RES 5535: Race, Class, and Gender in Literacy Research (summer 2010)

"Ovuh Dyuh"

In this article we see a young black girl who was facing a battle with her inner self. Growing up she was taught how to speak perfect British English by her mother and grandmother. This young girl was from Trinidad and had to face expressing her inner thoughts and feelings in the "right" way. By doing this she was socially isolated from her peers who did not grow up in such an environment that forced them to change their dialect in order to be thought of as accepted by society. By taking on the role of trying to "be something she was not", she was made fun of by her Trinidadian peers. The narrator discusses her many experiences in life, both trying to please her mother but also trying to determine her Afrocentric identity. Once she got older she decided to embrace her Trinidadian heritage and live by who she really was. She became an actor and because she could speak different dialects she won many acting roles and played the part of many different characters.

I couldn't imagine how she must have felt growing up facing the battle of trying to be herself but at the same time being forced to learn to be someone else. I guess the point here is that it is okay to learn how to speak properly and formally, but at the same time you must always remember who you are and where you came from. If I were to move up north I am sure my southern drawl would be looked down upon based on the fact that I have met many people who are from up north and will assume I am from a certain part of the country based on where I speak. I would probably think that I would need to change to not speak so southern so I would not "stand out in the crowd".

"No Kinda Sense"

"We cannot constantly correct children and expect them to continue to want to talk like us." I really thought about this quote from this article by Lisa Delpit and it makes so much sense to me. Growing up I have always been taught to speak a certain way and that is the only way to speak, but that is not exactly true. I do agree that there is a formal English that people should be aware of and learn, but it cannot be crammed down their throat by constantly correcting the way they speak informally. The way someone speaks tells about their heritage and their family and where they came from. If they are constantly being corrected then they will think that there is something wrong with their heritage, family, and where they came from. People should not feel that way. People should not have to change their ways to feel adequate. Just as Maya in this article, she was exposed to both kinds of English - the proper one and the ebonics one. She was not exactly taught these languages, but just picked them up by being around people who spoke them. She naturally learned that there is a time to speak a certain way and a time to speak another at a very young age.

I found it very interesting that Delpit talks about her experience of how she showed teachers how to teach young girls about hairstyles. The students made a connection with what they were being taught and were learning without even realizing it. That is what we should do more often as teachers. We should step our game up a little bit and teach kids based on their interest levels and experiences. Teachers should encourage students to speak out in their classrooms and they should feel confortable with this and know that they are not being judged on how they say something, but instead on what they are saying. Just because a person speaks a certain way does not have anything to do with their intelligence level. As teachers, we deal with very diverse populations. Regardless of skin color, "we must embrace the children, their interests, their mothers, and their language."

Michelle Obama "talks like a white girl"...

I found this article very interesting because Michelle Obama grew up in a Chicago neighborhood where she was surrounded by people who accused her of "talking like a white girl". This reminds of the recent article about Maya and how she knew how to speak proper English because of her mother's experience and how she was raised, but she could also figure out how to speak to her group of friends in a different way. Just like Maya, the President and his wife know the "code-switch" depending on the people they are speaking with and the setting they are in. People should be judged on their moral character, not by the way they speak, but this is definitely not the case. We are in a society now where people are judged on everything but their morals. It is pretty sad. Regardless of the color of their skin, people still have stereotypical views on the way people speak. Just like people associate African Americans with speaking "ebonics", Michelle Obama was accused of talking like a white girl. Everyone is guilty of judging others based on their dialect and tone, even though we try not to be. This is even more reason why teachers should embrace the children's heritage that they teach because we may have several different ethnic groups of children sitting in one classroom!