What Happened to Ebonics?

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Turmoil in 1980s Oakland Leads to Continued Definitive Conclusions about Language’s Impact on Education in the 2020s by Matthew Bamberg Photo by Kiana Bosman on Unsplash The Ebonics debate has often been misunderstood. It refers to the dialect of AAVE (African American Vernacular English). This type of language is prevalent in the Black community and has also spread into popular culture through lyrics in rap music and similar genres. I be workin’ Yes, I be workin’ on this article. This can be defined as: I’ve been working on this article for a while, although not necessarily at this very moment. I begin here because using AAVE helps readers understand the importance of training teachers to use it in our classrooms. Before getting into the meat and potatoes of the point, AAVE is an important dialect and, therefore, should be treated with the utmost respect, especially when dealing with it as a teacher. Slavery was Brutal The history of AAVE in the United States began in the 17th and 18t...
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Common Core--Shared Responsibility of Every Teacher

Common Core emphasizes that literacy is the shared responsibility of every teacher.

In this video teacher Sarah Wessling shares her thoughts about thinking aloud when teaching and the difference between teaching English and teaching literacy as per the Common Core.

When a teacher thinks aloud, he/she describes the strategies for answering a question or for solveing a problem out loud. From grade to grade, school to school and state to state teaching students how to think, or metacognition is universal.

A good example of a teacher thinking aloud is when a he/she models pre-reading. SQ3R (Survey, Question, Read, Recite and Review) is one guide teachers can use for modeling. Here's how a teacher may talk to the students, sharing what's going on in his/her head:

Now I'm going to read the first chapter in my social studies book: The American Revolution.

First, I'm going to look at the headings, subheadings, words in bold print, captions, charts and graphs.

After I'm finished, I want to look at the headings and subheading, making questions that I can answer when I'm reading. 

Now I'm going to read...

After each subheading I want to recall  what I've read so I'll recite some of it silently (or out loud if no one is around).

Finally, my last step! I'm going to look at the headings and subheadings to see if I can answer the questions I made from them. If I can't I'll skim the section again to find the answers.

The Video, Think Alouds Unpacking the Standards

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