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Your Words or Mine: Discourse Conflicts for Speakers of African American English
| Content Provider | Semantic Scholar |
|---|---|
| Author | Wells, Tamara |
| Copyright Year | 2016 |
| Abstract | This qualitative action research study captured the voices of middle school students as they talked about being first language speakers of AAE and their efforts to appropriate SAE as a marker of school success. The following compelling questions were at the forefront of this study: How do middle school students use talk and other modalities to construct and represent meaning related to the use of African American English and Standard American English? In what ways are the complexities of African American youths’ identities revealed through their use of African American English and Standard American English? How does social interaction during writing activities inform the ideas expressed by African American middle school students who are speakers of African American English? In what ways do my teacher beliefs and practices as a speaker of African American English Language construct language ideologies in the Language Arts classroom? Participants took part in C.H.A.T. Academy: Children Having Academic Talks about languages, dialect and identity. C.H.A.T. Academy provided an academic space for students to exchange organic dialogue about how they form agency around their language ideologies and identify themselves as speakers in academic settings. The aim of the chats was to see how middle school students would interact socially during talks about the role African American English and Standard American English plays in their discourse. An additional purpose of this study was to examine how these conversations about language would shape the ideas expressed during oral and written activities. Keywords: African American English, Standard American English, Ethnography, C.H.A.T. Academy Wells, Tamara, 2016, UMSL, p. 3 PREFACE Three main areas of focus were established in this qualitative action research case study aimed at highlighting multiple voices with ethnographic underpinnings-student agency, student voice and my own development of language ideologies as an ELA teacher. In considering student voice, I examined middle school voices while implementing self-created C.H.A.T. Academy curriculum lessons to collect (a) audio recorded classroom conversations, (b) monologues as shared stories, (c) a written extended playbill, (d) a video recorded theatrical production of shared stories and monologues and (e) a student attitudinal survey and teacher testimonial. This study examined how explicit talk about language during social interaction helped students to form agency around their identity as they constructed and represented meaning about discourse conflicts between their first language of African American English (AAE) and Standard American English (SAE). C.H.A.T. Academy Middle school student participants participated in C.H.A.T. Academy over a fourweek period of time. The shaping of language ideologies emerged during C.H.A.T. Academy sessions. This acronym represents Children Having Academic Talks about languages, dialect and identity. As a teacher researcher, I developed C.H.A.T. Academy with the goal of allowing for an academic space for students to exchange organic dialogue related to African American English (AAE) and Standard American English (SAE) and how they identify themselves as speakers in academic settings. The aim of the chats was to see how middle school students interact socially during talks about the role AAE and SAE plays in their discourse. I was particularly interested to hear how the Wells, Tamara, 2016, UMSL, p. 4 participants negotiated their language ideologies during academic settings and the impact it had on their identity. C.H.A.T. Academy Curriculum Embedded into our ELA time, C.H.A.T. Academy followed the outline of a collection of self-created lessons framed around curriculum standards as based on state expectations. Furthermore, I created C.H.A.T. Academy curriculum to coincide with New Century Middle School’s (a pseudonym) newly adopted English Language Arts (ELA) curriculum with designed themes of changes within history, society and ourselves. In this way, C.H.A.T.’s curriculum served as an extension of ELA instructional time. The purpose of sharing C.H.A.T. Academy curriculum was to make prevalent the C.H.A.T. sessions, which can be used by other practitioners around the topic of AAE discourse conflicts and the negation of language ideologies. Student participants, along with myself as the teacher researcher, shared writing and oral ideas indicative of the following research questions: • How do middle school students use talk and other modalities to construct and represent meaning related to the use of African American English and Standard |
| File Format | PDF HTM / HTML |
| Alternate Webpage(s) | https://irl.umsl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1097&context=dissertation |
| Language | English |
| Access Restriction | Open |
| Content Type | Text |
| Resource Type | Article |
