Reading for Writing: Modeling the Modern Essay

Introduction

“In a crowded room, over the voices of people from many different races, the waitress asks Obama if he wants the change from a twenty dollar bill he’d given her. “Nah, we straight,” he replies (Henderson)”.

Although Barack Obama publicly used African American English (AAE) to indicate he didn’t need his change back, the students of Hearne Elementary and the teachers are far from bein straight (being okay). We ain’t (aren’t) even close to being straight, and it is sad to know this. What can be said for my students? No doubt, there is a large number of students I teach who are not successful with reading and writing and although it ain’t gotta (doesn’t have to) be that way, it unfortunately is. This curriculum unit will help my students realize that there is a name for what they are doing, codeswitching, as Andrew C. Billings points out in his article. “The acceptance or rejection of Black English (BE) dialect has been a societal dilemma for many decades; numerous studies have convincingly shown that BE speakers are rated as “less credible” than speakers of standard American English (SAE).” ¹ It is not necessarily wrong to speak differently around different people, or in different settings, and after reading essays together, particularly Maxine Hong Kingston’s Language and Communication from the Norton Reader, students will understand how a student struggles with being tongue tied, but at the end of the essay she spoke loudly and did not whisper. Students should be cognizant of their audience and be able to adjust quickly and effectively, especially as it pertains to writing in an educational setting. This curriculum unit will show that characters in books and essays, famous people, and college educated people, speak the same as them but they also pay attention to their audience.

Code switching is something that even adults do, but could this be hurting students if it is not talked about with them? Code switching may be defined as the use of more than one language or language variety concurrently in conversation. Young argues that instead of promoting one language over the other, to instead use code meshing: blending dos idiomas or copping enough Standard English to really make yo’ AAE be Da Bomb (make your AAE great) ²They ain’t gotta (don’t have to) write like they speak, and I am confident that my students can and will become better writers starting with the unit I will be writing for the Yale National Initiative and teaching in the upcoming school year. As the students and I read essays together and complete peer reviews on their own essays, their writing will flourish. This is the model that was practiced in seminar, which enhanced the writing I completed on my own personal narrative essay. We discussed several essays from the Norton Reader and peer reviewed one essay daily. The writing that my students turn in is cringe-worthy at best and I cannot wait to fix the problem that is hurting the district as a whole. 

William Zinsser said it best, “Writers must therefore constantly ask: what am I trying to say? Surprisingly often they don’t know. Then they must look at what they have written and ask: have I said it: Is it clear to someone encountering it for the first time?” ³ My students need to know that their writing should have their voice included in it and that their voice very much depends on the audience for that piece of writing. I do not want my students to give up their identities completely in their writing. I want them to grow from mediocre writers to seasoned writers who write beautifully in spite of how they speak at home or in the presence of their peers. Zinsser also contends, “Unlike medicine or the other sciences, writing has no new discoveries to spring on us.” ⁴ If there are no new discoveries to be sprung on my students when it comes to writing, then teaching them to use their voice when writing personal narrative essays should come easy; especially when it focuses on how they speak. This curriculum unit will help to establish that even when it is not their best that is being turned in, there is a remedy to help get them to their best. There are activities aligned with the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS) that will allow for success in the subject of reading and writing and mediocrity will not be so common for my students. 

“Since language is so complex a system there is probably no known end to the classifying problems that can be presented to students.” says John Dawkins.⁵ According to the article “Linguistics in the Elementary Grades,” Dawkins contends that there is a phonological problem and part of speech problem. If by his words, it is a problem then by that same logic one could argue that there is a solution. The reading teacher in me is aware of the benefits of reading and writing being taught cohesively, and this curriculum unit will reflect that sentiment. 

This curriculum unit will contain research-based findings that will infuse student talk with student writing, but the final product will be improved student writing. Kristen Hawley Turner’s article, “Flipping the Switch”, she asked a question. “Is text speak truly a problem, or is its occurrence, as Sterling suggests, an opportunity to teach students about the nature of language?”⁶ I too would like to implement the flip the switch classroom activity into my curriculum unit as a starting point from which the students would begin to think, talk, and engage with how they speak at home versus how they speak at school. More about this activity will be detailed later in the curriculum unit. I want students to actively think about why they may be writing how they speak and who are they writing for. As we discuss the essays whole group I want the students to question who is the intended audience of that author’s work.

The curriculum unit in its finality will be one that is packed with strategies that are not only useful to my students, but to anyone who may use the unit with their students, activities that the students will find engaging. The end result will be for students to become better writers and embracing their ways of talking to enhance their writing. I want teachers who plan on teaching this curriculum unit to know, you ain’t gotta write like you speak.