Grand Rapids Nesties
Dear Community,
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Standard American English vs. Ebonics
One of the journal responses I had to do this week for my class was in regards to an article about accepting a student's "natural" language in their writing vs. correcting the writing using SAE conventions. The author is a fifth grade teacher who allowed an African American student to write using Ebonics, which angered his parents. The teacher had a hard time deciding whether or not she should accept "home language" in writing. Was it doing a disservice to her students? How much does she accept before correcting?
What do you think? SAE always? What if the student is Spanish speaking? Allow Spanish writing? I'm looking for more viewpoints than my own.
Re: Standard American English vs. Ebonics
I would think a blend would work well. Start the year out allowing the "home language" but (with baby steps) do some correction. You don't want to turn a student off to writing, or the whole school experience for that matter. On the other hand, a teacher is responsible for guiding students toward the benchmarks set by every organization that sets benchmarks. AND we all know that those "home languages" aren't on any MEAP test, right?
Ah! MEAP test! Horrible
My thinking was more along the lines of preparing for the future. If a student is allowed to write using Ebonics, for example, how will that help them perform post-high school? A resume should be created in SAE, should it not?
Obviously I don't know anything about kids or education, however...
I feel like it does a complete disservice to the children to allow them to use Ebonics. I think the purpose of school is to educate kids and prepare them for adulthood. People can't use ebonics on a resume, so they should learn correct English from an early age.
I think that goes for Spanish speaking students as well.
This was my initial thought, as well.
I think in the lower grades, you could push more toward the fact that you are honing the writing craft. In upper grades, I think it would be frowned upon to allow students to write in anything but SAE (unless it was a creative writing assignment or something to that effect).
That is exactly what I was thinking.
I don't see how having (teaching, forcing) the students to write in SAE will hurt them, but I can see how not doing that could hurt them in the future.
I guess it depends on the broad population, as well as the specific student.
Of course, ideally, you want students to be able to communicate using "proper" language. That should go without saying.
I've had experiences with 7th graders who would totally check out from the education process if they felt they were being asked to be, in their words, "too white."
I think that meeting students where they're at, and guiding them to where they "should be" has value. Because, sure, we want a resume to reflect proper English. But, if a student drops out before graduation, they'll never need a resume in the first place.