At the beginning of this project, in Two Key Questions about Standard Written English (5.1), you were asked these questions:
Does the requirement that students write in Standard Written English make it harder for students who have grown up using a different version of English to succeed in college writing courses?
If colleges dont help students learn to write in Standard Written English, will it be harder for them to succeed in the American workplace?
Talk about the perfect rock and a hard place. If the college requires all students to master Standard Written English, it is making success less likely for African American students, but if the college doesnt help those students to master Standard Written English, it is not preparing them to succeed in the real world. Luckily, it is not necessary to choose between these two opposite solutions. You have been reading and thinking about positions that are not completely at either extreme, but somewhere in between: solutions like code switching, code meshing, and contract grading.
Assignment. For this essay, you should think over all the ideas raised in the readings, in the short writings you have done, and in the discussions in your group, and decide what you think the policy of the English Department at your school should be. Then write a three- to four-page proposal to the English faculty at your school recommending what the departments policy should be on this tough issue.
The two essential components of a proposal are a convincing argument that there is a problem and a clear and effective presentation of a solution that will address that problem. In addition, proposals often include many of these elements:
Background information about the problem
Examples of the negative effects of the problem
Evidence that the solution is feasible
Evidence that the proposed solution will solve or, at least, reduce the problem
Argument that the proposed solution is a better response than other solutions
For more about writing proposals, see Strategies for Writing a Proposal (18.27).
Option. In this project, we have focused primarily on language and power issues as they affect African American students. If you would prefer to discuss these same issues as they apply to a different groupHispanic students, Appalachian students, students from working-class backgrounds, students for whom English is a second language, students who speak a World English, students who speak a Pidgin or Creole, that would be fine.
Sources
Reading: The Silenced Dialogue, Lisa Delpit
Reading: Toward Multilingual Writing Models, Suresh Canagarajah
