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Geneva Smitherman Lesson Activity

Lesson Activity – Dr. Smitherman’s essay, “Black English in Whiteface, or Who Do I Be?” (1991). This essay challenges common notions of Standard English as a superior language, especially in the realms of academic and professional American life, as opposed to Black English or (Black Idiom), often treated as an inferior dialect.

Class Makeup: 37 students who identified as White-American, 4 who identified as African American (at lease part of the time), and 1 who identified as Mexican American.

In response to the request that someone sum up the gist of Smitherman’s argument, “Sue,” a young white woman, answered, “She’s saying that Black English is a real dialect and not just an incorrect way of talking.” Immediately, a young Black male student, “Randy,” challenged indignantly, “What do you mean ‘Black English’?”

While the students fidgeted in their seats, especially Sue, Randy was addressed with, “Well, tell me; how does Smitherman define the term?” His silence confirmed he had not done the reading. Sue piped up, a bit sheepish: “I didn’t mean to offend anybody,” she said, glancing at Randy. “I really thought she’d used the words ‘Black English’ in the article,” and in fact she had.

A list of features from the article was put on the board to illustrate that Black English is a viable, effective dialect.” With some coaxing, answers and comments began to come from the class about how Smitherman forwards her argument. Randy’s initial reaction had, of course, been grounded in his understanding of prejudices against Black Idiom, the same prejudices Smitherman battles in the essay. These assumptions were voiced over the course of the discussion. One white student stated, “It seems to me that Standard English exists for a reason. We need a standard form of language that we can all understand no matter what slang forms we use when we’re in our own communities, don’t we?”

It was agreed that any verbal exchange demands a process of negotiation, and furthermore, if Black English is evaluated for its ability to communicate effectively, it scores high. The next question posed was, “How many of you understand the parts of Smitherman’s argument that are written in academic English better than the parts written in Black English?”

There was a general chuckle from the class. A white student commented then that because of the contemporary media, she was more familiar with Black English than with academic English, which is still pretty foreign to most college sophomores. And with this remark, another student suggested that it is the status of academic English that makes us value it, not its superior ability to communicate, at least in any context other than a scholarly one.

During the next meeting, Randy did the reading, as was clear from his comments, and as a group, all recognized this essay to be a much more complex set of issues than they had originally understood. Randy, incidentally, became a particularly useful factor in our conversations. His initial defensiveness diminished a bit as the rich legacy of African American literature began to unfold for him and his fellow students. But just as importantly, his anger had made an impression on his peers. In discussions thereafter, they took great care in articulating their opinions and questions. Rather than making the sweeping assertions so common to college students’ arguments, assertions symptomatic of surface learning rather than deep learning, they were more apt first to consider the weak spots in their cases and then to qualify their assertions.

Eventually this article served as motivation for higher understanding. Randy’s failure to do the reading for that first discussion kept his argument from being convincing, and it turned out to be an argument close to his heart. Thus, he was more likely to do the assigned reading thereafter. Sue was also motivated not only to do the reading but also to make a strong effort to understand its implications and possible reactions to those implications. Secondly, before the discussion of Smitherman’s article, most students would not have argued publicly against Black English as an important dialect, because the issue holds a hot-button status, but many students had not previously understood Black English as a fully structured dialect with a predictable grammar. The article and discussions about it did indeed result in most of the students’ seeing the issue in a different way. Finally, there was evidence in the students’ later writings that they themselves were in some way changed. Students revealed an increasing willingness to investigate cultural features carefully before presuming the causes of those features, and this willingness extended both to students’ own cultures as well as to “other” cultures.