This document provides instructions and content for an English journal assignment. It asks the student to brainstorm slang terms and their meanings, analyze language used in video clips from ER and Braveheart, discuss the differences between jargon and dialect, and consider how changing a character's dialect could affect the reader's perception. The student is also asked to complete an exit slip defining and distinguishing jargon and dialect with an example.

1. English II

2. Journal You have been hired to write a dictionary of common terms, phrases, and slang used by you and your friends. Brainstorm at least 5 ideas and explain what each word means.

3. Video Clip Watch the following video clip from ER: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LZ98ke7ma3s What do you notice about the language used in the clip? Why is the use of language in this clip so important? Why might understanding the language used in this clip help your overall understanding of what you watched?

4. Jargon Jargon: The specialized language of a professional, occupational, or other group, often meaningless to outsiders Jargon can be found in sports, religion, medicine, information technology, and internet. Do you think the jargon of certain groups of people gives us an idea of where they are from geographically?

5. Video Clip Watch the following video clip from Brave heart: What do you notice about the language used in the clip? Why is the use of language in this clip so important? Why might understanding the language used in this clip help your overall understanding of what you watched?

7. Provides resources for learning about the connections between language and culture

8. Language varies over time and space, including regional, social, ethnic, gender and other types of social and physical space

10. Changing dialect will affect the reader’s perception of a character Original “No, ‘course I ain’t,” George said.

11. Changing dialect will affect the reader’s perception of a character Informal “Nothing like that ever happened!” George replied. Formal “With great fortune, that happenstance did not become a reality,” George stated.

12. Changing dialect will affect the reader’s perception of a character Journalistic, After Ernest Hemingway “It did not happen,” George said. Archaic, After Nathaniel Hawthorne “Verily, it was a circumstance, to be noted, that appeared not to so much have been a reality as to have evolved as a thing that had not yet come to be,” George impelled.

13. Exit Slip What is the difference between jargon and dialect? Write 2-3 sentences, and give an example.