Celebrating Bidialectalism: Reconceptualizing the Role of Language and Culture in the Acquisition of Literacy and Literary Skills among African American and Other Ethnically Diverse Students

This paper addresses the issue of how to make school matter to historically disenfranchised, inner city African American youth, as well as youth from other struggling ethnic minority groups. It asserts that one way to do this is to reconceptualize approaches to the acquisition of literacy and literacy skills in teaching, engaging, and motivating African American and other ethnic minority students. The first section of the paper describes specific ways in which researchers and practitioners could re-envision the acquisition of literacy skills in terms of assessment, curriculum, and instruction by celebrating students' language and culture. The second section proposes other potentially innovative approaches to students' acquisition of literacy skills. These approaches include incorporating students' appreciation of prose and poetry by successful artists who express themselves in both the vernacular and the standard with power, effectiveness and grace, as well as celebrating (rather than repudiating) their linguistic and cultural propensities. (Contains 25 references.) (SM)