"Watch Your Language"

       In Mark Larson’s English journal, The Great Debate (Again): Teaching Grammar and Usage, (1996), he asserts that the effectiveness of a piece of writing is more important than the correctness of it. In this piece of writing, Larson supports his thesis by explaining personal experiences of his and by quoting people who are experts in the field of linguistics. Larson wrote this piece in order to inform people that it’s okay not to have totally correct grammar as long as you know how to effectively get your message across depending on the context in which you are writing. The intended audience of Larson’s writing is English teacher and experts.
        I was really happy when reading this article because I didn’t believe teachers like him existed. Mark Larson believed student should contribute their own “language” to their work not just the standard English. He’s not the strict stick to the book type of teacher which is why I like him. He works towards individualism in each student. I definitely agree with him when it comes to students doing the work just for the grade. Writing should be a tool for student to express themselves. Forcing students to stick to the rules and regulations is taking the true purpose of writing away for many people.
       The purpose of this essay was to open the eyes of many who are blinded by the rules and regulations of grammar. Being a teacher, Larson figured out that students see the many rules placed on our language as impassible barriers, simply because we are told that what we know is wrong. “‘...the linguistic form a student brings to school is intimately connected to loved ones, community, and personal identity. To suggest that this form is ‘wrong’ or even worse, ignorant, is to suggest that something is wrong with the student and his or her family’”(Larson, 93). The purpose of writing is to bring your point across in a way that other people will understand as well. “...[writing] is, as Anne Lamont (1994) says, ‘about our need to be visible, to be heard, our need to make sense of our lives, to wake up and grow and belong.’”(Larson, 95) However, when these rules are implemented so harshly, it stops being something we enjoy, but rather becomes a task to write. It is not very enjoyable to write a piece that is just going to be considered wrong and incorrect. “It is not as if our students do not hear the standard form of English every day. Much of what we witness and are likely to misinterpret in the classroom is resistance, shyness, and disinterest, not lack of linguistic ability.” (Larson, 94)