Ball/Cooks Adolescent Literacy Chapter

Research on the Literacies of AAVE Speaking Adolescents

This chapter is a literature review of studies of AAVE (African American Venacular English) speakers.

Background:

• 1979 Ann Arbor Michigan case: Federal judge ruled on behalf of AAVE speaking students, school must not discriminate against a student's language culture.
• 1996 Oakland School District created task force that found language to be the reason predominately African American schools were not being successful. Superintendent adopted a resolution resolving to provide instruction in the student's primary language. There was an "outcry of resistance from mainstream America."
  
• 1997 article by Ball,Cooks and Williams agreed with Smitherman's articles. "AAVE is an untapped resource, that teachers must use culturally relevant pedagogical approaches in classrooms that serve AAVE speaking students."
• Today, other researchers come up with the same conclusion, yet there is little evidence of change in classrooms. Accomodations are not public.

Literature Review using ERIC and descriptors African American Venacular English and Ebonics found470 articles. Found 3 general categories of research:

1. Context
2. Curriculum
3. Assessment

My thoughts:
In the section on Assessment, Gabrielson(1995) found that choice did not positively impact all student's writing scores, but choice did positively affect the scores scores of African American students and female students. I wonder if the TAKS test has one writing prompt, or allows students to chose between two. I do not recall getting a choice when I was a child. It was also surprising to me that in Ball's 1997 study, African American teachers rated the writing of African American student's higher than the European American teachers did. Each rated the students of similar background as superior to the other. This definitely bothers me, since it shows that race is affecting test scores. I agree that the voices of African American teachers should definitely be heard.

Conclusions:

• need for further research on African American students with learning disabilities versus AAVE underachieving students
• how to utilize computer technology to support AAVE speakers
  
• research on how to develop teachers who are well trained to support AAVE students
• how to use AAVE home language as a scaffold for developing literacy skills