DW3a

A Perspective on Teaching Black Dialect Speaking Students to Write Standard English
by Juith P. Nembhard

Main ideas:
-Teachers must have confidence in their students
-Teachers must have high expectations for all of their students
-Teachers must help students make the distinction between their oral speech and Standard English
-Writing assignments must be graded thoroughly but fairly
-Teachers must hold conferences with students
-Students must do some of their writing in class, where teachers can provide help
-Students must be provided with outside help, such as tutors
-Teachers must not be afraid to give failing grades when they are deserved
-Teach Black Dialect students Standard English
-Use Prewriting, writing, and reformulation for the basis of teaching Standard English
-Students need to keep their culture and acknowledge it
-Students should focus on clarity and voice when writing, as opposed to grammar
-Students need to have effective communication skills so that they are not limited by their home language
-Teachers need to keep students motivated

Supporting evidence:
-Teachers who show sympathy to black dialect students are hurting the students' capacity to learn and reach their full potential. If teachers do not grade fairly, and use language as an excuse for showing favoritism to Black Dialect speakers, the students will never actually learn how to write.
"The student, after being shown the almost illiterate nature of her essay, asked plaintively, 'Why didn't they tell me?'"
-Children without Standard English are handicapped
-"The Students' Right to Their Own Language", issued 1974, states that black students have the right to speak as they wish and to maintain their cultural linguistic heritage
-bidialectalism allows students to enhance their linguistic range by keeping their own language, and using Standard English as a second language
-"teaching black students to write involves more than getting them to use plurals and to avoid double negatives"

The author summarizes suggestions and ideal ways for teaching black dialect students to write in Standard English. The writer emphasizes that the responsibility of teaching black dialect students relies on the teachers, not the students. Nembhard insists that grammatical errors should come second to the clarity and basic rules of writing. She also states the importance of teaching and understanding Standard English, and a student is crippled if not thoroughly taught. Following this statement, however, she goes on to say that black dialect students should keep their own language and culture. These two statements contradict each other, and the author fails to set up ideas and explanations on how to accomadate both of these requirements. The writer is conveying the fact that AAVE shouldn't be used in composition studies.