The Defence of French: A Language in Crisis?

As Robin Adamson explains in The Defence of French: A Language in Crisis?, due to the long history of centralized power and of governmental control of language, the French have a singular relationship with their mother tongue. It is not surprising then that France’s defense of its language is uniquely passionate and uniquely polemical. By referencing past works on the subject, and through her own analysis of the history and current state of the defense of the French language, the author evaluates the situation, draws her own conclusions as to whether or not the language is endangered, and makes a prognosis about its future. Assisting the reader through this rather dense work is a list of the abbreviations of the 34 organizations and political bodies referenced throughout the work as well as frequent tables that depict timelines and break down the information into bite-sized pieces

The Defence of French: A Language in Crisis?

As Robin Adamson explains in The Defence of French: A Language in Crisis?, due to the long history of centralized power and of governmental control of language, the French have a singular relationship with their mother tongue. It is not surprising then that France’s defense of its language is uniquely passionate and uniquely polemical. By referencing past works on the subject, and through her own analysis of the history and current state of the defense of the French language, the author evaluates the situation, draws her own conclusions as to whether or not the language is endangered, and makes a prognosis about its future. Assisting the reader through this rather dense work is a list of the abbreviations of the 34 organizations and political bodies referenced throughout the work as well as frequent tables that depict timelines and break down the information into bite-sized pieces

Introducing Habits of Critical Inquiry Across Academic Disciplines

First-year college students are introduced to habits and practices of academic inquiry that are novel to them but expected throughout their college experience. Though the forms of academic inquiry are rarely made explicit, introductory courses are tasked not only with teaching disciplinary knowledge, but also the basic character of intellectual life that is shared across disciplines. Our lesson study project was designed to help students identify and articulate the forms of inquiry through annotated readings and guided discussion. We will share our lesson plan; the results of our study employed in anthropology, philosophy and geology first-year writing seminars; and the challenges and possibilities we six instructors discovered through this multidisciplinary SoTL project. Participants will discuss the practices of academic inquiry in their classrooms, contribute to a shared list of its characteristics and obstacles, and develop strategies to modify our lesson plan for their own classrooms