Participation Type
Paper
Presentation #1 Title
Title: Ridge-running in Composition: Navigating the Instruction of Standard English without Devaluing Regional Dialect
Presentation #1 Abstract or Summary
Those of us who are fortunate to have grown up with a “non-standard” mode of English, and who now find themselves teaching standard English, find ourselves in a beneficial, rather than wholly precarious, position. Often we, as students speaking non-standard varieties of English, including regional and cultural dialects (like Appalachian, African-American Vernacular English), or as students coming from multilingual households are taught shame with our schoolwork by instructors who “mean well” but are effectively negating and silencing our experiences and voices. As instructors these often negative, past experiences provide us with an advantage and an opportunity when it comes to our students with similarly devalued voices. In this presentation I will discuss the pedagogical advantages and opportunities Appalachian instructors have in helping students who communicate in non-standard varieties of English to navigate the rhetorical situations of their writing in a way that does not devalue or shame their voices. My experiences have allowed me to introduce tactics such as code-switching into classroom discussions of college composition and rhetoric in a way that empowers, rather than disparages, student voices. I will be discussing various approaches to helping students utilize their own linguistic fluidity to their advantage, and recognize (and at times even defend) the power their voice has in allowing them to communicate their thoughts to a wider audience.
At-A-Glance Bio- Presenter #1
Amanda Rachelle Warren is a displaced Appalachian with strong regional and cultural roots. She received her MA from Ohio University, and her PhD from Western Michigan University, and has been teaching composition and rhetoric at the university level for over 18 years. She currently teaches at the University of South Carolina Aiken.
Title: Ridge-running in Composition: Navigating the Instruction of Standard English without Devaluing Regional Dialect
Those of us who are fortunate to have grown up with a “non-standard” mode of English, and who now find themselves teaching standard English, find ourselves in a beneficial, rather than wholly precarious, position. Often we, as students speaking non-standard varieties of English, including regional and cultural dialects (like Appalachian, African-American Vernacular English), or as students coming from multilingual households are taught shame with our schoolwork by instructors who “mean well” but are effectively negating and silencing our experiences and voices. As instructors these often negative, past experiences provide us with an advantage and an opportunity when it comes to our students with similarly devalued voices. In this presentation I will discuss the pedagogical advantages and opportunities Appalachian instructors have in helping students who communicate in non-standard varieties of English to navigate the rhetorical situations of their writing in a way that does not devalue or shame their voices. My experiences have allowed me to introduce tactics such as code-switching into classroom discussions of college composition and rhetoric in a way that empowers, rather than disparages, student voices. I will be discussing various approaches to helping students utilize their own linguistic fluidity to their advantage, and recognize (and at times even defend) the power their voice has in allowing them to communicate their thoughts to a wider audience.
