Summary
In these lessons with my 9th graders, focusing on the use of dialect in a short story by Langston Hughes, I sought to deepen my students' understanding of dialect as an element of one's identity, in order to understand Hughes's aesthetic and political decision to create characters who used nonstandard speech (in this case, the dialect of working-class African-Americans in New York City in the 1950's). I attempted this by first exploring prior knowledge, as a conduit into a contemporary news article about the Philadelphia dialect. This established a shared experience, which was then extended with additional information, creating an interpretive schema that structured our analysis of Hughes's "Thank You Ma'am." This abstract schema of understanding was strengthened at each stage of these lessons (personal experience, nonfiction text, literary text), deepening engagement and enriching textual analysis. This building effect supports my assertion that these intentionally constructed interpretive frameworks are transferable and lend themselves to making meaning of texts in a variety of media. This movement of personal reflection to analyzing an informational text proved powerful, as it leveraged perceived relevance of the subject matter and established a shared understanding of dialect, which we then applied in our reading of a literary text.
Activating Prior Knowledge
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These lessons began with a "Do Now..." designed to activate students' existing knowledge about dialect--which, it turned out, was extensive. With my opening activity, I had hoped to leverage a high interest hook, but I found that when equipped with the focus and vocabulary to interpret their prior knowledge, my students demonstrated a tremendous level of thoughtfulness. The lesson began with a Do Now... tasking students to define a series of commonly used Philly slang words. This conversation led to some valuable identity work, exploring the ways in which speech can signify and express cultural identity, and even examining the ways speech and culture intersect with power dynamics. In my original blog post analyzing this lesson, I wrote:
I emphasized how everyone has a dialect--how groups develop their own way of speaking because people who tend to spend time with one another begin to sound like one another and adopt a shared vocabulary. After linking dialect with culture, I asked the class “How might a dialect be stigmatized?” This question took a little bit of clarification, but eventually a student answered, “Like in a job interview.”
“Yes! Excellent example! How might this idea of dialect, nonstandard speech, play into a job interview?”
The student responded along the lines of, “Well, you’re supposed to talk a particular way in a job interview. Like if you used the words like the ones we were just talking about you won’t get the job.” We had forged an important connection between dialect/identity and institutional power.
This ultimately primed a richer, more personal engagement with dialect as we analyzed its use in "Thank You, Ma'am," but I decided to create an extension of this conversation a rare extra credit opportunity--reading and responding to a New York Times article about the potential loss of the Philadelphia dialect.
Establishing a Shared Experience
While our discussion of the Philadelphia dialect as we understand and use it validated the place of lived experience in our classroom conversation about dialect, the incorporation of a news article on the subject built upon this prior knowledge in developing a sound shared understanding upon which to base our analysis of "Thank You, Ma'am." I mentioned above that this article and reflection was an optional extra-credit opportunity--about one third of each class chose to complete it. I was thoroughly impressed with the level of thoughtfulness in these reflections, as students synthesized our conversations about dialect, identity, and power and applied them to their interpretation of the article. Students engaged deeply with concepts of culture, identity, and subjectivity. For more responses, feel free to browse my original post on this lesson or check out the full gallery at the bottom of this page, but some highlights included:
It important to recognize different dialects because it show the world about different way people of different region communicate. The dialects they use are unique in their culture, it is like the identity of the person [ELL respondent] |
To be aware of different dialects is important because you’re being exposed to different culture and if you’re not apart of that culture, you shouldn’t expect those people to speak, look or wear anything you do. There is not just one way to speak or say words. |
It was important to preserve and recognize different dialects because it show the history or person they could be.I my opinion if you decide to forget about an entire dialect you really saying that you are forgetting an entire group of people's background,personality, and overall lifestyles by simply the way they peek.. Dialects are beautiful it really shows what kind of person who you really are and you are not afraid to show it.
Although only about a third of each class elected to complete this assignment, I decided to ask students the space to explain the article for the rest of the class. This proved to be an incredibly constructive decision--as this article debrief continued, more and more students who hadn't read the article began contributing to the discussion and analysis. Through this debrief, the entire class was exposed to this high quality thought, and, subsequently, these ideas informed the class's interpretation of "Thank You Ma'am." My field notes (hastily typed out afterward) from this lesson read as follows:
Kind of on a whim I added a quick debrief of the NYT article on dialect and WOW it turned out to be one of the most rigorous discussions of the year. After having a student who read the article quickly summarize it, I opened up discussion with the question: “How does it make you feel to hear about a dialect ‘fading away?’” Lots of students responded “Sad!” in chorus. This I interrogated that idea. They were driving at points about the way you speaking being a part of who you are. The conversation coalesced around ideas of culture and history--your background and membership to various cultural groups are captured in the way you speak. They felt like the loss of a dialect was a kind of loss of your past. I connected this with our conversation about dialect and stigma. How people can judge people based on preconceived notions about their speech. This provided a valuable springboard into “Thank You, M’am” and Hughes’s conscious (& controversial) decision to capture a working class black dialect as a way to more richly capture the identity of his characters.
These lessons demonstrate how the intentional construction of interpretive schemata, first leveraging prior knowledge, then building understanding through paired texts, can lead students to high-level analysis and authentic engagement with texts. In my original interpretation of these artifacts, I concluded:
By approaching this concept of dialect from two texts and personal experience, students were able to construct a cohesive theoretical understanding of dialect and its value, which proved transferrable--lending itself to interpretation of multiple texts and personal experience. These are exactly the kinds of rigorous, durable interpretive skills I hope to build in my class, with which students can make sense of both the various texts they encounter in their lives and their day-to-day experiences.
Conclusions and Connections
These lessons run the full arc of my theoretical framework, accomplishing all three of my goals for paired text curricula, as outlined in the section, "A Proposed Solution:"
- Students deepened their understanding of dialect by approaching the concept through two texts (and personal experience)
- Students used reflection and a supplementary text to establish a shared experience, through which they interpreted a literary text.
- Students applied the same interpretive schema to understanding a nonfiction, "real-world" text and a literary text, demonstrating the complementary nature of these literacies and increasing perceived the relevance of literary interpretation.