Please evaluate the thesis of the book The Skin That We Speak and how editors, Lisa Delpit and Joanne
Kilgour Dowdy, supported or failed to support their thesis throughout this anthology.
It might be helpful to think about the book in terms of content, form and tone.
*When analyzing the content, you will see if the claim (thesis) is logically linked to reasons and supported by evidence provided by the various authors the editors chose to include in this anthology.
*When analyzing the form of the book you will look at how the editors chose to include information What does the book open with? How do the essays build off of each other as the book progresses? Does the ending of the book encourage us to believe the thesis? In summary, does the book’s structure encourage the reader to accept the book’s message?
*The tone deals with language or word choice. Did the essays that Delpit and Dowdy include use a tone that was playful, earnest, satirical, disgruntled, sincere, hopeful or passionate? Did the tone or tones contribute to the overall effectiveness of the thesis?
Remember that for every point you make, you want to provide textual support by way of summaries, paraphrases and direct quotes.
The following is a list of questions you might use to guide your creation of a thesis for this paper.
How does the book, as a whole, reveal the potentially harmful power of language and language attitudes on children in the classroom?
How do the authors “explore the links between language and identity, between language and political hierarchy, and between language and cultural conflict”? (xiv)
How does the arrangement of the book, divided into three sections (including personal essays, linguistic analysis, case study, and policy analysis) help further the goal of understanding the ongoing debates surrounding Ebonics and the education of African American students?
How does the book encourage educators to analyze their own linguistic blind spots and see language as
an ongoing process of discovery?
If you have any questions regarding instuctions or anything that you don’t understand please don’t
hesitate to ask
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