From the perspective of an African American woman teaching at an all-Black high school in the Mississippi Delta, the moment when she must begin teaching English grammar is the moment her students put up a fearful, sometimes hostile resistance. This paper examines the language patterns and attitudes of African Americans, as well as the educational methods used to teach African American students. Following an introduction which furnishes a historical background, the paper first discusses African Americans and the struggle for formal literacy and then discusses the development and perceptions of African American Vernacular English (AAVE). In the next section on continuing controversies about how to teach standard English, the paper focuses on teaching writing at the college level, noting that two assumptions at the heart of writing process methodology: a belief that students' expectations about learning do not substantially differ from those of their teachers and a belief that teachers are generally capable of understanding and exchanging dialogue with all students, can be inappropriate for Black students. The final section of the paper discusses "culturally engaged teaching" and gives various examples of effective use of that approach. Contains 70 references. (NKA)