Caitlin BerganLIS 502Sunday, April 19, 2009

Literacy as a Discipline and Punishment

As society hurtles further into a technological age of the internet, individuals are

required more and more often to be able to read, write, and interact with written text. On

a daily basis, communication and consumption of information are done in a written

format online. This shift in how information is delivered and consumed assumes that

everyone in society is literate, able to read, write, and comprehend text. Most people with

this ability hardly remark on it, as they do not remember being unable to read or write.

Literacy is a useful way of thought or disciplining the mind to accept concepts. America

has compulsory schools designed to impart this very skill, leading many people think

illiteracy is an impossibility. As Clanchy states in the introduction to his book, From

Memory to Written Record, literacy is unconsciously equated to civilization in the minds

of most Western scholars, and by extrapolation most Westernly educated people also

hold this to be true without realizing it. Clanchy is making the argument in terms of

historians and other scholars looking at records from the Mediaeval era, claiming that

many researchers were examining accounts from that time period and drawing

conclusions based on the perceived social norms of the present, failing to take into

account that literacy was unattainable or even undesirable for most of the population in

that time and culture1.

Similarly, America has a prejudice today against the people who fail to become

literate through its own public schools. They take it for granted that attending school

1 M.T. Clanchy, Introduction to From Memory to Written Record, by M.T. Clanchy (Cambridge: Blackwell Publishers Inc., 1993), 8-9.

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bestows literacy and those who fail to obtain it have only themselves to blame. In

actuality, many of the people who struggle to gain literacy are those in social and

linguistic minorities, for whom their spoken speech does not match up with Standard

American English. The majority of white Americans speak in dialects that can be easily

written using the rules of Standard English. For them, acquiring literacy is assumed, a

part of their culture, and something they slip fairly easily into as they start school. This

ease of acquisition of such an important skill blinds the majority to the fact that the

system is set up in their favor and their acquisition of literacy, disregarding the needs and

abilities of those from linguistic minorities.

Literacy is a useful way of disciplining the mind and thought, but it is currently

used primarily as a way to punish those who do not posses this skill. Linguistic minorities

do not have to be doomed to illiteracy; the current arrangement of the school system is

what holds them back. Presently, the schools, and by extension American society, fail to

teach them to read and write and then punish them with bad grades, negative feedback,

and inferior jobs and pay for a problem that is their own making. It is socially, politically,

and economically convenient for them to be marginalized by using their illiteracy as an

excuse. In the discussion of what literacy currently means to American society and how

it has tainted our outlook, Clanchy states “The word literacy as it is used today, ‘indexes

an individual’s integration into society; it is the measure of the successful child, of the

employable adult.’ A person who cannot sign his name is consequently now a social

deviant . . .”2 Also “ ‘Ideological assumptions haunt the use of the word “literacy”.

Behind its simple dictionary definition as the quality of being literate lies a morass of

2 M.T. Clanchy, Introduction to From Memory to Written Record, 8.

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cultural assumptions and value judgments.”3 By continuing to provide inadequate

teaching to children of these minorities, American society will produce illiterate “social

deviants” who they can then control through their inability to fully participate against the

majority culture.

It is a demonstrable fact that many minority students do not test as well as

European American students (Holt, 2005).4 Some of this can be linked to socioeconomic

levels of a child’s parents and the neighborhood in which they reside – poorer

communities have lower property taxes and therefore lower budgets for their schools,

leading to teachers who are paid less and fewer and older resources for the children to use

in school. It is also less likely for poorer families to be able to afford to regularly buy

books. Without print resources available in the home, a child is less likely to be ready to

learn to read upon entering kindergarten.

However, beyond just economic issues, culture seems to factor in as well. In their

2005 study, Holt and Smith try to weed out socioeconomic factors in comparing the

achievement rates of different ethnic groups. They found that European American

students still out-preformed their age-mates in African American and Latino families,

even with a statistically created economically “level playing field.” Obviously cultural

factors also have an effect on a child’s ability to gain a level of proficiency considered

acceptable by the greater world. Some of these factors are deeply rooted in the language

children are used to speaking and the manner in which they are accustomed to using

language or hearing it used. This is an example of how the culture a child faces at home

makes them more or less apt to gain literacy. Children who have fully literate parents are

3 M.T. Clanchy, Introduction to From Memory to Written Record, 9.4 Janet K. Holt and M. Cecil Smith, “Literacy Practices Among Different Ethnic Groups: The Role of Socioeconomic and Cultural Factors.” Reading Research and Instruction 44: 1-2.

