- The argument that Baldwin shows in his writing is that Black English is indeed a language. The language was a created in a time of need. African-Americans who were brought to the U.S all came from different backgrounds and needed a way to communicate with one another. Baldwin’s argument relates to translanguaging due to the fact that he states how Black people used what they heard around them (white American English) to create a language to communicate. As the years went on not only African-Americans spoke black english. Many people started to adopt the language and use it too. Baldwin states in the passage when a moment of translanguaging was used within his family he says, “There was a moment, in time, and in this place, when my brother, or my mother, or my father, or my sister, had to convey to me, for example, the danger in which I was standing from the white man standing just behind me, and to convey this with a speed, and in a language, that the white man could not possibly understand, and that, indeed, he cannot understand, until today.” Gloria Anzaldua also uses translanguaging in her essay. She speaks with a combination of English and Spanish no matter who she talks to. You can relate Baldwin’s argument about Black English being a language with the creation of Chicano spanish, a combination of another language and what they know to create a new one.
- A piece of advice given in Straub’s essay that I consider to be helpful would probably be how he says to use comments. He states how when you write a comment you should sound more like a friend rather than a teacher or a judge. Doing so this helps the comments you make on others work seem less discouraging. More like constructive criticism instead of blatantly calling someone out for something they wrote. I wish my past teachers took Straub’s advice on how to grade/edit my essays. So many times teachers have just nullified a paragraph with ideas I thought were crucial to my essay and made me rewrite said paragraph. If they have taken Straub’s advice they would know to not delete the whole paragraph but just let me know what parts of the paragraph need to be emphasized more. I feel like my writing skills would be further developed if this were to occur.
ENG 2100: Writing 1 with Jay Thompson
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