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Basic writers are defined as those whose home dialects are least like standard English. Given that all dialects of Fnglish are capable of conveying complex thought, the question facing educators is, Should students be made to learn and work in standard English, or should they be given the opportunity to express themselves in their home dialect? Basic writers, unfamiliar with the genres of academic writing, write according to discourse forms with which they are familiar, such as soap operas or grammar school history lessons. The qlestion of whether students should be required to learn conventional genres or allowed to work in ones with which they feel comfortable is answered by standard English advocates who say that the standard forms are necessary for college work and by advocates of other forms who say that criteria for college success must change. In looking at academia as a language community in which language creates and organizes a world view, the clash between dalects becomes apparent. As basic writers learn the new world view, they become bicultural and are pressured into subsuming their less prestigious, less socially powerful world view in favor of the academic. (CRR)

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