Rajan Patel

Response to Standard English: Whose Standard? I found that the piece brought up how some English teachers dont actually help students like they should. They may embarrass students by judging the way they speak and the way they write and not actually help them improve these things. The author of the piece, Linda Christensen faced this issue from her ninth grade English teacher. I also found from the reading that people must speak Standard English to make it in the world. Prior to reading the piece, I have not been introduced to the term Standard American English (SAE). Based on what the reading stated about this term, I believe that I speak SAE because majority of the time I speak English using correct grammar and pronounce most words correctly, I believe that is what is meant by SAE. Linda Christensen talks about how a voice of the home is in conflict with a voice of school. I can describe my home voice as casual and unprofessional and this wouldnt work in school because I felt that I needed to talk in a more professional way during school. Christensen also talks about how she learned that grammar indicates class and cultural background in the U.S. and there is bias against people who dont speak correctly. I find this to be true to the extent that people do receive bias because they dont speak correctly but I dont necessarily believe that its true that grammar indicates class and cultural background in the U.S. A passage from Christensens piece that I found particularly interesting is the one when Fred is introduced. Fred was one of Christensens students and

Rajan Patel

he always was drawing every day in her class during writing time, when Christensen asked him why he wasnt writing, he said that he couldnt. Christensen got Fred to finally write when she explained to him that his writing couldnt be wrong during writing time because the class is just practicing writing. I was fascinated by how Christensen got Fred to write during writing time when he was drawing during that time. However when he was writing, he didnt take any risks at all, even though he ended up writing well.