Response to Gee and Delpit

Gee and Delpit both are dealing with the topics of Discourses, teaching literacy in the classroom, and how those things relate to students and their different experiences with language. Gee uses a lot of complex language, but I got the feeling he never really offered any solutions to the problems/opinions he presented. To me, that seemed like someone who offers insight, but ultimately thinks there is no solution. As a future teacher, I felt his article had some interesting things to say about Primary/Secondary Discourses, but had nothing that I could take to my classroom. Delpit seemed to offer a more critical analysis of language acquisition and discourse acquisition, and she seemed to give more applicable opinions to actual teachers.

Gee sets up his entire article on understanding the terms Primary and Secondary Discourses. He spends a great deal of the article breaking down these terms, and by the end of the article has come full circle in relating them to the classroom and teaching. The relevance of Gee’s terminology to literacy teaching and learning deals with understanding that each student comes from a different background and an effective teacher will begin analyzing there before jumping to any conclusions about the student’s behavior or ability to succeed. Gee builds a case that suggests students that come from various backgrounds all have a difficult time acquiring certain Secondary Discourses and teachers need to be fully aware of students backgrounds and how they relate to the challenges those students will face in the classroom.

Delpit models much of her language after Gee, especially in regards to Primary and Secondary discourses, but she takes the terminology in a different direction. Delpit’s language seems much more accessible, as well as applicable, to the classroom environment, which is in large part a comment on how she feels towards Gee. Delpit seems to feel Gee presents some information, maybe some opinions, but never gives any applicable solutions for English teachers. Instead, Delpit plays off Gee’s language and uses it in a way that offers solutions to the problems teachers encounter in the classroom, like bridging the gap between Standard English and the home discourse. The problem Delpit has with Gee is that most of his comments offer no real solutions for teachers to practice, and because of that seems to be a bit of a copout for teachers to ‘give up’ in teaching students dominant discourses.

I'd like to explore how home discourses affect student learning. For example, say a student never has had a communicative relationship with their parents. How might that impact their ability to communicate in a classroom setting?