Improve your grading and feedback practices to benefit your students and their writing development. This guide models a research-based, linguistically inclusive approach to grading writing so that you can incorporate equitable assessment and feedback into your everyday practice. A linguistically inclusive grading approach honors Black linguistic…

"Bridging Literacy and Equity" synthesizes the essential research and practice of social equity literacy teaching in one succinct, user-friendly volume. Extraordinary K-12 teachers show us what social equity literacy teaching looks like and how it advances children's achievement. Chapters identify six key dimensions of social equity teaching that…

Indicates features of Black dialect, or Black English vernacular, and discusses relationships between speaking Black English and learning to read and write. Suggestions for teaching speakers of Black English to write are offered. (RH)

Describes the approach used in teaching an English graduate course entitled "The Teaching of Writing to Speakers of Dialect." (DD)

An overview of Black dialects, with suggestions for teaching students who speak in Black dialects. (RL)

Activities for teaching Ebonics-speaking children to differentiate between problematic standard English and Ebonic forms are presented. (Author/MC)

Considers the recent Ebonics debate, and examines Patricia McKissack's use of dialects in her book "Flossie and the Fox." Points out its subtle yet meaningful lessons about the intersection of language and culture, and suggests a pedagogy that honors students' home language while accepting responsibility for offering them ways to switch language…

Considers how, when children enter school speaking a social class dialect, it can pose problems for both the students and the teachers. Notes strategies that teachers might use to assist the Black dialect speaker to adopt a more "prestigious dialect." Suggests teachers provide opportunities to listen to folktales or riddles written in dialect and…

Adult Basic Education instructors need to be introduced to the Black dialect to dispel misconceptions about the abilities of Black English speakers and to develop activities to help Black students in becoming bidialectal. (SK)

Urges teachers to deal with one problem at a time in students' papers when attempting to get nonstandard speakers to write standard English. (DD)

This is an autobiographical account of a teacher's first day in an inner city high school; it contains a discussion of the importance of understanding the subculture of one's students. The teacher's dress and comprehension of slang are noticed by the students. Incidents are related that illustrate the effects of ethnocentrism (the belief in the…

Black verbal and rhetorical strategies serve definite needs and functions in the Black American community--needs with which teachers should become familiar. When properly applied, these strategies can be effectively used in the English composition classroom for motivational and instructional purposes. (HOD)

Presents first a short article, "Response to the Issue of Ebonics," written by a Pennsylvania high school student. Follows this with an article, "Building Bridges to the 'Language of Wider Communication'" which reflects on ways of using the language children bring to the classroom as a means of building bridges to wider…

This paper provides information on black English to be used by teachers as they score errors and miscues on the oral part of informal reading inventories. The information is presented in order for teachers to understand items spoken in black English that are equivalents to standard English and that when spoken would indicate understanding of the…

This paper presents materials used in a "short course" on using Ebonics and bilingual code switching to facilitate clarification interactions in communication classrooms and multicultural public speaking. After beginning with a detailed agenda for the two-and-a-half hour short course, the paper presents seven speech communication…