I would say that it is unhelpful because its prescriptions presuppose the knowledge most of our students don’t have. What good is it to be told, “Do not join independent clauses with a comma,” if you don’t have the slightest idea of what a clause is (and isn’t), never mind an “independent” one? And even if a beginning student were provided with the definition of a clause, the definition itself would hang in mid-air like a random piece of knowledge. It would be like being given a definition of a drop-kick in the absence of any understanding of the game in which it could be deployed.

I cannot see, however, why a failure of secondary education relieves college teachers of a responsibility to make up the deficit. Quite the reverse. It is because our students come to us unable to write clean English sentences that we are obligated to supply what they did not receive from their previous teachers. No doubt this obligation constitutes a burden on an already overworked labor force, but (and this is one of those times a cliché can acquire renewed force), somebody has to do it.

These include (1) asking students to make a sentence out of a random list of words, and then explain what they did; (2) asking students to turn a three-word sentence like “Jane likes cake” into a 100-word sentence without losing control of the basic structure and then explain, word-by-word, clause-by-clause, what they did; (3) asking students to replace the nonsense words in the first stanza of Lewis Carroll’s “Jabberwocky” with ordinary English words in a way that makes coherent (if silly) sense, and then explain what they did, and how they knew what kind of word to put into each “slot.” (The answer is that even in the absence of sense or content, the stanza’s formal structure tells them what to do and what not to do.)

In the final exercise, about which I’ve written before in this space, the class is divided into groups of four or five and each group is asked to create its own language — complete with a lexicon, and a grammar capable of conveying the distinctions (of number, tense, mood, etc.) conveyed by English grammatical forms. At the end of the semester each group presents a text in its language and teaches the class how to translate it into English, and how to translate English sentences into sentences in the new language, to which the group always gives a name and about which it is always fiercely proprietary.

that very truth is a reason for teaching it to students who are being prepared for entry into the world as it now is rather than the world as it might be in some utopian imagination — all dialects equal, all habit of speech and writing equally rewarded.

prejudices

“Yes , you do, and I am not here to take that language from you; I’m here to teach you another one.” (Who could object to learning a second language?

And then get on with it.

implied that pro-union graduate workers would be voting against their self-interest, since a union could result in a reduction of university jobs for them, if it increased costs for the university.

Cornell students organized to hold the corporation accountable, and successfully pressured the university not to renew its contract with Starbucks. This was the beginning of the Starbucks Off Our Campus movement, which spread to a couple dozen campuses, a direct response to the company’s anti-labor practices.

The effects of inflation and the need for a COLA clause came up often, when speaking with UAW Local 2300 members. “Over the years, you know, it seems as if our paycheck does not go as far,” said Louise Braron, a Cornell custodial worker at a previous rally. “We can tell just going grocery shopping that we don’t buy the foods we once used to buy because we can’t afford them any longer.”

“they are saying that they don’t know how they would budget for it, and all kinds of excuses.” However, by the final night of bargaining before the strike, the university did offer a COLA clause, but without other counteroffers that would compel the union not to strike.

just before student move-in day, the union called a strike.

willingness to pay the fees — so long as the city agreed to formally grant them control over the local hand-laundering industry.

Atlanta City Council got involved. Its solution: a $25 annual business license fee on any member of a washerwomen association (more than $670 in 2021 dollars)

She refused to pay, and as punishment, the 49-year-old asthmatic mother of two was sentenced to work on a chain gang for 40 days.

On the employers’ side, the strike hit like a wrecking ball. As washerwomen began returning soiled or still-wet laundry to clients who refused to pay the higher wage, White employers scrambled to find workers to fill the laundry gap as they feared the strike would spread to other industries.

declined to print the White women’s names to protect their privacy (a courtesy not extended to the Black female strikers)

brought in the city’s White washerwomen (who made up only 2 percent of the workforce) to support their cause.