"Teaching Standard English: Whose Standard?"

The essay "Teaching Standard English: Whose Stander" by Linda Christensen focuses on how children feel left out because they are told they are wrong when they write or speak. Linda explains her experience with a writing teacher she had in the ninth grade.  Linda explains that the teacher had them write about their lives and problems and asked them to share what they wrote. Each student then was able to gather new insights on their previous beliefs and were more willing to write. Linda says that teaching students to "correct" way of writing and speaking isn't enough and that the most important part is that students are able to question the people who make those claims that they are not good writers. What Linda says she wants to do is to make sure that her students end up making something of themselves, because all of those good job positions in the future truly are based around how well a person can present themselves through words.

I felt truly engaged in Linda's essay. I found the part when she describes her experience in her ninth grade class. I was shocked that the class was able to be so open about those problems and talk about them with peers. My peers have always made me the most nervous and to think that ninth graders were able to do that almost confounded me. However, after I thought about that, I realized that that is what writing does to a person. If a person feels confident enough to write about a problem then face, then they may already feel like that problem is out in the open because they put it down on paper. I know that when I write about something, I feel more relaxed about it and this is probably because I was already able to gather my thoughts and explain it rationally in words.