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more likely to be exposed to print culture and be more ready to read by the time they

enter school. But children in homes with a more oral culture come to school with a set of

skills that are impressive but disregarded by the system. 5

Over the last thirty years, some of these factors have been studied concerning the

dialect of African American Vernacular English. This makes it a good example for the

problem at hand. Held as a distinct dialect for years now by scholarly linguists,

sociolinguists have noted that the disparity between white and black acquisition of

literacy skills has much to do with the fact that they are effectively being forced to try to

learn to read a dialect they do not speak. The differences between the African American

Vernacular and Standard American English are significant and systematic.6 Differences

include but are not limited to different verb conjugations, a systematic simplification or

changes of sounds, a finer gradation of tenses, the use of multiple negatives, and a variety

of specialized and highly fluid vocabulary.

Researchers are finding that this distinct dialect that most African Americans use

is part of the reason for the lower literacy rates. One conclusion that researchers often

come to in looking at this is there is a clash between the two dialects, disregarding what a

child has learned so far and not properly acclimating them to the new dialect.7 In effect,

children are expected to suddenly start speaking and understanding a different dialect as

soon they start school. More often than not the teacher speaks something closer to

Standard American English and is expecting the child to start producing speech and

writing in that same dialect. This leads to a difficult situation: children have become

5 Janet K. Holt and M. Cecil Smith, “Literacy Practices Among Different Ethnic Groups,” 1-4.6 Lisa J. Green, African American English: A Linguistic Introduction (Campbridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 1-163.7 Carol McDonald Connor and Holly K. Craig, “African American Preschoolers' Language, Emergent Literacy Skills, and Use of African American English: A Complex Relation,” Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research 49 (2006), 771-80.

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accustom to using the language in the manner they have heard and grown up with, but in

school, they are told this is wrong, often without a clear explanation of why or what about

it is “wrong.” To the children, obviously the one who is wrong is the teacher, because the

children have been making themselves understood perfectly well for probably three or so

years prior to this.

Another reason why students that speak African American English often do not

do as well has to do with their teachers. Many teachers in not understanding their

students’ dialect choose to send those with the heaviest dialects to speech pathologists or

to put them in classes for children with learning disabilities.8 Speech pathologists are

trained in helping children with a physical difficulty speaking. They help children with

stutters, annunciation problems, and problems organizing their thoughts into words. They

are not trained to teach a child a different dialect. Remedial reading classes tend to hit on

the same problems as the general classroom in refusing to work with the child’s natural

language use to then transfer oral ability to written. Such placements without considering

the child’s dialect and real language abilities has been ruled as discriminatory, as in

Martin Luther King Junior Elementary School Children v. Ann Arbor School District

Board which made it to Federal Court in 1977.9 Though the decision was made over

thirty years ago, the precedent is not universally upheld and the education changes that

were suggested to rectify the situation, similar to what is suggested here, has not been

generally adopted.

The disjoint between the two dialects and the prejudice of the education staff can

both help explain the gap in testing results and the feeling that many African American

8 Geneva Smitherman and John Baugh, “The Shot Heard from Ann Arbor: Language Research and Public Policy in African America,” The Howard Journal of Communications 13 (2006): 11.9 Geneva Smitherman and John Baugh, “The Shot Heard from Ann Arbor,” 10-11.

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students have in that school does not apply to them and their experience. “(L)anguage

derives from participation in specific communities,”10 and by denying the validity of their

forms of expressions, the majority culture denies the validity of minority cultures. In the

truest sense, the majority culture shuts African Americans out, using literacy and

performance at school as an excuse. The claim is that everyone in the United States in

entitled to a free and equal education, thus giving everyone the same starting point on

equal ground. It is easier to dismiss those that fall behind than to acknowledge that the

system is not giving them a fair start.11

Overall, the students who speak African American English that end up succeeding

are rarer and research is now showing that African Americans who do succeed in school

are the ones that who can learn to shift their dialect. Younger students are found to use

more features of African American English than older students, showing that most

students do eventually pick up on some features of Standard American English. Studies

also show that students who use fewer features of African American English do not

follow the general patterns of the achievement gap. This leads linguists to conclude that

these children learn to shift their dialect in school settings, since when out of school they

still use African American English.12 This ability is not what is taught to students; most

teachers do not explain to their students that the school is asking them to learn a different

way of using language. As pointed out before, they merely correct “bad” usage and

punish the student by assigning them lower grades without addressing the cause of the

10 Donald McCrary, “Represent, Representin’, Representation: The Efficacy of Hybrid Texts in the Writing Classroom,” Journal of Basic Writing 24: 75.11 Lydia Mays, “The Cultural Divide of Discourse: Understanding How English-Language Learners’ Primary Discourse Influences Acquisition of Literacy,” The Reading Teacher, 61 (2008): 415-416.12 Carol McDonald Connor and Holly K. Craig, “African American Preschoolers' Language,” 771-92.

