By Jacqueline Smith on August 17, 2010
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Students also employed nonstandard conventions luring informal literature-based writing responses. 3 articularly salient were informal jottings about mul-icultural text set novels they were reading surrounding the theme prejudice. Monet identified prejudice Dmgonwings (Yep, 1981), in which written idea severe influenced by her peer-led discussion group:
The Chinese thought the white was bad and Moon Shadow Lee has killed people...Whites were mean to the Chinese and thought they were weird.
Because the assignment emphasized ideas conveyed by Monet's discussion group and not explicitly grammar,cartier love necklace replica, Monet's writing illustrates standard and nonstandard use of was/were. However, her use of AAVE features Omega Replica was not as prevalent as in her poem that invited her voice. A grammatical AAVE feature is detected in her use of "white was" (Rickford & Rickford, 2000). For a standard context, she would have jotted "whites were."
Writer's notebook was a daily enactment where students were required to write a half page daily. Students wrote about self-selected topics surrounding their daily experiences and social worlds. Integrated writing samples were not included in this article because Mr. Lehrer collected notebooks periodically and redistributed them very quickly, to ensure continued daily writing. However, the enactment is necessary to note, to illustrate an ongoing use of nonstandard writing conventions. Ongoing practice and integrated writing samples correspond with local and national standards to appropriate voice and style.
Monet and Kiki affirmed their awareness of writing nonstandard conventions during an interview:
Author: Monet, when you asked Mr. Lehrer if you could use your voice, he said of course you can, without being marked down.
Monet: Because I did spell words how I would say'em, and,cartier love bangle bracelet replica, like aight (alright),
Kiki: Y'all!
Monet: Stuff like that, and y'all, because we don't talk like, yeah, you guys are, we don't talk like that, so it's just how I was raised and where I came from, they talk like that.
Kiki: It's not basically street talk. Monet: It's how we were raised.
Author: And that's very important, that Mr. Lehrer sees that as important too, because that's your voice. If you read Maya Angelou, or even Mildred Taylor, there's so much of that rich language, even Joyce Hansen. It's really an important technique of writing.
Monet: Because he said it was important to write about us, and it would have been hard to write about me talking in someone else's voice.
My initial question to Monet was prompted by my observation during class when she asked Mr. Lehrer if she would be marked down for using her voice during a nonstandard writing opportunity. Given Mr. Lehrer's ongoing acceptance Tag Heuer Carrera Replica of students employing their voices, it appears odd that she would ask such a question. However, considering the broader context of schooling that is typically not accepting of language varieties, Monet's question makes sense.
The following excerpt illustrates Kiki's voice, which exhibited contradictory emotions of not wanting to change her manner of speaking to fit in, but desired to be accepted by her peers:
Kiki: I've been going through a lot of ups and downs because people here say that oh my god, look at how ghetto she is.
Author: To you? Or you hear them saying it about you?
Kiki: It really doesn't matter, because like, I said, this is me. This year I started to fit in more with the white people because I start talking, like whew, and they start to say some of the stuff I say, like you would hear them say it, and it made me feel good, looking at them, that they might say like the words I use. Last year I was just so into getting into everybody but this year I think like who I want to be.
In this interview excerpt, Kiki voiced the importance of preserving her identity through her home language among her peers at Barrington. She spoke AAVE and was referring to her counterparts * who spoke European American Vernacular English. Although both forms are deviations from Standard English, Kiki's reality was that the language she brought to school, as has been historically constructed by the dominant culture, was perceived by many of her teachers and peers as deficient.
Interview excerpts reveal that Monet and Kiki were openly aware of the distinctions between standard and nonstandard conventions of writing and speaking, along with the perception of their home language as street talk in the dominant culture and in school. Both girls grappled with their identity and knew that standard writing conventions were skills they needed. Similar to adolescents cited by Fecho et al. (2006) it meant accepting or rejecting Standard English and compromising their identity upon switching writing conventions to the culture of power.
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