Publication Date
January 2008
Abstract
Mainstream teachers commonly invite mainstream students to freewrite and use very informal language for early and mid drafts of important academic essays--and hold off surface editing till the end. This amounts to inviting mainstream students to do lots of writing in their spoken vernacular--and to wait till the end to edit into a clearly different dialect: edited ("correct standard") written English. This essay argues the same approach for speakers of African American Language--and addresses objections.
Recommended Citation
Elbow, Peter, "Why Deny Speakers of African American Language a Choice Most of Us Offer Other Students?" (2008). English Department Faculty Publication Series. 8.
Retrieved from https://scholarworks.umass.edu/eng_faculty_pubs/8