“The Blues Playingest Dog You Ever Heard Of”: (Re)positioning Literacy Through African American Blues Rhetoric

Kynard, Carmen

doi:10.1598/rrq.43.4.3

Cited by 8 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 50 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Based on this body of scholarship and similar intellectual propositions (cf., Kynard, 2008;West, 2008;Wible, 2006), adjectives such as "disengaged" when applied to youth readers and writers are not only inaccurate, they are misplaced. Youths are not failing to engage texts; many of the texts we teach Youths are not failing to engage texts; many of the texts we teach in schools are failing to engage youth.…”

Section: Literacy Engagementmentioning

confidence: 99%

Books Like Clothes: Engaging Young Black Men With Reading

Kirkland¹

2011

J Adolescent & Adult Lit

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Using 18 weeks of classroom data from a much larger ethnographic study, Kirkland examines the reading ideologies influencing the literacy engagement of a young Black male, Derrick. (To protect participants’ identities, this article uses pseudonyms in place of participants’ actual names.) In doing so, Kirkland theorizes about how young Black males express thoughts about reading through specific statements of identity—what he calls genres of self. He concludes that many Black males read or don't read based on their thoughts about particular reading tasks—which include complex and layered beliefs around texts, contexts (of instruction), and the subtexts that permeate both. Kirkland suggests that young Black men often express such beliefs through grammars of acceptance/rejection. However, when the situation of reading fits them (i.e., corresponds with their reading ideologies), Black males read and find pleasure, interest, and purpose in doing so.

show abstract

Section: Literacy Engagementmentioning

confidence: 99%

Books Like Clothes: Engaging Young Black Men With Reading

Kirkland¹

2011

J Adolescent & Adult Lit

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Perdomo encourages children to love the art of writing, gives them a positive attitude toward themselves and gives them knowledge of black heritage and a particular black icon. Just as Margaret responded to the rhythm in Perdomo's prose, many black children will recognize tonal and rhythmic qualities similar to the black rhetoric found in their homes (Kynard, 2008). Wendy's initial reaction to this story had more to do with style and comfort level than with the content or literary quality of the book.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Two Professors Critique the Representations of Africans and African Americans in Picture Books

Smith-D'Arezzo

Musgrove

2011

Equity & Excellence in Education

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The authors examined the sociocultural representations of black children in picture books. Three critical perspectives were used to examine 23 picture books containing black characters. Questions used in this critical analysis were derived from sociocultural implications of implicit messages within texts, critical literacy, and cultural and social reader response theories. Our aim was to determine what stories are being told and how two adults, one black and one white, interpret these stories. We also considered the importance of analyzing these picture books when using them in elementary classrooms. We found that our different cultural and racial backgrounds influenced our response to a number of the books, clearly pointing to the advantage of discussing children's books with colleagues of different races.Light skin. Dark skin. Long legs. Short legs. Thick arms. Thin arms. Brown eyes. Blue eyes. Big nose. Little nose. Straight hair. Curly hair. Different-Mm-mmm, but the same, ah-ha! Now isn't it delightful, simply out-of-sightful, bein' with you this way! (Nikola-Lisa, 1994) From the text in this book, we have inferred that Nikola-Lisa understands the cadence of call and response, a traditional African American method of storytelling; his text is inclusive and joyful. It is an example of sound story telling and a culturally relevant children's book with text that honors children. Introducing all children to texts that include children they can identify with in a positive way is one way to honor children and is of maximum importance in the primary classroom.With the goal of honoring all children, specifically African American children, the purpose of this article is to explore the reactions of two professors, one white, one black, to picture books that contain African American and/or African characters. By making our exploration of books explicit, we hope to provide teachers with examples of how to choose and use books that show "positive and authentic interpretations of African American experience" (Collier, 2000, p. 236). We are concerned that young teachers may not know how to be selective when choosing books for classroom use. In some cases, there is a lack of selectivity because of the relatively low number of books published by and about African Americans. Statistics gathered at the Cooperative Children's Book Center (CCBC) at the School of Education, University of Wisconsin-Madison show clearly that of the approximately 15,000 children's books published in the United States

show abstract

“…We focused only on the phonological and grammatical features of AAL. Kynard (2008) observed that theorists have researched discourse strategies used by African American rhetorics, such as call-response and field-dependent strategies: signifying, tonal semantics, and directness. These strategies were vitally important in understanding the semantics and pragmatics of AAL.…”

Section: The Authors' Positionalitymentioning

confidence: 99%

African American Language in Children’s Literature

Pittman,

Piper,

McCoy

et al. 2024

Journal of Literacy Research

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The purpose of this study was to determine the most prevalent African American Language (AAL) phonological and grammatical features in slavery- and Civil Rights–themed children's literature. Seventy-six books were initially selected to determine if they used AAL in dialogue or in narration. Of the 76 books, only 39 included AAL. The 39 books were analyzed further to categorize the specific AAL features used. The results revealed that the reduction of the final g (e.g., thinkin’) was the most prevalent phonological feature. Moreover, phonological features were used more often in slavery-themed texts than in Civil Rights texts. Additionally, the most frequently used AAL grammatical features were negation tense markers (e.g., didn’t and neither) and subject-verb agreement ( he listen). Grammatical features of AAL appeared more often in slavery-themed texts than Civil Rights themed texts. Implications for practice include suggestions for selecting, evaluating, and reading the books from this study with students. Implications for research include investigating other AAL features in slavery- and Civil Rights-themed books, authenticating the storylines of slavery- and Civil Rights–themed books, and analyzing other books with AAL that do not use these themes.

show abstract

“The Blues Playingest Dog You Ever Heard Of”: (Re)positioning Literacy Through African American Blues Rhetoric

Cited by 8 publications

References 50 publications

Books Like Clothes: Engaging Young Black Men With Reading

Books Like Clothes: Engaging Young Black Men With Reading

Two Professors Critique the Representations of Africans and African Americans in Picture Books

African American Language in Children’s Literature

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About