Asao B. Inoue's Infrequent Words

This is part three of a three-part critique of Beehler's article. Read part 1 and part 2 if you want to catch up. What Towers Should We Build?  Photo from Thomas Hawk, Untitled.  In what I read as the heart of his article, Beehler explains why critical pedagogies that use code-meshing can be harmful to students. Vershawn A. Young (University of Waterloo) has done copious work on code-meshing. If you are less familiar with the concept, you can see an interview of him on the topic  from Kentucky PBS, when he was a professor at UK. Or you can check out his co-edited book, Other People's English . In short, code-meshing is the idea that we all already mesh various language codes all the time, and in the literacy classroom, it should be okay to do so. And in fact, the practice offers lots of opportunities for critical work, especially around interrogating dominant English standards. Beehler explains that “other languages and hybridized languages most certainly have...

This is the second of three connected posts. If you haven't, it will help to read the first post, "A Response to Paul Beehler -- Part 1 of 3."   Tricks of Diluted Language  I need to be straight here, but I also want to be compassionate. I think, Beehler means to do good teaching, to help all students. I do not fault him for that. I fault his arguments for what they lack. Beehler makes several arguments about teaching writing and language today that ignore the histories and politics of language and its judgement, and this makes his arguments white supremacist in their outcomes among diverse students in schools. Beehler claims that Theoretically speaking, a common, or standard, language can be the gateway through which all individuals can fully participate in society because participation occurs through the nexus of a common language, whichever that language may be , as Smitherman noted in her reflection of the 1960s and 1970s debates. (166, original emphasis)  He’...

Over the next few weeks, I offer an extended response to Paul Beehler's article, " Cracking the Code (Meshing and Switching): Standard English as a Required Ticket to Influence ," in the International Journal of Information and Education Technology ( Vol. 10, No. 3, March 2020). My good friend and colleague, Vershawn Ashanti Young , suggested I write a response because the article required it. So here's the first installment of three posts over next week or so. Thinkin' Bout Towers and Strunk & White's Babel  In his article, “Cracking the Code (Meshing and Switching): Standard English as a Required Ticket to Influence,” Paul A. J. Beehler argues that it is essential that writing teachers and schools promote and teach a single standardized English, suggesting that it need not be associated with a white racial group of language users, and that it is a key to future success in our society, a society that already uses and favors such an English. I ap...