Censorship Question

How do you establish when a student is mature enough to deal with certain text? This is a good quesion and a very difficult question to answer, as it can be different for every single person. I believe the readiness of a person depends on theri own life experienes. Some students have been exposed to and learned about many of the controversial topics today, such as drugs, sex, violence, abuse, rape, etc. and therefore are more than likely ready to deal with such issues within a text. However, this is vague as well as many students, unfortunately, may have been exposed to these things too soon, and perhaps a book would bring back bad memories or would simply be innapropriate for the age level. Also, there are many students who have had little or no exposure to such things, and to introduce texts that deal with such things to such students could lead to confusion or perhaps even a more traumatic reading of the text than other students may get. It is very hard to tell who can handle what and who is ready to read certain texts. There are obvious markers, such as making sure the books are overall age appropriate, like not having third graders read The Perks of Being a Wall Flower or other such texts, but there are many other aspects to think about that are unique to each individual, so it is an extremely difficult question to answer.

Responding to Gee and Delpit

In reading Gee’s and Delpit’s essays, there is a certain chain of utterance that is required to understand Delpit from Gee and to understand how both relate and relate to you. To read the Delpit essay, Delpit assumes that her readers have read or at least familiar with the key concepts of Gee’s essay. Gee has to say that one is bound to their primary discourse and have a lot of trouble entering into another discourse and that one learns and becomes who they are through unconscious learning in one’s discourse. They become one way naturally, without awareness. Delpit argues these points by saying that one can be taught to enter into another discourse and can even learn to manipulate or transform a secondary discourse for their own personal empowerment or gain. She also claims that the learning that goes on inside a discourse is something that we are aware of. Where Gee says it is difficult for a student in a separate language discourse to enter into an academic discourse, Delpit argues that it is crucial for teachers to teach their students correct grammar and other superficial things that are crucial for entering into a primary academic discourse. It is important for us as English teacher’s to understand this and that it is our goal to teach proper language skills within our discourse, regardless of whatever outside discourses students come from. How can you make students from all sorts of other discourses learn to conform and transform into the academic discourse that you need to teach, and to what point can one punish the students for retaining what they have been taught all their lives through their dominant discourse however?