re: Applied Delpit?

Judy Diamondstone (diamonju who-is-at rci.rutgers.edu)
5 Apr 1998 14:39:55 -0000

This is the sort of thing that Courtney Cazden has been
talking quite convincingly about for a while.

I can think of two sorts of approach to explicating
"the dominant forms of instructional culture"
First, the innovations of educators who are "insiders" to
the communities of students considered "at risk" --

I don't remember the name of the Chicano/Chicana mentoring
program that Courtney observed in California, but that might
count as an example of how difference can be explicated
for minority students to support their academic achievement.

There is also Carol Lee's work with "at risk" African American
students, using familiar discourse strategies like signifyin in
the literature of Af. Am. authors to show strategies of literary
stylization. This kind of work "explicates" by first finding
exemplars of culturally different encodings in privileged texts.

Courtney has written about Martha Demientoff's strategy of organizing
two dinners - one a pot latch, one a formal dinner - at each of
which only one kind of language is allowed: at the first,
the students' Native language, Athabascan; at the second,
"standard" English -- and then talking quite a bit during and
afterwards about feelings, thoughts, etc.

This attention to affect as a significant dimension of the project
of "bridging" (not only explicating what is different but
attending to its social & psychological effects) may be
what sets off these innovations from the more mainstream
efforts, like genre pedagogy in Australia, where the argument
for explicitness ran parallel to that of Lisa Delpit in this
country.

Having just read the messages by Nate and Maria Judith, 'starting
with the student' might be another way of characterizing the
different sorts of approach.

There must also be examples from the world of critical pedagogy (?)

t 04:17 PM 4/4/98 -0800, you wrote:
>
>Dear Xmca-ers,
>
> Are there any examples of curricula which adopt Lisa Delpit's
>view that kids should be taught the hidden curriculum of the school
>(or which adopt other forms of explicit instruction about dominant
>forms of instructional culture?). I assume that Goldenberg and Gallimore's
>work on instructional discourse falls into the latter category, but
>cannot find a handy article/ref and my assumption could be wrong. It
>sure wouldnt be the first time!
>mike
>
>
>

Judith Diamondstone (732) 932-7496 Ext. 352
Graduate School of Education
Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey
10 Seminary Place
New Brunswick, NJ 08901-1183