In “The Politics of Teaching Literate Discourse,” Lisa Delpit asserts that allowing all students, regardless of linguistic, social, economic, or cultural background, access to the dominant discourse, gives minority students the tools to succeed in educational and occupational goals.
Specifically, Delpit is challenging the work of James Paul Gee as she problematizes the notions that 1) people who are not born in to the dominate discourse will find it exceedingly difficult to acquire, and 2) an individual born into one type of discourse will experience major conflicts when entering another discourse.
To substantiate her objections with the first position, Delpit includes stories of individuals that demonstrate that literate discourse can be acquired in the classroom setting. Many of her stories illustrate African Americans who were able to transcend the circumstances that they were born into through their acquisition of the dominant discourse. Teachers played an important role in, not only teaching students the dominant discourse, but also helping students believe that they could overcome the obstacles of their immediate surroundings.
In describing her objections with Gee’s second position, Delpit includes examples of students who were able to acquire the dominate discourse without rejecting their home identity and values. As they learned the dominant discourse, these students were able to acquire additional voices with which to speak.
Delpit also writes that both students and parents of color may often demand that the dominant discourse be taught in the classroom in order 1) for students to be allowed access to the economic power that is associated with the dominate discourse; 2) to mimic the experience of others who have learned the dominant discourse in the classroom; and 3) to allow access to the dominant discourse in order to later transform or subvert it. Subscribing to the idea the the ‘tools of domination’ can be used to subvert domination, near the conclusion of her essay Delpit notes, “the ‘language of the master’ has been used for liberatory ends” (501).