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problem. The students who learn to shift do it most likely without thinking about it, or

least not thinking about it in such specific linguistic terms terms.

Despite the difficulties presented, there are possible solutions and ways of

adjusting current curriculums to help students master print culture instead of setting them

up to fail. Using scaffolding in African American English with very young children can

assist significantly in their acquisition of Standard English.13 In such a program, African

American English would be used for the first few years in texts that mimic the children’s

natural speech patterns in order for them to see the correlation between spoken language

and the written word. Linguists like John Baugh only suggest this method for the first few

years of school – by the end of second grade, most students following this program

should be expected to be reading competently in Standard. Treating the dialect for what it

is and acknowledging that African American children have experience with language

before they enter the classroom can go a long way to actually making the playing field

more level instead of just appearing that way.

Many of the same arguments as have been presented with students who primarily

speak African American English can be applied to students who are learning English as a

second language. The idea that they are expected to come to the classroom with a set of

experiences common only to the majority remains true (Mays, 2008).14 Also true is that

their proficiency in their home language is ignored or devalued, however it has been

shown in multiple studies that there is a strong correlation between level of instruction

and proficiency in the child’s primary language and their facility and proficiency in

acquiring English.15 Literacy transfers through different languages, though studies do 13 Geneva Smitherman and John Baugh, “The Shot Heard from Ann Arbor,” 12.14 Lydia Mays, “The Cultural Divide of Discourse,” 415-416.15 Kimberly Lenters, “No Half Measures: Reading Instruction for Young Second-Language Learners,” The Reading Teacher 58 (2004): 329.

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show that children will transfer skills into English more easily if their home language also

has a primarily phonetic alphabet.16 This means that children learning English from

languages with like Japanese and Chinese where written symbols typically correspond to

words instead of sounds will have a harder time transferring literacy skills than a child

who is learning from a phonetic alphabet like Russian or Hebrew. However, the idea that

written symbols can convey a meaning is an important step in acquiring literacy,

regardless to what form those symbols take.

In Guglielmi’s 2008 longitudinal study of the progress of nearly 3,000 students

who identified themselves as primarily speaking a language other than English, he found

a correlation between proficiency in the first language and proficiency in English.

Students with high proficiency in their home language were more likely to score higher

on standardize tests, to have higher grades, and do better after leaving high school.17

However, not many of these students received consistent formal ESL training, and only

students with a minimum level of perceived literacy in English were allowed to take the

standardized test that Guglielmi pulled most of his data from. The full range of

performance of all students who go into the American school system speaking another

language has not been accurately documented. Neglecting the home language is one way

to limit the children’s ability to become proficient in speaking, reading, and writing in

Standard English.

While scholars agree that it would be ideal to teach full proficiency in the home

language before starting instruction in English, research also suggests that it is possible

16 Kimberly Lenters, “No Half Measures,” 333. R. Sergio Guglielmi, “Native Language Proficiency, English Literacy, Academic Achievement, and Occupational Attainment in Limit-English-Proficient Students: A Latent Growth Modeling Perspective, Journal of Education Psychology 100 (2008): 323.17 R. Sergio Guglielmi, “Native Language Proficiency, English Literacy,” 338.

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for students to successfully learn to read in a second language before the first.18 In order

for that to be possible, however, the child must have a level of spoken proficiency in the

second language similar to what is generally expected of an emergent reader who is a

native speaker. This usually takes more time for an English as a second language student

than a native speaker. This means that ESL students need to be taught to speak and read

English at the level that they are personally at, and not at the level expected for the age as

compared to students who natively speak English. In order for young children to learn to

read English, they first have to speak it at such a level that they can apply that knowledge

to the written form. They should be made familiar with grammar patterns, the English

alphabet, and typical sounds and sound combinations within English all applied to speech

before writing is introduced.19 With a similar solution as suggested for African American

English speaking students, the language in reading materials should mimic natural speech

at first, as this is the form of the language that the children are most familiar with.20 All

this is especially true if the student cannot read in their home language and does not have

literacy skills to transfer to the new language.

Again the discrimination that in place could disappear with simple changes in the

way that teachers deal with English Language Learners, which would greatly increase the

success rates for such students. Making sure that the children have sufficient oral skills in

English or literacy skills in their home language before attempting to teach reading and

writing in English are two huge components in a successful program.21 Another aspect

that should be considered is the teaching of vocabulary and culture. Children from a

different culture struggle to pick up words and ideas that native speakers take for granted. 18 Kimberly Lenters, “No Half Measures,” 329-330.19 Kimberly Lenters, “No Half Measures,” 331, 333.20 Kimberly Lenters, “No Half Measures,” 331.21 Kimberly Lenters, “No Half Measures, 329, 331.

