Coming from the Heart: African American Students, Literacy Stories, and Rhetorical Education Elaine B. Richardson

1
Coming from the Heart African American Students,
Literacy Stories, and Rhetorical Education
Elaine B. Richardson

• Kevin Robinson Ethos, Pathos
• 
  Invention
• Camesha White Style Arrangement
• Kathlyn Gwaltney Delivery Logos

2

• My first monograph African American Literacies
  explores the use of African American Language and
  Literacy traditions in the teaching of literacy
  and composition. This point of view begins with
  the premise that African Americans have language
  and literacy traditions that are intellectually
  worthy and that represent particular ways of
  being in the world.

Elaine B. Richardson
3
Ethos Kevin R.

• QUOTE 1 My analysis and interpretation of the
  students texts and contexts is informed by
  African American-centered language, rhetoric, and
  composition theory. (pg. 160)

4
Ethos

• EXPLANATION The foundation of Richardsons work
  and conclusions center of how African Americans
  speak, read, and write to affect achievement,
  empowerment and change. This passage establishes
  the authors credibility by convincing the
  audience that her research is relative.

5
Ethos

• QUOTE 2 My work extends previous work on AAVE
  discourse patterns because it analyzes students
  ways with words, as a means of figuring out how
  to use Black discourses more forcefully and
  powerfully, to help students to acquire
  vernacular discourses of the Black literacy
  tradition that helped to change this nation, and
  to develop Blackademic writing. (pg. 162)

6
Ethos

• EXPLANATION Here, the author explains her
  research in African American Vernacular English
  and how it deals with this distinctive Black
  speech that is linked to a tradition of African
  American literature and culturally specific
  writing. Again, Richardson is showing her
  credentials as a person who has done her
  homework, and even charted new ground, in this
  area of study.

7
Pathos Kevin R.

• QUOTE 1 Although it is a fact that many people
  of African ancestry do not identify with African
  American culture, hardly any of us can escape the
  aura of race and class issues since they are
  interwoven into the culture fabric of or society.
  (pg. 155)

8
Pathos

• EXPLANATION One may be African American or Black
  American, but he or she isnt directly from
  Africa the individual is from America and has
  never stepped foot in Africa. Although this is
  true, society forces us to believe otherwise and
  we fall into the opinions and beliefs of others.
  This is when stereotypes begin to form.

9
Pathos

• QUOTE 2 Another important theme circulating in
  various stories about literacy in American
  culture is reflected in a well-known childhood
  Black folk rhyme that sums up a truth that
  critical race theorists are paid great sums to
  stretch out into lengthy texts and speeches
• If you black, get back
• If you brown, stick around
• If you yellow, you mellow
• If you white, you right (pg. 156)

10
Pathos

• EXPLANATION This saying echoes a common belief
  that African American literacy is not respected
  in America. America has a vast cultural divide,
  and Richardson pushes this emotional button with
  her audience by illuminating how the cultures of
  the different races are viewed when compared with
  the mainstream or white culture.

11
Pathos

• QUOTE 3 Stucky (1991) makes a critical point
  when she asks if the possibility exists that the
  same tool (literacy) that has been used to
  oppress can be used to empower? To heal the scars
  of slavery, the silencing, the othering, the
  devoicing, the unnecessary cultural erasure of
  African American students, we must begin writing
  new stories of African American literacy and
  rhetorical education. (pg. 159)

12
Pathos

• EXPLANATION Regardless of past racial
  injustices, America can possibly repair the
  damage by using literacy to help uplift and
  educate instead of to exploit and separate.
  Richardson is appealing to her readers to help
  revitalize African American literacy and rhetoric
  education.

13
Pathos

• QUOTE 4 In reflecting on the work he put in his
  paper and the 2.0 grade he got, Mickey says, She
  said the instructor it wasnt clear. But I mean
  how could it be when it was deep? Mickeys
  words point to the complexity of living in a
  society struggling to balance the scales. The
  scales contain life, liberty, the pursuit of
  happiness (or the distribution of wealth and
  resources) on one side, and race/culture, gender,
  and class on the other. (pg. 165)

14
Pathos

• EXPLANATION One of the students Richardson
  interviewed talked about the C grade on his paper
  due to errors in grammar and clarity. However, he
  thought that the content should have taken
  precedence over any cosmetic deficiencies. She
  used the story to illustrate the inequities of a
  society that is still separated in its cultural
  views. The author makes it personal by putting a
  face and feeling to her point.

