The Right (Write) Start: African American Language and the Discourse of Sounding Right

Abstract

Background

Both academic research and educational policy have focused on the diverse language resources of young schoolchildren. African American Language (AAL) in particular has a rich history of scholarship that both documents its historical evolution and sociolinguistic complexity and reveals the persistent lack of knowledge about AAL in our schools and the continuing negative stereotypes about its speakers. Currently, federal funds for early schooling target the literacy learning of low-income children, who are disproportionately children of color; these programs, though, assume, as a literacy “basic,” a singular correct way of using language. The stage is set, then, for communicative disconnects between teachers and children during literacy instruction.

Purpose

In early literacy studies, such communicative disconnects between teachers and children have been discussed primarily in relation to reading. Our focus is on teacher-student interactions about children's writing, that is, about their efforts to make a voice visible on paper. Writing is a rich context for studying how AAL figures into early literacy teaching and learning. Teachers urge children to listen to how their words sound in order to compose their message. But what sounds “right” to young children will vary for developmental, situational, and, as emphasized herein, sociocultural reasons. We illustrate how, in the course of teacher-student interaction, young children's major resources for learning to write—their very voices—may become a source of problems.

Research Design

The article draws on data collected in an ethnographic project on child writing in a test-monitored and basics-focused elementary school in a midsized urban school district. Most of the school's children were from low-income homes of diverse ethnic and cultural backgrounds. One important pedagogical site for teaching basic literacy skills in the observed first grade was teacher-led editing conferences, in which the classroom teacher focused on written conventions, including standardized usage. These conferences (and all afternoon activities) were documented over the course of an academic year primarily through observation accompanied by audiotaping and collection of children's products. This article features the writing experiences of one focal child, Tionna.

Recommendations

We conclude with a consideration of the goals of language arts programs in contemporary times. Certainly, assisting children in extending their communicative repertoire to include the Language of Wider Communication (LWC) is a worthy curricular goal for the school years. At the same time, we question U.S. monolingualism and monodialectalism in a multilingual world demanding communicative flexibility.

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