Every time I grade papers, I wallop kids for using slang in their writing. No, you may not say Buddha was “kind of a big deal.”* Yes, he was quick with a pistol, but you can’t call Andrew Jackson “hardcore” in your DBQ. The problem is that I use this sort of language in class all the time. I can’t help myself. I have a serious penchant for slinging the ’90s slang I missed out on in high school and dropping an Internet meme or two into my lectures. I know I’m not actually funny, but at least my dorky hijinks keep folks awake.
If I read that “Louis XIV always kept half an eye on his posse,” I correct it to “Louis XIV always harbored a degree of mistrust towards his court,” even when I know I referred to Louis’ court as his “posse” at least once during class. Probably twice. I might have even written it on the board, in a moment of synonym-hunting fatigue. I seem to be sending a very mixed message to my students: I’m allowed to be funny, but you’re not. I suppose they need to learn to modulate their language according to the context – a skill they’ve been working on the first time somebody told them not to say “yo” to Grandpa. Still, it sucks that yours truly has to be the one forcing them to abandon the rich, goofy slang lexicon. I’d like to let them explore words more freely.
I might actually get that opportunity as soon as this week. My U.S. History kids are currently working on a project wherein they’re creating websites for the political parties of the 1840s and 1850s. I’m really curious to see how writing history for the web will affect their styles. Will they cling to the stilted, comma-speckled sentences that populate their essays – this is, after all, what they think I want – or will they chill out and adopt a bit more fluidity?
* These excerpts aren’t verbatim. I don’t use kids’ work online without asking them.
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