Making Connections Two

Dear Jabari Mahiri and Soraya Sablo,

I enjoyed reading your essay on the lack of relationship between non-school and in-

school literacy practices. I completely agree that teachers should implement the types of writing

that students are interested in into their obligated curriculum. Doing so will allow for students to

be excited to come to school and motivated to complete assignments. I personally believe that

incorporating poetry, music, plays and other forms of literacy that spark students interests, will

result in better grades, higher test scores, and establish a happier school environment in which

students are able to discover more about their character and identity.

Despite the fact that I agree with the overall concept, I believe that there are some issues

within your research and the conclusion drawn from that research. In you alls essay, you

concluded that African American students write outside of school to escape their impoverished

and violent lives. By doing this you are giving into the stereotype that all African American

youth deal with violence, poverty, etc. on a day to day basis. It is inaccurate to make this

generalized assumption about all African American youth when only two black student writings

were analyzed. Also, these two black students lived in similar neighborhoods with similar

backgrounds. There was no diversity in your research. Based on the research, you all are only

able to speak for African American students in that neighborhood, not all African American

youth. Understanding the importance of not over generalizing all black youth will allow for

society to stop seeing African American men as violent or African American women as angry or

mad. In order to make change within society we first need to break down the stereotypical

barriers that attach blacks. Applying this to improving literacy in school to become more

relatable to students, further research should be done asking African American students with

diverse backgrounds why they write and what they write about. In my opinion, the results to an
experiment such as that would show that students write so they can feel like they are not alone,

they write for fun, they write for passion, they write because they love to write. Not every black

person has experienced gang-banging, violence, poverty, or the other themes mentioned in your

conclusion as to why students “write for their lives”.