Inviting the Mother Tongue: Beyond "Mistakes," "Bad English", and "Wrong Language"
Peter Elbow
DATE: January 1999
SOURCE: The Journal of Advanced Composition, Vol. 19, no. 2, pp. 359-388
Tell a colleague
ABOUT THIS DOCUMENT:
Reprinted in Everyone Can Write: Essays Toward a Hopefully Theory of Writing and Teaching Writing. New York, Oxford University Press, 2000.
ABSTRACT:
This essay grows out of feeling torn between conflicting goals or obligations. I think most teachers of first year college writing courses also feel this conflict, and I experience it acutely as director of a university writing program. On the one hand, I feel an obligation not to force all my students to conform to the language and culture of mainstream English. (See “The Students’ Right To Their Own Language” [Committee].) On the other hand, I feel an obligation to give all my students access to the written language of power and prestige.