Week 2

A common thread that ran throughout the texts we read was the push-and-pull between the homogenization of language and culture that the spread of English can bring and the potential for varieties of English to make the language more useful and to become forces for resistance. I could not help but think about the imposition of language as it happens through globalization and colonization and to compare that to my own teacherly ideology. I think a lot of well-intentioned, but perhaps under-informed teachers (and by this, I really mean myself) recognize the conflict in imposing expectations about student language use. Does it serve students better to teach them what they may be expected to know or to try to appreciate and incorporate what they already do know? To clarify, I often feel like I am white-washing (what would a better term be? Standard English-washing?) students’ unique expression when I “correct” their grammar, move them away from the vernacular, or assume what they meant to write/say is different from what they actually wrote/said. Of course, this feels oppressive and I want to work against it. I found the Matsuda article useful in this regard, in that it advocated teaching dominant and non-dominant varieties, while also promoting an understanding of the importance of context, audience, situation, and credibility.

At the same time, I keep returning to Pennycook’s discussion of hip hop English as (he quotes Ibrahim) a “counterhegemonic undertaking” (11). How, then, could our classrooms become sites for such an undertaking? I’m considering this question in my current position as a composition instructor, but I haven’t felt as confused about it when I’ve taught creative writing in the past. In the space of a writing workshop, hybrid, non-standard, vernacular, informal, “incorrect” language is as common as language that adheres to Standard English. That’s not said to valorize creative writing, as I think the standards of “legibility” and “comprehensibility” that Matsuda describes are met no better in an introductory creative writing course than they are in an English composition course. Rather, I think it says a lot about my skewed theories and underlying generalizations. Why are my standards for academic/professional language still one way, while those for creative pursuits are another? Along those lines, am I fully able to “differentiate between ‘errors’ and creative innovations” (Bolton 458)? These are questions I have to consider as I consider teaching both in my specialization and outside of it.