Why I'm Here - Mike/李红 RedLee

It is surely time that the speech of the black

Culture of America be recognized as a genuine dialect of English

It is in every sense of the word

And that's why I'm here Merry Christmas to you all

And I'll see you next year

Hey now I'm better than I thought I was

You sure are Lenora that was great

Very proper English is it

If that's the proper spelling why is it so easy

Here Lenora try this

I then gave her a copy of the original standard

English version of the poem

Uh uh what's that

Twas

What's that mean

It means it was

Go ahead Lenora I'll help you if you have any trouble

T-Twas the-the night before Christmas and

All through the house not a crea-crea

How come I'm gettin' so mixed up

Well it's a little different than the one you first read

That should be creature

Oh I see creature was st-stirring not even a mouse

Lenora's problem with the regular version of the poem was

That she could not cope with the unfamiliar grammar

The translated version used standard

English spellings so it was apparent that sound spelling

Correspondences were not entirely the problem

'The moon on the on the roof the from falling snow gave

The gave the land of really thing to objects below

Good

I'm glad that's over

This unplanned experiment was duplicated with other inner

City children and always with positive results

It's suggested that