Despite a growing awareness among teachers of the importance of recognizing and valuing a broader range of students' literate resources and experiences, including those that are culturally and linguistically linked, in many language arts classrooms students' literacy practices continue to be marginalized--remaining peripheral to, if not at odds…

In this article, the author shares his experience growing up speaking African American Vernacular English in school and his observations about nonstandard American plantation English. The author's amateur linguistic observations about nonstandard American plantation English gave rise to immediate dialect comparisons between African American…

In response to Morrow's (CS 731 019) reflections on dialect interference, the author notes that those who want to find dialect interference in writing will always find it, and those who look for complex cultural codes will find those too. (HOD)

Concludes from three studies that Black English speakers may not spell as well as standard English speakers and that Black English itself can interfere with spelling. (DD)

Concludes that only a few of the 43 features of black English dialect influence the way in which 223 black fourth, fifth, and sixth graders spell words. (DD)

Explores the history of the study of Black English and the history of researchers' and teachers' attitudes towards Black English and its study. (RB)

Proposes a method for describing the relationship between writing error and style shifting rates across communicative situations. Finds that errors diminished in proportion to the tendency of students to select grammatical features that are shared by Black American English and Standard American English in formal communicative situations. (RAE)

No relation between composition "dialect" and judged quality of the writing was found. (DD)

Investigates the relationship between the oral and written language of one college-level basic writing student who is a speaker of vernacular Black English (VBE). Reports that neither VBE patterns in the student's oral language nor other features of orality that previous research has identified account for his writing problems. (HOD)

Describes the attitudes of Black and White, male and female, middle- and lower-class adolescents and preadolescents in response to tape-recorded samples of standard English and Black English. (HOD)

Understandings of the ways home and school languages shape classroom dynamics and influence development, identity, and subsequent school success are important for teachers of both bilingual and African American students. This article builds a link between these complementary bodies of research by analyzing interactions in a second grade mainstream…

No evidence was found to indicate that grammatical reading interference is an important factor in the poor reading achievement of Black youngsters. (JH)

Examined cultural and instructional influences on comprehension of figurative language ("sounding") by elementary school children in Harlem and studied effects of a program of creative writing instruction provided by visiting writers. Concludes that special instruction tended to improve figurative language comprehension of children and…