"To Protect and Serve African American Literacies"

This reading was the best reading I have read in this class. The reason I love it so was because it was so real. Also I have learned another type of literacy: Mother tongue. The author’s main point or thesis is: mother tongue literacy is central to literacy education. Mother tongue is the mother’s way to transmit their language into their children who develop facility with it. In “To Protect and Serve African American Literacies,” Richardson conveys, “Women is the child’s first teacher, who protects it even in her womb and begins to socialize it.

When a child is first born he/she learns from their parents or mother (most likely). Even in the womb the baby is familiarized itself to the voice of its mother. All the way up to the time the child goes off to school the “mother tongue” has already taught the child life lessons and literacy skills. When the child gets to school they are then introduced to the white language. The white language is the language that society has created and expects the African American student to adapt to.
We as African American must protect the “mother tongue” just as the author contends in the reading. Learning proper English is essential to life but one must not forget about the language you were first taught. In the reading the author gives a solution to protecting the e “mother tongue”: black teachers.

Richardson,”black teachers who can codeswitch can help students to decode texts and contexts, offering them models of learners who go both ways-across the borders.” She is saying that teachers can be that bridge in between the two languages they can link both worlds for students. Service comes in when the child continues you to teach the “mother tongue” to their children. So continue to protect and serve the language that has shaped the African American community.
By: Shaniqua Burton