The Amy Tan Blogs, Take 3 (Discovery of Competence)

a teacher who aligns Discovery of Competence...

In a Discovery of Competence class, students will read Amy Tan following weeks of fieldwork recording and decoding instances of code switching among a peer group. For example, a student might have taken on the project of observing the use of language between himself and his siblings when they are alone, when in the company of parents or other relatives, and when interacting outside the family circle (a phone call to work, an intimate, etc.). 

After reading Tan’s essay, the class will meet in groups to discuss Tan’s ideas and investigate how they relate to the working class hypothesis about language within and beyond family circles. An early pre-writing assignment may include lists of the kinds of Englishes observed by the students and by Amy Tan. A formal writing assignment will come later in the semester when students write up their field notes into a working definition of code-switching based on observed data and more formal research. The class will probably re-name “code-switching” to reflect the students’ unique view of the subject matter.