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A concerted effort needs to be made to explain new words and concepts to English

Language Learners at a pace that will not completely overwhelm them.22

Perhaps most importantly, instruction for children learning a new language should

be communicative; students need to have a chance to express themselves and their

experiences in addition to taking in the knowledge provided by the teacher.23

Communication can start in their home language and be increasingly shifted over to

English as the students learn more of their new language. But without having the chance

to verbally explore and respond to their new language, they will not internalize it.

Changes in the teaching style can be as simple as asking open questions (questions that

require a unique answer) rather than closed questions (questions that have a strict right or

wrong answer).24 As writing is introduced, they will gain an additional way to think about

and demonstrate use of their new skills.25 Level appropriateness always has to be a

consideration. It has been shown that truly bilingual students end up with benefits over

their monolingual agemates, but only after full literacy in both languages has been

reached.26

As McCrary says in his article on using vernacular language in the classroom:

If we really believe in cultural multiplicity, if we’re not just making noise

but want to bring the noise, then we have to get serious about what we say

and do with language in our classrooms. Either our student’s lives and

cultures – and language is a central aspect of both – have meaning, or they

don’t. Either students have a right to their own language, or they don’t.

22 Kimberly Lenters, “No Half Measures, 333-4.23 Angela R. Beckman Anthony, “Output Strategies for English-Language Learners: Theory to Practice,” The Reading Teacher 61: 473.24 Angela R. Beckman Anthony, “Output Strategies for English-Language Learners,” 475.25 Angela R. Beckman Anthony, “Output Strategies for English-Language Learners,” 478-9.26 Kimberly Lenters, “No Half Measures,” 329.

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Either we’re real multiculturalists or we’re bootleg multiculturalists, and

the bootleg sold in my neighborhood ain’t worth a damn.27

The majority has a choice: to stop trying to contain and punish the minorities with

linguistic differences by truly leveling the playing field, or they can continue to force

minorities into lower paying jobs by claiming that they are not worth the higher ones

without the education that is so valued by society.

It would only take slightly different teaching methods and materials in the first

few years of schooling in order to teach all African American students to shift their

dialect from their home dialect to Standard American English, or to teach students of a

different language to speak English. A few years, and a one time investment is what

stands between American society now and universal literacy. But this would take away

what has proven to be a very effective and ostensibly politically correct method of

oppressing minorities. Is that something that the major can afford to let go of? It is far

more economically and politically convenient to keep those marginalized in their place.

American society is quickly becoming one that relies more and more heavily on

the written word. It would be hard to change the perceived value of literacy. But what can

be changed is who can become literate. It would take a majority a great amount of

bravery to liberate those who had been oppressed by bringing them up to level of

acceptable standards. The battle will be fought and won in the school system, but school

and public libraries have a place in this, by helping to provide literacy to all. Making

materials available in the language of minorities so they can maintain and grow in their

knowledge of their first language is one small boost librarians can give. Providing

programs that help children get ready to learn to read directed at minority cultures also

27 Donald McCrary, “Represent, Representin’, Representation,” 75.

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can be a method of helping to close the achievement gap. These things, and support of

local teachers who successfully work with these linguistic issues, are some of the small

things libraries can do to prevent our beloved literacy from being used as a form of

punishment.

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Works Cited

Anthony, Angela R. Beckman. “Output Strategies for English-Language Learners: Theory to Practice.” The Reading Teacher 61: 472-82.

Clanchy, M.T. Introduction to From Memory to Written Record, by M.T. Clanchy, 1-16. Cambridge: Blackwell Publishers Inc., 1993.

Connor, Carol McDonald and Holly K. Craig. “African American Preschoolers' Language, Emergent Literacy Skills, and Use of African American English: A Complex Relation.” Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research 49 (2006), 771-92.

Green, Lisa J.. African American English: A Linguistic Introduction. Campbridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002.

Holt, Janet K. and M. Cecil Smith. “Literacy Practices Among Different Ethnic Groups: The Role of Socioeconomic and Cultural Factors.” Reading Research and Instruction 44: 1-21.

Lenters, Kimberly “No Half Measures: Reading Instruction for Young Second-Language Learners,” The Reading Teacher 58 (2004): 329

Mays, Lydia. “The Cultural Divide of Discourse: Understanding How English-Language Learners’ Primary Discourse Influences Acquisition of Literacy.” The Reading Teacher 61 (2008): 415-418.

McCrary, Donald. “Represent, Representin’, Representation: The Efficacy of Hybrid Texts in the Writing Classroom.” Journal of Basic Writing 24: 72-91.

Smitherman, Geneva and John Baugh. “The Shot Heard from Ann Arbor: Language Research and Public Policy in African America.” The Howard Journal of Communications 13 (2006): 5-24.

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