In “English Teacher, Why You Be Doing the Thangs You Don’t Do,” Geneva Smitherman discusses the oppressive language constraints that many English teachers in America push onto their black students. She argues that forcing students who use African-American vernacular English (AAVE) in their written works but still communicate good ideas effectively in that dialect should be considered just as academically valid as their “proper” English counterparts. The act, she says, of “translating” their work into “proper” English only serves to dilute their ideas and harm their learning. Smitherman also argues that pedantic criticism of the student’s grammar and construction serves as a way for the teacher to avoid grappling with the actual content of the essay, further harming the student.

To support this, Smitherman does a number of interesting things. The first and most effective evidence she presents is her own writing, laced with the same turns of phrase and constructions that would be found in the students’ essays. She initially communicates her point deftly and effectively, unhampered by the language she’s using. Her point about the irrelevance of “proper” English is further supported when she uses the works of others who write in the same style as the students she’s defending. She pulls from Langston Hughes’ “Simple Takes a Wife” and references Don Lee’s (now Haki Madhubuti) “Don’t Cry, Scream,” two prominent pieces of literature that take AAVE and black language and use them in ways more effective than could be done in any other dialect (Smitherman 64). This exaltation of black language and black artistic productions puts Smitherman in the same camp as Royster, Mahiri, and Sablo, all authors of prior texts who saw the need to recognize the language and potential of black children writing in their own dialect. For Royster, the ability to communicate throughout different spaces can be both an academic benefit and liability in the face of white academia. However, she concludes that this polyvocality serves to make her work more far-reaching and inclusive. Similarly, Mahiri and Sablo conclude that the fault lies on an exclusive idea of academia for pushing out black artistic productions rather than the students who author them in non-traditional English.

However, the question posed by Mahiri and Sablo looms heavily over this text as well: how do we integrate this language into our academic discourse? While Smitherman proposes a number of things (she suggests that the teacher, when assessing these writings, be more of a “intellectual gadfly” than a “legislator of morality”), none seem to extend beyond the classroom of what could be considered a particularly compassionate or progressive teacher (62). In terms of institutional changes, Smitherman offers very little in the way of change. Additionally, how does Smitherman reconcile her desire for non-traditional and dialectic English’s inclusion with the necessity of understanding? Simply put, how does Smitherman expect for every teacher to know what in the world students are writing if the teachers themselves have no grounding in the dialect? Additionally, how does Smitherman expect for teachers to effectively toe the line between academic acceptance and cultural tourism, with teachers forcefully using the dialect just to be “inclusive?”

Week 6 Journal

            Lena Ampadu’s “Gumbo Ya Ya” poses a similar question to Smitherman’s “English Teacher…”: how can we more effectively incorporate the life experiences and multiple literacies of learners into our pedagogy? She argues that, by working to promote understanding of the self and others in a cultural context, students will get a better grasp of the connection between their own language and the writing and communication taught in class.

To communicate this, she uses her own experiences learning different languages and dialects. “By telling my story, I invite African Americans and others to correct long-standing misconceptions about the cultural and linguistic traditions of African Americans” (Ampadu 75). She refers to her story as a “a soup, a delicacy of spices, vegetables, meat, and seafood” (73). This “gumbo ya ya” frames the rest of the essay as a journey of discovery, not just of Ampadu’s origins but also of the different ways that language can affect someone. She talks about her learning of French throughout her childhood and how deeply it tied in with the culture of her native New Orleans. She continues in her story, but not in French, as she switches to learning Spanish and engaging AAVE to more fully understand her city. This desire to understand people or understand a collection of people drives her continued engagement with African American vernacular English, and throughout her college years her reading of Hughes, Hurston and Walker lend her a more nuanced perspective on what she terms the authors’ “bi-dialectalism” (78). Propelled by these writers’ bold embrace of their own language and culture, Ampadu seeks in her teaching to strengthen cultural competence and inclusion.

This approach, interestingly enough, serves as the more practical foil to Dr. Smitherman’s piece concerning the exclusion or demonizing of black language and vernacular. While Dr. Smitherman more effectively described the problem and its roots, Ampadu goes a step beyond, focusing on how she not only reconciled this issue within herself, but also how she tries to solve the issue in her teachings. She openly critiques Smitherman’s vague solutions, writing “…I began to wonder why Smitherman-Donaldson believed that professionals who teach language and literacy could promote valuing nonmainstream dialects and languages when many English teachers themselves do not embrace each other’s’ regional forms of language” (75).

One question that arises from Ampadu’s solution of introducing the idea of linguistic diversity early on is how this idea will work in the hands of English teachers less aware of different vocalities. Ampadu herself is trilingual, and learned to respect language in her early childhood. This gives her a unique perspective on language and culture that an English teacher that only speaks and respects English has.