1. From the Inoue reading. Since
prejudice against alternative dialects exists whether we like it or not, should
we as educators take a realpolitik view of the situation and work to teach our students
standardized American English, so as to better prepare them for the prejudiced world
that awaits them? Or should we askew the teaching of standardized American
English in order to help precipitate a gradual destigmatization of alternative
dialects?
2. Shipka
emphasizes the need for teachers to be less prescriptive in their assignments, and more open to multimodal work. Do you believe that professors should be less prescriptive in their assignments in order to foster creative solutions to problems? Or do you think that prescriptive assignments are necessary to ensure that students have experience with a wide array of rhetorical modes?
Hi David,
ReplyDelete(Sort of) responding to the first question: I think it would be dangerous to teach "standardized English" without, as Inoue puts it, "questioning why that brand of English is deemed most appropriate or providing ways in the class to examine the dominant discourse as a set of conventions that have been standardized by a white hegemony." As a cynic, I tend to think "realpolitik" solutions tend, in practice, to be sophisticated ways for people to keep ignoring the problems they should be looking in the eye. So, while I don't have a definite answer about what kind(s) of English it would be best to teach, I do think it would be a mistake to teach "standardized English" without engaging in the kind of sincere questioning that Inoue mentions above.
Well stated Michael. I hope it didn't come across like I was wholeheartedly endorsing the realpolitik view. I'm simply pointing out the difficulty of helping students best succeed in a flawed world, without inadvertently perpetuating views of White American English superiority. And I definitely agree that students should be taught how the legacy effects of Jim Crow caused "standardized English" to dominate national discourse. I sometimes think people don't realize how horrific (and recent) Jim Crow was.
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