Essay Prompt

First, read the passage below and prepare to write a response. This excerpt is written by Anjali Pattanayak, who serves as the Academic Enrichment Coordinator for Multicultural Student Affairs at the University of Wisconsin-Plattsville.

 

Then, in 3-4 paragraphs:

Summarize what Pattanayak is saying in this passage, and;
Respond to Pattanayak by explaining where you agree with her, where you disagree and what questions you have

People consistently lament that kids today can’t speak properly or that people coming to this country need to learn to write correctly. These complaints are based on the idea that there is a single correct way of speaking and writing. It is a common belief that people should just learn to speak and write proper English. This belief is called current traditional rhetoric, which focuses on a prescriptive and formulaic way of teaching writing that assumes there is only one way to write (or speak) something for it to be correct. However, over the past several decades, scholars in Writing Studies have examined the ways in which writing has a close dialectical relationship with identity, style, genre, and culture. In other words, the rules for writing shift with the people and the community involved as well as the purpose and type of writing.

 

Is there is one correct way of communicating? Or is writing is culturally situated? This might seem to be a trivial question, the reality is that when people argue there is one correct way to speak and write, they disenfranchise many populations who are already marginalized by society. The writing most valued in the “correct-incorrect” binary is a type of writing that is situated in middle-class white culture. In adhering to so-called correct language, we are devaluing the non-standard dialects, cultures, and therefore identities of people and their communicative situations that do not fit a highly limited mold.