Assignment #10

Posted Wednesday November 18th, due Tuesday November 24th, in-class.

This is a writing assignment about the question of what role non-prestige varieties of English should play in education. This issue has recently been very widely discussed in the news media, in the wake of the 'Ebonics controversy' triggered by a resolution of the Oakland School District, but the issue can be seen as a much more general issue than that, which is relevant to all children, regardless of ethnic origin or social group.

Unfortunately, the discussion is one that can -- and has -- become very emotionally and politically charged. It is hoped that with your linguistic expertise now under your belt, it will be easier to separate the real educational issues from the politics and emotions.

This exercise is about varieties of English in general. Although the status of African American varieties of English has received most attention, you should try to bear in mind that this is a more general issue.

Two Opinions

Here is one view on the role of dialects in English teaching:

There is no place for teaching about dialects and colloquial language in schools. By drawing students' attention to the sloppy characteristics of dialects, we are doing them a disservice and actually preventing them from making the most of their lives. If we want students to aspire to status in society, then we should encourage them to use the language of status. As Carl Rowan has said, in response to a question about the place of Ebonics in education: "Read all you can read, speak the best language you can speak to get ahead." (C. Rowan quote taken from The Magic Bus Civil Rights Tour, C-Span TV, 8/25/97).

Here is another view on the same topic:

"For all speakers of English there are large differences between the language style that is most effective in spoken communication and the language style that is effective in written communication. The most skilled users of the language are people who are able to switch effortlessly between a variety of written and spoken styles, according to the situation that they are in.

 

In the past, schools have focused on the goal of teaching students to use a single written style of English, and have failed to recognize the variety of language styles that effective communicators must master. By doing this, the widespread belief has arisen that anything but formal written English is 'bad English' or 'lazy English'. It would be better for schools to teach students about the systematic differences between different styles of spoken and written English, formal and colloquial, and in doing so train students to be effective and versatile communicators. Therefore, there are good reasons for teachers and students to be taught about a variety of styles and dialects of English ... including ethnic dialects, such as Black English/Ebonics.

 

In addition, if students are to be made more aware of how any language works, including the more formal variety that they need to learn, it will be useful for them to understand how the language they know best -- the language of their everyday speech -- works."

Your Mission

Which of these positions do you agree with? Or do you disagree with both, and have an alternative view? Give reasons why you agree or disagree with these viewpoints, making your arguments as clear as possible. Give illustrative examples where appropriate. What should children be taught about their language, if anything?

You should consult some of the many on-line sources of information on this debate, as they are very useful. Links to some sources are provided below, but many others are available. [Remember, it's fine to draw on other people's arguments, but academic honesty demands that you credit your sources.]

Note:

• If you find additional useful resources, then please send email to colin@udel.edu, so that they can be added to the list.
• Your job is not to just agree with whatever you think the instructors think. We are interested in seeing well-reasoned arguments, and are not particularly interested in unreasoned agreement. Credit will be given for good arguments and clear explanations, not for sheer volume of your answer. ... so be careful to read over what you write before you hand it in. As usual, extra credit will be given for answers that 'go the extra mile'.
• Please restrict your answer to roughly 1000 words or less. This doesn't mean you should just try to fill up 1000 words, no matter what ... it just means that you should avoid going beyond that length.
• Answers must be written in a word processor or typed (as usual, email is also fine). Please no handwritten assignments.
• Please don't just open all of the links below and print them all out ... it's inefficient, and a major waste of paper!
• If you're an experienced web-page creator, then given the many resources available on the topic, one interesting way of presenting your conclusions could be as an .html file, containing links to relevant web pages.

Note especially:

• If you do not inform yourself, then you will not be in a position to write an informed essay. Many of the articles listed below -- and other resources that are available elsewhere -- are extremely valuable.
• If you are under the impression that the second opinion above is arguing that 'standard' English should be ignored or discouraged, then you should read it again. Also, if you are under the impression that the Oakland School District was advocating anything other than 'standard' English as the primary goal of school English teaching, then you should also read some more - this is not what they were advocating, but is a common misunderstanding. [The essay by Geoffrey Nunberg linked below contains an interesting suggestion for how this misunderstanding arose.]
• The best arguments are arguments that are clear and well argued. In figuring out how to support your arguments, try to think about how somebody might disagree with your points, and how they might try to argue against you.

Some Links

Here are some links that I found by just entering the word "ebonics" in the Altavista search engine. The list is definitely not exhaustive, and you should easily be able to find lots of other useful information and opinions. Also, don't just read through everything here ... when you open a page, quickly skim it and use your judgment to decide whether it is useful, and if it isn't, then stop right there, and look somewhere else. The internet makes lots of information easily available, but this makes it all the more important to learn to ignore information that is not useful.

Articles by William Labov
Prof. William Labov's Home Page at U. of PA: various on-line articles on Black English and the recent ebonics controversy, including text of a statement made to Congress on the subject. Also includes a paper "Can Reading Failure be Reversed? A Linguistic Answer to the Question", which contains interesting discussion of earlier attempts to use BEV in the classroom, and some concrete suggestions about reading education. The home page also contains a link to an interesting-looking article on specific reading difficulties encountered by students in an inner city school in Philadelphia.

"Academic Ignorance and Black Intelligence" by William Labov (U. of PA), from The Atlantic Monthly (1972 article: a classic)

Articles by John Rickford
Prof. John Rickford's Ebonics Page at Stanford U. (Rickford is the sociolinguist most often called upon by the mass media to give expert commentary on this issue)

Articles by other people
"Black English: Looking to the Future" by Charles Dorsett. (useful)

Charles Dorsett's Ebonics Links page ... contains many interesting looking sources

"The Ebonic Plague? ... Black English, by whatever name, has been around for centuries" by Cullen Murphy.

"Ebonics: nothing new but the name" by Joel Roache (from The Shore Journal)

"Black English: Its History and Role in the Education of our Children" by Brian Lewis

"Double Standards" by Geoffrey Nunberg (also see the bottom of this article for Nunberg's favorite links on the topic)

It's too bad that there aren't more useful sources on other varieties of colloquial English ... they don't seem to have generated so much excitement. [If you find anything, then do send email!]