I really enjoyed this weeks readings, especially ‘Cultural Conflict in the Classroom’. My biology teacher in High School taught me literacy far beyond that of living organisms. For every ‘like’ or ‘umm’ used in a sentence, 25 cents were owed to him. This money eventually lead to huge pizza party, but the lesson taught was relentless in my future undertakings. To this day, I find myself listening to speakers and tallying in my head the number of ‘likes’ they use, just as I had in High School.
While I agreed with the majority of the reading, I find it hard to believe that ‘proper English’ doesn’t also have its benefits in our society. By speaking the way we write, we are able to improve our literacy skills everyday, rather than having to translate our personal dialects into a noun-verb structure.
Do you find that the way people speak influence other areas of their literacy? or are reading, writing and speaking completely separate practices? What experiences did you have as a child that conformed you to proper English, or allowed you to express your personal diversity?