I have been collecting words for this week's installment of Wordy Wednesday since last Sunday. But here it is Friday night (late) and I am just getting to them now. My collection started because of a book that I am reading for a class I am taking at Willamette University for a writing certificate program. This year is the first year of the program and when I signed up I didn't really know what I was signing up for. I knew that it was affiliated with Oregon Writer's Project which is near and dear to my heart. I also knew that I had some good friends signing up. I then found out that most of the credits were going to be paid for and that sealed the deal.
For future reference, I may want to find a little more out about something that I am going to be spending a huge chunk of time doing. Because I didn't really have any expectations, I was a little shocked to find out that the series of classes is focused primarily on teacher research (inquiry based). In order to get an understanding of what that all means, we were assigned a book to read for our first course; Inquiry as Stance by Marilyn Cochran-Smith and Susan L. Lytle.
When the book arrived from Amazon, I didn't give it much thought other than reminding myself to take it to our first class. Then at some point during the first class, the instructor (who I respect greatly and would consider very intelligent) said, "I had to have a dictionary beside me when I read this book." It was at that point that the book got my attention. Here is the list of words that I didn't know....
dialectic: the art or practice of logical discussion as employed in investigating the truth of a theory or opinion
palimpsest: a parchment or the like from which writing has been partially or completely erased to make room for another text
counter-hegemonic: a confrontation and/or opposition to existing status quo and its legitimacy
hegemony: leadership; predominance
reify: to convert into or regard as a concrete thing
assuage: to make milder or less severe; relieve; ease; mitigate
grist: a quantity or lot
inviolable: incapable of being violated; incorruptible; unassailable
epistemology: a branch of philosophy that investigates the origin, nature, methods, and limits of human knowledge.
parlance: a way or manner of speaking; vernacular
antithetical: directly opposed or contrasted; opposite
To give myself a little credit, there were some that I looked up I realized that I recognized a root word or had figured out what the word meant by the context clues. Others though, just reminded me how limited my vocabulary really is. For instance, Joe (the English major) knew all but one of them. I doubt I would find myself really using any of these, at least in any kind of confident manor, but I did want to have a place to record them since they were new words to me!
As for the book, I appreciate the author's viewpoint in many cases. They regard teachers highly and place much faith in a teacher's ability to be a change agent within the system. I want to believe what they say is true. The cynic in me is not convinced though. What they are suggesting would be amazing; it is amazing if you consider the examples they give. But before I get too carried away with what I think about it all (which isn't really much) I need to remember that what the authors are suggesting is what I am going to be asked to do throughout the writing certificate program. So, for tonight, all I am going to leave you with is my list of words.
(one for this week and ten to count towards the 24 I still needed to make up...leaving 14 more to make up)
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