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June 6, 2006 |
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Supporting Language Diversity in the Classroom The Virginian Pilot article included in the News section above discusses the ways that two teachers, Rebecca S. Wheeler and Rachel Swords, teach English and grammar to students while respecting students' home languages and out-of-school literacies by moving from correcting students language use to contrasting the different ways that students can and do use language at home and at school. For more details on the process of "flipping the switch" from correction to contrast in their classrooms, check out "Code-Switching Succeeds in Teaching Standard English" (E), Chapter 4 from Code-Switching: Teaching Standard English in Urban Classrooms, written by Wheeler and Swords, the two teachers featured in the Virginian Pilot article. "Writing for Something: Essays, Raps, and Writing Preferences" (M) from English Journal, explores how students’ out-of-school literacy practices can complement in-school speaking and writing by analyzing how one eighth-grade student writes an essay and a rap on the same subject, in an example of genre code-switching. The English Journal article "Standard English and the Migrant Community" (S) shows how class discussions and assignments in one high school probe the worthiness of the language used and the reason why it was successful as it works to reflect students' lives and cultures. Read the College Composition and Communication article "'To Protect and Serve': African American Female Literacies" (C) for an exploration of the ways that mother tongue literacy is central to literacy education.
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