Resolution on Student's Right to Their Own Language

Andrew Hamer

English 1100_35

September 16, 2015

Prof. Young

Students’ Right to their own Language

“Language scholars long ago denied that the myth of a standard American dialect has any validity.” This quote from the first page of the Conference on College Composition and Communication’s Students’ Right to Their Own Language says it all. Trying to fit all of the people in this country into a common way of speaking is impossible. There are so many different ways to portray a language especially in America. With all of the different dialects spoken throughout the U.S., and because of all of the different forms of slang and different ways people speak it seems unreasonable to me that students should not be able to write in a form of language that fits with who they are. For almost every writing assignment that I have had throughout my years of going to school I have been told to make my writing original and to make my writing true to who I am. If I am not able to write in my own language how am I supposed to make my writing true to me and original, that is why students having the right to their own language in an academic setting is important. Teachers and Professors are always telling students to do their work to the best of their ability, but in order to do that we need to be able to think and write in a way that makes sense to us. I’m not saying that students should be allowed to curse and insult people in what they write but as far as using slang or certain terminology so that the student can understand and feel better about the work that they did then having the right to write in a way that they understand sounds pretty good.