Students' Right to Their Own IM

Just recently, I saw a flier for a presentation entitled “Banishing Facebook 101: Making more Efficient Use of Computer Lab Time.” This title alone assumes that the writing done on social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace are pointless and should be avoided. But in fact, analyzing these alternative languages in the writing classroom can work to our advantage as teachers. In Banks’s Race, Rhetoric, and Technology, he states:
“Recreational spaces like BlackPlanet allow for a fuller, more organic view of African-American rhetorical production: vernacular sites like this provide the opportunity to see what patterns emerge outside the prescriptions used to prepare speakers for public communication” (73).
Banks discusses the necessity of valuing Black vernacular English to see how it can contribute to writing pedagogy. In a similar way, we as writing teachers need to value our students’ own vernacular and not abolish it from the classroom; as students’ languages can work to enhance our own teaching and the students’ learning of various discourse communities. Blackman offers several excellent ideas for how to do this. I believe that valuing online languages is vital not only so we are able to relate to our students, but also to analyze how their language is developing so we are better prepared to teach them other discourses. Blackman’s ideas are fascinating: I would love to use some of them if I get a chance to teach 207 (Intermediate Writing).

--eliz25