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Recommended: Diversity in the classroom

Critical Hip-Hop Language Pedagogies: Combat, Consciousness, and the Cultural Politics of Communication
By: Alim (2007)

Alim (2007) explored the issues educators have with linguistically marginalized youth in a fresh and straightforward manner. Alim (2007) used real life accounts to prove that the issues of cultural tension and the non-existence of critical language pedagogies do exist and are at large in real schools. This piece gave examples of how these issues occur and why they are happening. This piece not only looks at this from the view of the researcher or the teacher but also from the view of the students. Not only does Alim (2007) outline the problems the educational systems are having, he gives realistic and valid approaches to help solve these issues.

It is a common situation in many schools to have an extremely diverse student body, not only in terms of race and ethnicity, but also in terms of language and linguistic identities. Students that are either multilingual or speak different dialects aside from standard American English (SAE) are throughout school trying to form their linguistic identity. Most students know that learning this standard English* is important but they also do not want to stop speaking their native form of their language. Therefore, this leads to a conflict, internal and external. They are conflicted with themselves because they do not know what decision to make but they also conflict with their teachers because far too often the teachers are asking them to drop the native language and solely learn SAE. In this article it focuses specifically on Hip Hop Nation language. This form of English is often looked at as wrong and unintelligible in a school setting and outside of it in cer...

... middle of paper ...

...terested and excited about the activity. The idea that some students will transcribe the conversation in different ways based on their use of English is fascinating and I believe that students will not be aware of this before they do it. I think that after reviewing how the students transcribed differently they will start to develop a clear picture of the different linguistic identities they might hold. Overall, I found this article to be one of the most helpful and relatable to my teaching this semester so far.

Works Cited

Alim, H. S. (2004). Hip hop nation language. Language in the U.S.A.: Themes for the Twenty-
First Century , p. 387-409. Cambridge University Press.

Alim, H. S. (2007). Critical hip-hop language pedagogies: Combat, consciousness, and the cultural politics of communication. Journal of Language, Identity, and Education, 6(2),
p.161-176.

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