RES 5530: Race, Class, and Gender in Literacy Research (Spring 2009)

Chapter 9 grabbed my attention early on when Kohl discussed student and teacher talk. Many people outside of the education profession don't realize it, and even teachers aren't faced with this issue until they actually begin teaching, but he is absolutely right: "standing in front of a group of young people is a linguistic challenge" (pg. 147). If we actually stood back and thought through every single word that left our lips or everything we heard from our students, we would certainly learn a lot and wish we could take back many things! We have to be so careful! Yet it is so hard to screen everything that comes through. Just as Kohl states, our students listen so much more than we actually think they do. And sometimes this is a scary thought.

I can certainly relate to the story of Julia on page 148. Throughout my school years, I was the one in class who never spoke up for fear of being wrong, laughed at by my peers, or scolded by the teacher. So I kept my mouth shut, fully engaged in the lesson, but afraid to participate out loud. This kept up even until college, when in the midst of intellectuals and existential class discussions, I held back because I feared I wasn't deep enough. This can play out in the opposite manner as well; I have had many students who feel it is their duty to challenge every word I say and argue about it to the point of nonsense. Kohl has a point when he states "the hard thing is talking to a whole class when people listen differently" (pg.150). The topsy-turvy illustration was great, and it makes a lot of sense to me. This chapter will hopefully make me really think about what I say, how I could be interpreted, and what the responses of my students could be. Could I be eliciting that quiet, non-existent response from the kid in the back? or am I eliciting the loud, defiant questioning from another student? I need to be more aware of how I communicate to my students in order to make them feel more comfortable with learning in my classroom.

I appreciated Wynne's chapter primarily because she argues that all children should have a diverse education in language backgrounds. If children are taught differences in speech and language and are taught to celebrate this rather than stomp on it, then our society would come a long way. I found it fascinating to read about Rokeach's study which found that fostering prejudice stifled cognitive development. Again though, as with other chapters we've read, I wished that Wynne would branch out and talk about ALL dialects and languages rather than focusing on just Ebonics. There's a lot of prejudice going on with Appalachian dialect, and with students who are assimilating from other countries like Mexico. Children should be exposed to all of this no matter where they live. Who knows what they'll do or where they'll go after they leave our classrooms? They need to be prepared to come into contact with a variety of dialects and know that it's okay to accept them.

Christy Rivers