Theory into Practice: Widening what counts as competence

As we have made crystal clear in class, it is necessary but insufficient to state that fluency in Standardized academic English (SAE) does not equate with intelligence. If every example of competence, intelligence and status that we encounter is through the code of SAE, we will never unseat this geopolitical happenstance of linguistic power. One way to actively interrupt this pattern is to widen what counts as competence through the provision of diverse linguistic role models.

In response to this thread, holla back at me and all of us with examples you've found of linguistic prowess that goes beyond SAE. To get us started, I will offer two that are dear to me: first is Junot Díaz. His writing is unapologetically reflective of his immigrant experience across cultures and languages. In this interview, he handles with grace a question about why he uses Dominican Spanish if not all his readers can read this code. 

Second, is this throwback from President Obama's acceptance speech in Grant Park. In minute 5, he moves to a rhetorical style that is familiar to anyone knowledgeable in some of the African American codes of English - call and answer. Esteemed sociolinguists H. Samy Alim and Geneva Smitherman contextualize the President's verbal stylings with on point racial analysis here. 

The idea in this post and your collective replies is to build examples of intelligence and linguistic, textual prowess that is not bound only by the rules in those little grammar books with their diagrammed sentences.

Theory into Practice: Getting specific about language and grammar

Shirley, Shirley, Shirley

Please respond to this post and extend our class discussion to develop metalanguage - language about language. Post your grammar rule here as a reply to this thread and note if you used a rule in standardized academic English (SAE) to provide a rule for the code used in the original story. Our exploration here is to notice if we can express language rules in a way outside of SAE. I'll also be commenting and making connections across contributions.

Brain Research

What a stimulating, grounding and high quality discussion we enjoyed in our class this evening about brain science, stimulation, the central nervous system and ways to think about effecting our contexts to better effect ourselves.

Here is some follow-up from Ms. Jaundoo's points and questions.

First, a TED talk in which Dr. Dimitri Christakis addresses sound stimulation and brain function

Next, an article that is one of a recent popular wave about the central nervous system, overstimulation and the body's biorhythms.


And, finally a few resources that address stress, trauma and the brain:

http://www.amazon.com/Traumatic-Experience-Brain-Dave-Ziegler/dp/0967118751

http://www.unnaturalcauses.org (I highly recommend this documentary series)

http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/474/back-to-school (full episode that we heard part of in class)

I won't hire people who use poor grammar

Please reply to this post and share your reactions to this Op-Ed blog from the Harvard Business Review.

Normal (enough)

One of the key themes of liberatory literacy education is seeing all texts as partial representations of society. No text can address equitably all people, spaces, and needs. As such, we need to develop skills of creating and consuming texts with critical eyes, with a lens that consistently asks who stands to benefit from this depiction and who is marginalized. 

Tango Makes Three is certainly a move in the right direction as a resource to avoid having overwhelmingly heteronormative texts in a home, classroom, and library. However, we can, given our comfort level and that of our students, always push the question of representation and not rest too comfortably with any text. Mia McKenzie breaks it down here eloquently. Warning: Mia is not using formal standardized academic English. On purpose. My post today is about sexual identity in texts, but these are the same skills that we need when we address race, class, gender, ethnic background, national origin, and multiple intersections of identity. 

OpEd addressing the context of teaching today

OpEd from Alex Kotlowitz addressing a central but very hard question: Are we expecting too much from teachers?

I'd be interested to know your impressions as you prepare to enter this field.

Secretly Becoming Literate

When I was young, I often boasted about how much I "hated" reading. Even to this day, I may complain about having to read. However, despite these feelings of hate towards an essential life skill in our society, I still managed to become literate. How did this happen? When in school, we had library scheduled into our week. We had to take out an independent book to read. In addition, my mother often took my sister and me to the public library during school breaks such a summer or holiday breaks to take out books and VHS tapes. Originally, the agreement was that we were only allowed to take out a movie if we took out books as well that soon became a rule we wouldn't want to break. At first, I'd just grab books that seemed easy, but my mother was just letting me gain an interest for learning. Once that happened, it was too late. I secretly loved to read. For classes in high school and even middle school this wasn't always the case, but reading for pleasure was definitely something that I now enjoyed.  My teachers, one particularly, knew exactly how to fuel this new love. Around middle school age, I attend my favorite teacher's summer program and she mentioned a book that she liked and thought I would enjoy. It was a book by Agatha Christie called And Then There Were None. From there on, I knew I loved reading, it just had to be the right book.