Talkin Black Talk

Talkin Black Talk captures an important moment in the history of language and literacy education and the continuing struggle for equal language rights. Published 50 years after the Brown decision, this volume revisits the difficult and enduring problem of public schools’ failure to educate Black children and revises our approaches to language and literacy learning in today’s culturally and linguistically diverse classrooms. Bringing together some of the leading scholars in the study of Black Language, culture, and education, this book presents creative, classroom-based, hands-on pedagogical approaches (from Hip Hop Culture to the art of teaching narrative reading comprehension) within the context of the broader, global concerns that impact schooling (from linguistic emancipation to the case of Mother Tongue Education in South Africa).

This landmark work:

• Presents an interdisciplinary approach on language education, with contributions from leading experts in education, literacy, sociolinguistics, anthropology, and literary studies.
• Contextualizes the education of marginalized youth within the continuing struggle for equal language rights, and promotes an action agenda for social change.
• Includes a powerful afterword by Geneva Smitherman – the leading scholar on issues of Black Language and Education.

H. Samy Alim, is an Assistant Professor of Anthropology at UCLA and John Baugh is the Margaret Bush Wilson Professor in Arts and Sciences, Chair of African and African American Studies Program at Washington University.

"To be sure, linguistic myths and misconceptions about African American Language yet live. But an honest summary of our language history over the past 3 decades warrants the conclusion that progress has been made. The brilliant works in this book speak volumes to that progress. Black scholars are now large and in charge."
— From the Afterword by Geneva Smitherman

“The great merit of this book by a progressive group of Black professors and poets is the transformative perspective they offer on Black Language. They urge us to see it not as a problem or an obstacle to be overcome, but as a source of strength and beauty, a creative and liberating resource.”
John Rickford, Stanford University

“Alim and Baugh have assembled here the considered and thoughtful views of leading African American linguists on a question of great moment: How can the eloquent oral tradition of African American English enrich the drive to literacy?”
William Labov, University of Pennsylvania