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Deborah Tannen

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In Deborah Tannen's essay "How Male and Female Students Use Language Differently", she is discussing male and female conversational styles and how they influence discussion in the classroom. First Tannen talks about how girls like smaller groups and "it's the telling of the secrets that makes them best friends", but boys like larger groups and "boys are expected to use language to seize center stage: by exhibiting their skill, displaying their knowledge, and challenging and resisting challenges." Tannen also discusses how classrooms use "argument and challenge" and many women don't like this and hide from it while men enjoy the challenge. Tannen's third argument says that men find it their role to voice their opinion, while women hold back what they want to say so they do not dominate the conversation. The final point Tannen makes is that schools and educators can not just use …show more content…
I feel like her article was all opinionated with no facts to back up her points. If Tannen would have evidence behind her, I would agree completely. I feel like many things Tannen was saying was true for most, but not all. An example is when she discusses how girls like to tell secrets and grow friendships that way, while boys do activities. When I was in gradeschool many boys would play kickball or basketball while the girls sat on the ground off to the side in a circle talking. I also agree with Tannen when she talks about how women speak up more in smaller groups. This was evident right after our English class read this essay. Not very many girls speak up in our English class normally, but when we were all in a circle girls were talking over eachother and going off topic we had so much to talk about. I tried to pay attention to the boys circle and they were very quiet most the time. A few guys would speak up to get what they had to accomplished but other than that, it was

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