When a local school system in California certified the teaching of African-American English, it created national controversy focused on linguistics adjustments in a pivotal racial minority community. Is it a separate language, a dialect,slang, bad grammar, broken English, or really not a distinct entity? This course will review these questions in the context of educational challenges facing African-American children whose home speech is Ebonics. The course will deal with the issues through readings, drawing on research and theory in works by Rickford, Rickford, and Smitherman, Perry and Delpit, and Connie Porter using film, group discussions, writing assignments, and lectures. Format: discussion/lecture. Requirements: two short papers, a mid-term exam, a final paper. No prerequisites. This is an introductory course, open to all students, including first-year students. Enrollment limit: 25 (expected: 15).

Hour: WILKERSON