Joan,
    I'm writing this to ATEG, but sending it directly to you as well
just to see if  the problem is in my computer or in how it comes out of
the List when redirected.  I'll be happy to send you the last post as well.
     I do think Black English is not so embattled as it once was, though
the good guys did not win the public battle that erupted post Oakland.
Perhaps one reason for the concern on the part of Black students is
their sense that progressive educators are very happy to let Black kids
be themselves, but that this may doom them to living a marginal life.
 At any rate, they have far more at stake here than we do, and it's not
up to us to tell them what the proper way of understanding all this is,
but to help them evolve or develop their own complex positions. It makes
a great classroom topic precisely because it will elicit passionate
responses from a number of perspectives. That is to say, in a typical
college classroom with a number of language minority students (my usual
class), pretty much all sensible positions (and a few not so sensible
ones) will be presented.  The right answer (on how to negotiate these
language worlds) may be different for every student.
    A question like "Do you believe in Black English" is just not
answerable in a yes/no way, and we can't let ourselves get forced into
saying how we feel these students should conduct their lives.  I'm sure
your "yes" wasn't intended that way, but that may, in fact, be what was
heard from their side. (Been there, done that.)  It may not be the
students who have changed, but us or their trust in us?
    Both the prescriptive and "progressive" positions are suspect. I
haven't met a Black parent yet who didn't want his/her child fluent in
mainstream English. They are rightly suspicious when they hear someone
say that Black English is OK.
    Progressive educators have been happy to teach the primary tenets of
sociolinguistics, but have adamantly opposed the teaching of grammar.
    Being for or against may make little difference if the students are
ill served.

Craig

Joan Livingston-Webber wrote:

>I have a very hard time reading messages from ATEG - "it" (ATEG?) tells me my
>reader can't read mime.  I get a lot of code.  SOmetimes I get word wrap and
>sometimes not.  The archives aren't much better.  I've thought of
>unsubscribing, but I find what I can pick up of the conversations between Craig
>and Herb especially so tantalizing that I try to read them, though I know I
>miss a lot.  I am unable to follow exchanges of short dialogue, since I get
>frustrated in searching for the bits.
>
>I did want to reply to Craig's saying a few days ago that linguistic grammars
>haven't made a dent in prescriptive attitudes.  (My one-line summary of a much
>longer statement, which I can't copy because of all the intervening code.  I'm
>never sure I've gotten a good sense of the whole; I hope my comment wasn't
>already made elsewhere.)
>
>I first taught linguistics to ed students at Indiana in the late 70's as an
>intern.  I taught it at IUPUI in the early 80's, at Western Illinois in the
>late 80's and late 90's, at U of NE at Omaha in the mid 80's.  I continue to
>teach it, though the courses have changed substantially in some ways.
>
>The students I have now are not nearly as resistent to the idea of dialects as
>rule-governed systems as they use to be.  I used to have Black students come up
>to me after class and ask if I "believed in" Black English," as though it were
>a statement of faith.  Some of those students dropped the course when I said
>yes.  Now, I may have a small group of students who want to challenge the
>conclusions that dialectal rules of phonology, morphology, and syntax lead us -
>that all varieties are systematic.  But I have not had a Black student simply
>deny the existence of Black English since about 1982.  That kind of denial just
>doesn't show up anymore. That seems to me to indicate substantial progress.
>
>
>Joan Livingston-Webber
>Department of ENglish and Journalism
>Western Illinois University
>                      Better a pack of greyhounds than a pack of camels
>
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