I teach graduate and undergraduate courses on English words, English grammar, and syntactic theory. A motto for all my classes is that “grammar is not the enemy.” I’m a member of the University of Wisconsin-Madison Teaching Academy. In 2014, I was honored with a Chancellor’s Distinguished Teaching Award and in 2018 I received the English Department’s Graduate Student Association’s Teaching Award.
Some courses I regularly teach
English 314: The Structure of English
This course introduces students to the study of English grammar from a linguistic perspective. You will learn that grammar is not something external that is written down in a book, rather, it is something that is part of every speaker’s tacit knowledge about language. In this course, we will try to make some of that knowledge visible. To that end, you will learn to apply linguistic terminology and methods to describe the structure of English words and sentences, both verbally and visually (in so-called tree diagrams). You will also learn to identify linguistic constructions (such as relative clauses or passive constructions) and to analyze how they are employed in different text types. What we will not do is judge anyone’s grammar.
English 412: Bad Grammar and Metalinguistic Awareness
In this class we explore the vexed relationship between descriptive and prescriptive approaches to grammar. Descriptive accounts are grounded in actual language usage (linguistist describe language as it is), while prescriptive accounts focus on language as some people think it should be. The field of linguistics has long rejected prescriptive accounts of language as irrelevant, misleading, and damaging, but the broader culture is fascinated with such accounts (think t-shirts that way “I’m silently judging your grammar”). We will learn about different forms of prescriptivism, their history, and the harm they may cause. This being a linguistics class, we will discuss in detail some of the constructions that have been/are targets of such approaches, such as sentences ending on prepositions or so-called split infinitives. You will learn to work with linguistic corpora and to engage with the public on topics of grammar as a person with linguistic training. Assessments include a creative project (see Grammar Badgers website for examples), and the introduction of a research article or a linguistic usage guide in class.
English 516: English Grammar in Use
In this course we look at the role of grammar in constituting texts and at the choices speakers make when they use certain syntactic constructions. Specifically, we will look at non-canonical sentences, i.e. sentences that don’t follow the subject-verb-object pattern. We will discuss why speakers choose to express an event one way or another, emphasizing the role of the surrounding discourse and syntactic patterns conditioned by register and genre, such as fronting, cleft sentences, inversion, and particle shift. Class activities will generally be a mix of lecture, data analysis and discussion. Our readings will generally be taken from the required textbook and the articles discussed therein. Some classes will be devoted to discussing research methodology, including working with an electronic corpus and designing research posters. The course ends with a poster presentation.
English 413: English Words: Grammar, Culture, Mind
This course is an introduction to studying English words from three different linguistic perspectives: As objects of grammar, words follow certain rules of combination and they also have internal structure. For example, a word like hopefulness is fine, while nessfullhope or hopenessful do not exist. From a psycholinguistic perspective, this course examines how children learn these formal properties as well as the meaning of words. We will also look at how words are stored in the mind and what one can learn from situations in which one cannot access the mental dictionary properly (for example, when one feels a word is on “the tip of one’s tongue”). From a sociolinguistic perspective, we will look at historical and current influences on English vocabulary, including the role of dictionaries and spelling as a source of standardization. Assignments for this class include a creative project (such a s a video or an app).