique because of the part of Germany that my family is from. In this part of Germany people tend to add a “le” as a sign of endearment. I actually never knew the word wash cloth until I was about twelve or thirteen. One of my friends asked me if we had a wash cloth and I thought she meant like a cloth to wash a car with. It took a while before I figured out what she really meant.

There are many other words that we use that are German, but that would take a long time to write about all of them. We have also developed words from names. Our dog has many nicknames, but I think that confuses her. Her name is Sugar and one of the main nicknames that she has is Woogie. Now, how on earth did Sugar turn into Woogie you might ask. Sugar turned in to Shugie, to Wooger, to Woogie. How those changed into one another I’m not sure, but it stuck. She is a Maltese, which is a small white dog. My dad now refers to all small white dogs as “Wooggies”.

Another word that mostly my mom and I use is “tasties”. This refers to all dried products used to make broth, mostly beef or chicken bouillon cubes or granules. I never knew that for the longest time that like me my mom also used to eat these as a kid. I know you might all think this is gross. I should have guessed that she did, because how else would I have known to eat them when I was in the need for some serious salt. Now that I think of it, I’m not really sure how the actual word “tasties” started to be used to mean the broth making stuff. I always just remember asking my mom if I wanted tasties or her asking me the same. Even though did this as a kid I don’t really saw tasties now yet I guess I did a lot when I was younger. Thinking on it now I’m not really sure what I call the granules or cubes used to make broth.