10-24 Code switching

How do we define standard English? Why do we define it that way? As the article that we read for tpday states, how come standard English can't be something that is more inclusive? That contains certain elements of other dialects? Why can't standard English assimilate into other dialects? How come it is always the speakers of a nondominat form of English, that have to assimilate into standard English? Isn't asking some people to learn and use a new dialect, while retaining their primary discourse, while others don't have to, somewhat oppressive to the former group? No matter which way you spin it, teaching Standard English is teaching that this one type of English is "better" than all the rest because that is the only discourse which will be graded in school. I wish this wasn't the case because it automatically sets up a center and a marginalized discourse. I feel like teaching standard English has the potential of silencing different kinds of voices. How should/can standard English be taught so that it can seem no more important than any other dialect of English? How can classrooms be linguistically inclusive? What messages are students getting when their papers are filled with Standard English corrections? How are they going to learn to code switch? How should the idea of code switching be presented to a student when you give them a paper that is covered in red? How can classrooms celebrate other dialects? How can classes critique all English dialects?

Delpit v Gee and what I think

The problem that Delpit has with Gee is that he is too linear and finite in the way he sees literacy and understanding. Her main critique is that Gee sees the acquiring of a discourse, different from a student’s home discourse, as nearly impossible. Whereas Delpit believes it to be not only possible, but necessary for many student to acquire new discourses (dominant discourses) so that they can “cheat”, or learn a new discourse so that they can have the power to critique it. Overall, Delpit sees literacy and learning as more fluid than Gee. Yes, there are dominant discourses but there is also learning! A piece that Gee de-emphasizes when he characterizes certain dominant discourses as in accessible to students, whose home discourses are not compatible with dominant discourses.
I tend to lean toward what Gee has to say. Yes, there are differences in what people know when they enter a classroom, and yes these gaps do give some students an advantage, while they disadvantage other students, but that’s life. I am not saying that to be a cop out. I think the intersection of what Gee and Delpit have to say is an invaluable perspective for teachers to consider. The fact is that one teacher, who himself or herself has a specific type of literacy, is supposed to be able to gage an array of student literacy levels and then be able teach to those differing levels, with the overall goal that all students will be challenged in their learning and that all students will be capable of operating within the dominant discourse. This is the problem that faces all teachers, how do we help the students who do not yet know how to run (so to speak), learn to jog, while at the same time teaching the amateur runners how to improve their race times? It is a conundrum because teachers aren’t psychic and they cannot instantaneously know what conflicts a student's literacy development. I guess this whole discussion points in a way to the importance of student and teacher communication. Teachers need to talk to students so that they can help them with the student’s individual problems with learning, however, this is impossible to do on a regular basis for all of a teacher’s students. So a teacher has to get creative, I guess, but employing other energies than his or her own, such as peer revision.
Bottomline, there are dominat discourses and power stuctures in the world, teachers one of the few types of people who try to level the literacy playing field.