I felt Delpit’s article on “Language Diversity and Learning” hit home for me because while in first grade, I was placed in ESL to help me “catch up” to the literacy level of other students in my class. Before I had moved here, I was fluent in several different languages, including English. However, English in India and Singapore differed substantially from English used in America, especially in grammar, spelling, and syntax. While I would have otherwise considered myself literate, I was suddenly faced with the daunting task of unlearning everything I had believed was accurate and proper and forced to consider myself as illiterate or on a lesser level of literacy than my fellow classmates. I became very quiet and immersed myself in books, very rarely speaking in class in order to prevent myself from further embarrassing myself (since it was bad enough that I had to go to ESL). While I excelled in other subjects, I rapidly fell behind in English and would avoid studying for it altogether. It wasn’t until middle school when I finally realized that to succeed anywhere here I had to learn to use English as a tool to my advantage.

I definitely agree with Delpit’s statement that students should be exposed to and allowed to practice alternative forms of English in a nonthreatening environment (54). Unfortunately, teachers often pick on students who require constant correcting to give them more practice with Standard English. This would almost certainly have the opposite effect than intended and would only bring forth silence (51). Do you agree with this conclusion or do you think students practicing Standard English more would be able to converse in it more efficiently?

What I found most fascinating were the differences in discourse style and language use that Delpit discusses. Delpit states the following: “When differences in narrative style produce differences in interpretation of competence, the pedagogical implications are evident” (55). White adults uniformly agreed that “episodic narratives” were wrong for some reason, and predicted that children who told such stories would do poorly in academic settings (55). The children who told “topic-centered narratives” were right and predicted that these particular children would do better in academic settings (55). Black adults, on the other hand, did not associate episodic narratives with low school success whatsoever (55). Why would a “topic-centered narrative” be considered the main form of discourse in an elementary school while an “episodic narrative” be considered incorrect when the later are explored in creative writing classes in high school or college? Why are these narratives not considered to be creative in elementary school, and what makes them wrong?