Black Women/Black Literature

What really fascinated me about this particular text is the overall structure of the dialogue in an interview process. Presented here is a dialogue between the author Joanne Kilgour Dowdy and educator Christina McVay. The passage starts with McVay describing herself such as where she was born and raised and various details about her educational background. This opening question from Dowdy allows the reader to get to know McVay in a personal light. McVay's personal experiences also provide the audience with a blueprint as to how this unlikely professor got involved with teaching English in the Pan-African department at Kent State University. What makes Christina McVay an unlikely candidate to teach this particular topic is because she is Caucasian teaching this topic to a predominantly white student population.

McVay described this as teaching something of an alien nature that is alien to both her and the students. Later in her teaching career McVay was transferred to teach in a more suitable environment, an environment that would more than likely appreciate Pan-African English.

What I find to be truly fascinating about McVay's experiences at Kent State is that everything that occurred happened for a reason. She had majored in German and Russian while trying to teach herself Greek and Arabic but instead went on to teach English.

What I found interesting about McVay is she is aware of that fact that many students typically do not find joy in English. I feel as though I am one of those students. One of the problems with English for me is I feel it is not easy to relate to because it was something that has been around for thousands of years and it is rather passed down from generation to generation. What McVay showed me and her students is that English can be intriguing. One of her tactics to gain interest in the English language is to have her students create a slang dictionary. This slang dictionary is to be used much like a regular dictionary with the pronunciation and examples and definitions of how a particular word can be used. I admire the fact that McVay knew how to make slang educational yet intriguing. With McVay now teaching a predominantly black student population she found a way to relate to her students while still having a teachers perspective included.

Overall in this interview the audience was able to gain a fuller understanding of Christina McVay and how her educational techniques have allowed students to gain a fuller understanding of the English language and how it is not just about the English consensus but also black English. McVay revealed that it is acceptable to include black literature in a school curriculum and she allowed students to find how they themselves can connect to literature. McVay showed that teaching did not have to be traditional but that a teacher can relate to her students. McVay provided teaching strategies to teachers and hope in the English language and English literature to students.

-Kori Coleman