ch 4 of christensen

That first section of the chapter... I didn't get where she was going the WHOLE section. I mean, was she trying to say that it was wrong to tell children that they spoke incorrectly, or was she trying to say that they needed to know Standard English because of the "more powerful". I guess in the end she ends up saying both... which she points out really doesnt make sense. You have to teach your kids that what they are saying is wrong, that someone (pretty much richer people) have the power and that to get there you have to speak a certain way, even though they dont know who wrote these so called rules, and why they have to followed, just that they have to be. She ends the section on such a great note though... doesnt make sense, saying that her students wont feel like what her teacher made her feel like, but thoughout the section she tells how they are going to feel like how they grew up speaking was wrong, and that they have to change.
One of my teachers did something similar to the "tea party" christensen explains. I like both versions. My teacher, instead of a final exam told us that we could be one character we found most interesting in all the books that we read the entire semester, then sat down at tables and talked to each other, in character (and dressed as the character too) and have to have a conversation. She would tell us to switch tables a couple times during the hour. If we proved that we really knew the character well, then we would get an A. I thought it was really interesting because some people did end up choosing the same character to be, but they acted differently because the took the character as being different. The tea party i feel is someone similar, a really fun way to see if the students got what they were reading and connected with the characters.