Individuality

Understanding that American society is rapidly increasing in diversity, it becomes essential to incorporate diverse approaches into the classroom by encouraging students to maintain a sense of individuality. As Shen simply states in The Classroom and the Wider Culture: Identity as a Key to Learning English Composition, “Be yourself.” Shen’s discourse is of great value to minority groups, with commonly nontraditional grammatical and usage backgrounds which encompasses many of those in the California educational system. Two approaches that Shen describes in depth are illogical and alogical patterns in writing. Using this system, which requires comparison of native discourse or learned writing to traditional forms of English writing, lead to understanding the difference between “native ability to create and comprehend English utterances” and “the preferred pattern of writing in English” (Lindeman, 66; Shen, 463).