DW 3a

In P.A. Ramsey's "Teaching the Teachers to Teach Black-Dialect Writers," he discusses his experience teaching a class of grad students how to teach these black dialect speakers to write well. The class was focused around discussing and analyzing articles written by scholars on the topic and papers written by black dialect speakers. Ramsey and his students quickly realized that there are many theories on how best to teach these black dialect speakers and they varied greatly. The interesting part about this class Ramsey taught was that the discussion always went from "teaching writing to dialect speakers" to "teaching writing." They realized there was a bigger problem than just the dialect speakers. In fact, how do you effectively teach writing to any student. The fact of the matter is, it doesn't matter if your grammar is correct if you cannot realize exactly how you are supposed to organize what you are writing so that it come off as logical and clear. He also goes on to say that the only way to teach a black dialect speaker standard english is if they are willing to do so and want to do so.

I find it very interesting that the problem is actually teaching writing and not teaching writing to black dialect speakers. I think it is a wonderful idea, that if a student who speaks any dialect can learn how to formulate paragraphs and organize a paper, then they can become a great writer. I agree with Ramsey's view when he talks about what is really the important part of a paper. Since Ramsey is seen as a bridge in the dialect gap where he teaches, his collegues often come to him with papers that they claim have dialect problems. However it is not the dialect problems that are the problem, but as he says "Most of the time the paper is indeed poorly written, but the problem is usually that the student simply does not know how to write a paper"(200). There is nothing in this paper by Ramsey that says a black dialect speaker cannot learn to write effectively. Teachers just have to be open to they way they do write and as they become more confident in what they are writing, then the papers will in fact begin to make more sense to the reader.

I think this paper offers a great way to teach not only black dialect speakers but any speakers of any dialect of english, including Standard English. I've always though it isn't how you write but what you write that matters in a paper and Ramsey backs that up. The grammatical stuff isn't the problem if you cannot effectively organize your thoughts. Teachers will always find it difficult to help a student who does not speak their dialect but if they teach what they know the student will catch on and become a better writer. Other dialect speakers do not necessarily need to be taught differently but they, like all writers, need to be shown ways to become confident in their writing. Ramsey had one last thought about teaching writing and it just about sums up the whole idea. He said, "for I learned that one of the worst things that can happen to either students or teachers is for teachers to be too blind or too afraid to teach what they know"(201).