I think you's full of it up in here

I hope this won't be construed as racist (though I know I have something of a history on that subject), but I really didn't care for Carmen Kynard's piece. I appreciate the merit of informal languages and different types of discourse and I can't see myself communicating with my students in only that stuffy, academic tone I despise so much but with which many academic writers tend to write.

But I thought Kynard's writing deserved one of those dreaded "awk" marks beside it.

Maybe it's because I'm not black, but I found her ebonics forced and contrived. To me, at least, they just didn't feel natural. Not that ebonics could never have a place in academic writing, but hers felt like she said to herself "I'm going to cram some ebonics into this article to prove that I can." It was conscious and deliberate, yes, but not in a way that flowed naturally with her points and her style of writing. And as the article went on, I thought it felt more and more forced. Based on what she says, it's obvious this style works for Kynard, but based on the tone of the article it certainly doesn't work for me.

This is all subjective, of course (like most of my boneheaded and arrogant opinions). But it served the purpose of reminding me that students see through phony informality in a heartbeat up in here and will quickly tune a teacher out if they think he or she is trying to put on airs to impress them. So even in level of informality, it's very important to be conscious of what you are doing and how you are acting. Once again, I think this relates to our reading about being a self-aware teacher who does everything intentionally. Doing something intentionally doesn't necessarily mean doing it effectively, and attention must always be paid to how well something works.