Brice-Heath 1983

Brice-Heath, Shirley. 1983.Ways with words: Language, life, and work in communities and classrooms. New York: McGraw-Hill; Oxford University Press. 448 pages. 0521253349. (Review by Lester 1993. Essay review in Rosen, H. 1985. Review reprint in Minami and Kennedy 1991.) Location: Dallas SIL Library 372.6 H438w. Interest level: academic.

Is based on Brice-Heath's "ethnography on the doorstep" research. Spent 10 years in the Piedmont Carolinas, studying the daily activities and conversations of "ordinary folk" in Trackton, a black community, and Roadville, a white community.

Expresses concern about the "effects of the preschool home and community environment on the learning of those language structures and uses which were needed in classrooms and job settings" (page 2). Describes a program used to "help working-class black and white children learn more effectively" (page 4).

Part 1 samples day-to-day living in each community, and compares the differing oral narrative traditions and literate traditions.

Part 2 contains an account of the collaboration between the author and the schools.

• Bibliography module: Brice-Heath 1983
• In overview module: Bibliography (Literacy): B
• In modular book: Bibliography (Literacy), by Doris Gallemore, Trudi C. Hunt, Jeanne Swanson, and Stephen L. Walter
• In document collection: Reference materials
• In bookshelf: Literacy

This page is an extract from the LinguaLinks Library, Version 4.0, published on CD-ROM by SIL International, 1999. [Ordering information.]

Page content last modified: 28 June 1999

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