15
Style Camesha W.

• QUOTE 1 Music, such as the blues, jazz, and Hip
  Hop, represents forms of creativity within free
  yet definite patterns that transmit meaning
  through sound. (pg. 158)

16
Style

• EXPLANATION Instead of just words, there is a
  beat added, or a tune. Imagine a jingle or a
  commercial as if someone just simply read the
  words/script to you. It wouldnt be as
  entertaining or the point wouldnt get across to
  you because you wouldnt just simply turn the
  channel. We all have our own style bottom line
  it gets the point across.

17
Style

• QUOTE 2 What I am referring to here as closet
  speaking/writing is equivalent to fronting. A
  related if not similar strategy is
  racelessness. Fordham defines this strategy as
  one that high-achieving students use as a
  survival strategy in environments that are based
  in dominant monocultural ideologies. (pg. 160)

18
Style

• EXPLANATION Here the individual has no identity,
  or I would say that there is a fake identity
  portrayed. One is only attempting to please
  society by choosing a style that is acceptable to
  society. The individual is choosing the
  safe/harmless way out.

19
Style

• QUOTE 3 Once students realize that writing their
  words is not acceptable, stereotype threat sets
  in and they get caught between two worlds,
  writing something that is neither AAVE nor
  academic English but something else, referred to
  by interlanguage. (pg. 163)

20
Style

• EXPLANATION When one begins to realize that they
  cannot write what they want, it somewhat cramps
  their style. It is also true that no one wants to
  give in to the stereotype. So therefore one finds
  them self unsure and caught between the two
  styles. While being caught w/in the two, a new
  style is then created.

21
Style

• QUOTE 4 Mickey tries to validate his ideas and
  perspective by incorporating language from the
  register of research in his use of the terms data
  and found, terms associated with objectivity and
  credibility. He mixes the Black style with the
  research register in this way because use of the
  Black style is usually elevated as emotionality
  rather than rationality. (pg. 165)

22
Style

• EXPLANATION He searches for an accepted way of
  stating his point. He mixes his style w/societys
  style with hopes that it will make his paper seem
  more balanced/collected and less passionate.

23
Arrangement Camesha W.

• QUOTE 1 There is a lot to be said about an
  academic system that encourages instructors to
  reward structure over originality. In the Black
  rhetorical tradition, students are challenged to
  do they own thang with the form. (pg. 167)

24
Arrangement

• EXPLANATION Most schools would prefer that
  things be done the correct way, the accepted
  way. Arranging things your way isnt exactly the
  best way to get an A. However, students do feel
  as if doing things their way will give them a
  better chance at being more persuasive.

25
Arrangement

• QUOTE 2 After students were trained to recognize
  two mainstream patterns of text organization and
  two vernacular-based organization patterns,
  students preferred vernacular-based organization
  patterns (narrative interspersion and
  circumlocution) in both academic and
  conversational tasks. (pg. 162)

26
Arrangement

• EXPLANATION After being introduced ... the
  students would rather use a dialect that is more
  common and everyday instead of going along with
  the attitudes and practices of others. When being
  vernacular, there is little thought, you can just
  simply go with the flow. The students prefer an
  indirect approach.

27
Delivery Kathlyn G.

• QUOTE 1 In fact, literacy stories permeate the
  history of Black people in the twentieth century.
  In the enslavement era, those stories concerned
  laws against Africans learning to read and write,
  and they were transmitted by word of mouth and
  through enslavement narratives. (pg. 156)

28
Delivery

• EXPLANATION During slavery, Africans told their
  stories orally, sidestepping laws against
  teaching slaves to read and write. African
  American literacy stories grew from this early
  form of delivery to the oral discourse and
  printed word you see today.

29
Delivery

• QUOTE 2 The experiences of slavery and
  oppression and retention and reinterpretation of
  African cultural forms in the American context
  influence these orientations. One example of a
  distinct African orientation to knowledge can be
  found in sound culture. Pleas conveyed through
  sound span the entire spectrum of African
  American experience. Specific examples can be
  found in Black discourse practices such as tonal
  semantics. (pg. 158)

30
Delivery

• EXPLANATION Another way to deliver or pass down
  African American culture was through music. Song
  became another way of expressing culture. Today,
  hip hop (or rap music), for example, has
  influenced Black discourse in our times.

