ABSTRACT
As concluded in the previous chapter, kids who are using multiple repertoires in the classroom are best prepared not only to do well in school, but to communicate in an increasingly diverse world. As marketing types will attest, people no longer stay in tightly closed demographic groups: The same person who shops at Target one day, may appear at Saks the next. Similarly, as discussed in Chapter 6, marketers who promote youthy products to adults already know that “youth” repertoires need not only apply to a certain age group: The grown man who buys Pokémon™ action figures may also spend hours poring over his stock portfolio. And, for students in Mr. Z’s class, “Liberian English,” Bollywood jargon, or the techniques for making an iMovie are not repertoire elements that apply only to this particular peer group or the classroom setting. Given the increasing repertoire diversity in the world, limiting one’s repertoire to the routines, jargon, and language of an imagined “academic English,” might open some doors, but, in isolation, will limit the types of encounters an individual can have with the world.
