Gretchen's Reviews > The Skin That We Speak: Thoughts on Language and Culture in the Classroom

The Skin that We Speak is a collection of essays by scholars about the struggle of language and culture in the classroom. They mainly address the issue of "Ebonics" and why it is looked down on as an "inferior" language. They talk about what we can do to change this negative outlook and why it's important.

This book's pretty boring. I had to read it for my Literacy/Language/Learning Theory class next semester. A lot of it is common sense or personal examples, which are kind of boring. They point the authors collectively make is a good one though: Respect a person's language and you respect the person. People need to know that their language is valued or they will feel oppressed and demeaned.