ABSTRACT
In “Oral and Literate Traditions Among Black Americans Living in Poverty,” Heath (1989) states:
The school has seemed unable to recognize and take up the potentially positive interactive and adaptive verbal and interpretive habits learned by Black American children (as well as other nonmainstream groups), rural and urban, within their families and on the streets. These uses of language —spoken and written-are wide ranging, and many represent skills that would benefit all youngsters: keen listening and observational skills, quick recognition of nuanced roles, rapid-fire dialogue, hard-driving argumentation, succinct recapitulation of an event, striking metaphors, and comparative analyses based on unexpected analogies.