31
Logos Kathlyn G.

• QUOTE 1 I do not mean here to suggest that White
  teachers who practice bashing Black cultural
  learning styles damage Black students. I mean
  that all teachers who have not had training in
  linguistic diversity and literacy education lack
  the skills necessary to support culturally
  relevant learning. (pg. 158)

32
Logos

• EXPLANATION The author says that if teachers
  dont have a background in AAVE or African
  American literacy education, they will logically
  fall short in educating Black students. This has
  been the basis for the argument for some school
  districts who wanted to include Ebonics in their
  language curriculums.

33
Logos

• QUOTE 2 Woodson held that omitting the
  linguistic history of the broken-down African
  tongue (i.e., AAVE) from the curriculum teaches
  the African American to despise her mother
  tongue. Furthermore, Black students were directly
  taught to hate Black speech, which indirectly
  taught them to hate themselves. Thus, the African
  American-centered approach to literacy research
  and education seeks to advise and revise the
  story of miseducation in Black students literacy
  education. (pg. 161)

34
Logos

• EXPLANATION Traditionally, African Americans
  and Whites who wanted Blacks to assimilate into
  the mainstream disparaged Black speech in favor
  of the speech patterns of white society.
  Unfortunately, that form of self-hate did more to
  damage Black self esteem than uplift. Today, it
  holds that integrating AAVE into literacy
  education respects the culture as well as informs
  the student.

35
Logos

• QUOTE 3 Aint nothing new under the sun.
  Everything you did has already been done. What I
  am calling African American-centered literacy
  practice is really nothing more than bringing to
  the center that which has been common knowledge
  in traditional African American ways of knowing
  but not in mainstream classrooms. Many African
  Americans exploit the tradition of Nommo the
  connection among language use, rhetorical
  posture, and ideological stance. (pg. 169)

36
Logos

• EXPLANATION Culturally, African Americans
  inherited the power of storytelling and
  influential speech from Africa. Thus, the
  movement toward African American literacy is a
  means of going back to the future. If you
  recognize African traditions for speech, literacy
  and writing then you will understand how it is
  linked to the identity of the African American.
  This concept is often missing from mainstream
  education.

37
Invention Kevin R.

• QUOTE 1 While one of the goals of the study
  presented here was to make visible vernacular
  discourse/rhetorical patterns and strategies in
  students texts, the scope of identified
  strategies and policies is broader. this essay
  focuses attention on the academic personas
  acquired by two African American students. (pg.
  155)

38
Invention

• EXPLANATION The authors research sought to go
  beyond highlighting the distinct patterns of
  African American speech, writing or literacy. She
  wants to show the results of inclusion and
  exclusion in mainstream versus cultural specific
  literacy. Her method of research enhances the
  usefulness of the knowledge by making it fresh
  and particular to this discourse.

39
Invention

• QUOTE 2 The two students discussed here are a
  male and female, Mickey and Rhonda . They were
  selected from demographic surveys distributed to
  a beginning writing class that had as its focus
  the literatures of many ethnic groups I
  interviewed the students twice individually and
  once together. I asked both participants the
  same set of questions but left them free to
  change topics I observed their classes over the
  semester and analyzed pieces of their writing.
  (pg. 159)

40
Invention

• EXPLANATION Richardson was careful to make her
  research thorough and objective, allowing for
  scientific selection of the subjects involved but
  offering some latitude in their responses. Her
  audience will accept her conclusions because of
  the work involved to conduct unbiased data
  gathering.

41
Invention

• QUOTE 3 A fundamental aspect of African
  American rhetorics and AAVE-oriented research
  has been to identify and define Black discourse
  styles or Black rhetorical patterns as these
  manifest themselves in AAVE speaking students
  texts. Most of this research has sought to
  explore and expand the literacies of
  AAVE-oriented students by having a deeper
  understanding of what informs the students
  approaches to literacy. (pg. 161)

42
Invention

• EXPLANATION Researchers like Richardson who have
  sought information concerning culturally specific
  Black speech, writing and literacy usually focus
  on academic papers. Ultimately, this research
  seeks to enhance AAVE literacy by identifying
  what motivates African American students when
  they engage in literary pursuits. Richardson not
  only told her audience how she researched but she
  identified her goal. This helps her readers
  connect with her point of view.

43
Questions?