I chose to read African American Language is Not Good English and Logos is Synonymous with Logic. My interest in both of these comes from my background is learning and hoping to someday teach Spanish, and in my enjoyment of theory linked all the way back to Plato.

I find all these articles interesting, especially in light of the Hegel we read for English 501 today, as each title is the antithesis to the thesis each author presents, followed by suggestions on possible syntheses that can be brought forth.

In African American Language the first point brought up is that, by linguistic rules, Standard American English (which the author points out is a problematic terms as it assumes the primacy of SAE) is a Germanic language, while African American English is a Niger-Congo language based on the similarities it has with languages in Nigeria and Congo. Both of these descriptions are based on the word order in the language.

In Logos, the author points out that many have conflated logic and Logos. The author presents logic as a tool that can be used to approach ideas, but Logos, going back to Aristotle, is the actual content of the speech given. I was little disappointed that more of an exploration of the transcendental idea of Logos wasn’t broached in this, but I suppose it may be too in depth for the light brush with misdefining a word that this article deals with.

Overall, I find these articles to be helpful in dispelling some common misconceptions for teaching, but am not sure that I found it terribly applicable to my own pedagogical thoughts. However, to someone just starting to think about teaching, I think this would be quite a fun and helpful starting point.