Mellix's "Code Switching"

I used Mellix's "From Outside, In" with a pre-college class last week to get students to think about the various "Englishes" and to help them distinguish between the features of academic English and their own dialects. I have been using this concept, approaching academic English as a different "English," for a while, and I have had positive results. Some groups are more wary of the process than others. This group was very suspicious of the first assignment in the progression: they have to write in one of the dialects/"Englishes" that they presently use or know well. They can write in Pig Latin, Spanglish, AAE, Southern Twang, Text Language, Valley Talk, or even Snoop Doggy Dogg's "izzles." The point is to make writing safe by showing them that I value the Englishes they speak. I discourage the term "broken English" and encourage them to value their ability to code-switch. It's always difficult when I get students who insist that they use academic English, especially in developmental classes, where this is less likely to be true. It has been so ingrained in students' minds that "proper" English is the only one that is valuable. The problem is, of course, that most of them don't even know what "proper" English is, which lends to the irony of the insistent student who refuses to use anything other than Standard AE. There's a self-denial process for them as if they imagine that they speak as eloquently as Condoleeza Rice, but the reality is substantially different. I don't want to hurt their feelings by delivering a reality check, so I just tell these students to write in Text Language. Realistically, however, I would prefer that they value themselves and their acculturation.