| Title of Article + Proper MLA Citation for Works Cited page | Inviting the Mother Tongue
Of Peter Elbow |
| Summarize the article — include your reaction, thoughts, anything to help you remember its claims. 100 to 150 words | In Peter Elbow’s, “Inviting the Mother Tongue”, he proposes to make a safe class for basic writing and a comfortable environment for students to speak their native tongue without judgement. He explains that in order for students to flourish, professors and faculty must understand their tongue, rather than try to fix it immediately. Elbow states, “if the words that come naturally to our mouth or pen are labeled wrong, we feel ourselves to have a problem”. He explains after this statement that this is a part of the series of higher education of diverse populations who are constantly corrected or told their language is “wrong”. My initial reaction to this article was how relatable this is to how my life was growing up in school as my language changed. I am originally from Philadelphia, Mississippi, a small town, home of the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians. To which both of my parents are a part of. English is my father’s second language and I’ve seen the struggle he’s had to go through when having to speak english to his coworkers on the phone. My father tends to stutter a lot when speaking english, whereas in other moments when he is speaking our native language, “choctaw”, he speaks with confidence and no interruptions. I lived in Maryland for 8 years of my life and moved back to Murfreesboro, Tennessee in the middle of my junior year in January of 2019. The way my speech has changed since then is tremendous. When a teenager moves in the middle of high school, you have to speak slang or of the dialect that your associates do, otherwise no one will understand you. It is almost like a culture, you adapt and you change; how you act, how you dress and how you speak. It is all very important. I enjoyed reading this article, it was very informative and relatable. I believe in Elbow’s initiative to change the standard of “correct” english. |
| Define new terms and concepts by quoting or paraphrasing the original author. |
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| How does this reading connect to other articles from class and/or your own research?
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This reading will connect to the #1000BlackGirlBooks reading because the way a person writes is how it comes from their mouth and based on the origin of where that person is from is important. One’s culture, religion, traditions, race, gender, class, etc. |
| Based on the reading, craft one question to act as a springboard for class discussion. | Where does the origin of “Standard Written English” exactly come from? What country? Who established this? |