Johanna is absolutely correct when she writes:

> I also find most of these materials discriminatory. A lot of exercises
> and tests target nonstandard dialect grammar, such as 'he don't' and
> double negation. A lot of these materials ask students to either supply
> the 'correct' form or choose between a 'correct' and 'incorrect' form.
> Some of these are multiple-choice items. Looking at such items from the
> point of view of children, some will intuitively know the 'right' answer
> simply because they grew up in a home in which the standard dialect is
> spoken. Others will have trouble choosing because both standard and
> nonstandard forms will sound right. For yet others, the nonstandard
> forms will sound most natural, and they will pick the wrong answer.
> Isn't it obvious that such materials disadvantage children from
> nonstandard-dialect backgrounds? Won't it be these children that score
> low on the standardized tests (not to mention their school tests)?

We need to think of ways of making students aware of dialect variation
and not "correct" and "incorrect" variation.  I have thought a  better
way to "test" student knowledge on this is to develop questions like the
following:

        Who is more likely to say "He don't ever eat broccoli"?
                a) Your best friend.
                b) The school principle.
                c) Mr. Rodgers.
                d) some of the above.
                e) none of the above.

I heard Shirley Brice Heath talk about kids in an inter-city school
writing dialogues for plays with characters from very different
social-dialectical backgrounds.

Comedians like Richard Pryor, Eddie Murphy, Will Smith play with the
humor of dialect variation all the time.  And as we were reminded in a
presentation at ATEG last year, most genres of popular music have lyrics
which are standard and non-standard within one song.  These are much
better ways to teach about dialect variation than having students mark
as "incorrect" what they may hear every day in their communities.

Bob Yates, Central Missouri State University