Jargon, Rigor or Fancy Talk?

I am a dreamer.  A believer.  I love to believe in people, ideas, visions.  I love to believe what I hear and what I read.  When I was a sophomore in high school, my teacher introduced an activity by telling us a dinosaur egg had been found and we had been commissioned to build packaging for it.  I was all like, NO WAY!  It only crossed my mind after I had embarrassed myself with excitement that if a dinosaur egg had indeed been found, they (whoever they were) would not ask children to build a package in which to ship it.  I am simply in love with possibilities.

So when I read the article "Don't Confuse Jargon with Rigor", I was ready to throw the baby out with the bathwater and start over (no babies were harmed in the writing of this blog post).  I pumped my fists in the air determined to use words my students understood.  Who cared if I called it a whats-a-ma-jig as long as my kids could complete the task or skill?

But then something happened to make me stop and think (and it was much less embarrassing than my classmates shouting, "It's not a REAL dinosaur egg, you moron!")

Actually three things happened.  I was teaching students in the 4th grade about genre and theme using Google Docs and the Chrome extension Note Anywhere.  We had read a story and some song lyrics and a poem.  When I was asking the students about the genres, one of them answer, "I think the story could be considered prose."

I froze.  "Uh, I think so?"  I realized I didn't even know what exactly made a writing prose.  The students, use to discovering things with me and not from me, went to the web to find out if indeed, the story (realistic fiction) could be counted as prose. (I won't spoil it for you.)

In that same school with a group of 5th graders, we were reading the same story.  We predicted using our text features and had read the first 2 paragraphs.  "But what do you think the conflict of the story will be?" I asked, wanting some deeper inferences.

"I think the conflict with be character and self." Beyond my expectations, but I was skeptical given that the author warned that what comes after regurgitating standard-talk is usually superficial or incorrect.

"Explain yourself, young one!" I demanded.

"Well, the character says that she has all of these ages bottled up inside of her.  I think she will struggle with turning eleven but feeling all of those other years."  The story we were studying was "Eleven", by Sandra Cisneros.

Hmmm...  The third thing that happened was in a kindergarten class.  We were using Plickers to review and expand our understanding of 3D shapes.  As the students were identifying shapes, I asked, how do you know?

"It's a cube!"

"How to do know?"

"Because it's like a square with 8 vertices."  That could have counted as regurgitation expect that when she tripped slightly over the word "vertices", she brought her two index fingers together to form a corner.

Wow.  I mean WOW.  It was like the third ghost visit in A Christmas Carol.

Using smart words helps me feel smart.  Are they smart words or are they better words?  Is it better to say decomposing instead of breaking it down? (Although if you use "breaking it down" you could also dance...)

A wise man (James Kimbell) once told me, while my class was studying that super fun list of words to say instead of "said", if "said" works, just say "said".  Don't search for fancy when plain will do.  He said it way better than that...

So, where does that leave us?  Do we expect students to use standard-talk?  Do we teach them the jargon?  Other than English teachers, professors and other like-professions, will they ever use the word "genre"?  Or are these tier three words?

In the end I am left with more questions than answers.  The baby is back in the bathwater.  And I am draining the tub...