Tuesday, October 22, 2013

The Amy Tan Blogs, Take 5 (cognitivism)


a cognitivist teacher...

The cognitivist, or objectivist, teacher is focused on leading students toward the correct interpretation of texts. The pre-reading materials for “Mother Tongue” would include definitions of Standard Written English and “code-switching” and biographical information about Amy Tan. Students would be asked to underline topic sentences and find the essay’s thesis statement. Post-reading questions would ask students to summarize Tan’s main ideas. Class discussion will guide students into a clearer understanding of the difficulties Tan’s mother faces due to her broken English. As a writing assignment, students will be asked to write a five paragraph definition essay that arrives at a definition of “Standard Written English” or “Broken English,” using examples from “Mother Tongue” as support (credit to Aaron for using bringing the definition essay to my attention in his blog about the remedial use of Amy Tan). 

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