In Baldwin’s paper, “If Black English Isn’t a Language, Then Tell
Me, What Is?”, he explained his idea that language is the story of who we are, and where we came from. Languages are created due to the need of communication between others in the same area. This stems to Baldwin’s idea of Black English being an important language back in times of slavery so they can communicate freely with each other . Baldwin’s argument relates to Belmihoub and Corcoran’s ideas of translanguaging, in the sense that they believe that certain language is used in certain situations. One writer that explored the ideas Belmihoub and Corcoran was Amy tan in her paper, “Mother Tongue “. Tan said, “I again found myself conscious of the English I was using, the English I do use with her”(80) This is an example of translanguaging, in the sense that Tan uses a different style of english with her mom, then when she does with any other Enlgish speaker.
One piece of advice on responding to student work in Straub’s essay that was helpful to me was on how to sound. When i revise others papers, i never know what tone to use, I don’t want to sound too harsh, but also not too friendly. He explained how you should try to sound like a helpful reader that wants the best for the writer. Someone that wants to help you in your writing, and is not afraid to tell you whats wrong or what to fix. One thing that I wish my high school teachers did with my writing was writing a message at the end, that sums up my errors and puts me on the right track when it comes to fixing my writing. This would have helped me improve my writing skills rather then just fixing my silly punctuation and capitalizing letters.