Their Eyes Were Watching God and AAVE (African American Vernacular English)

This presentation serves as an introduction to literature written in AAVE or that contains AAVE (*Their Eyes Were Watching God,* *Native Son,* etc.) The notes contain a descriptive view of AAVE and use contrastive grammar to explain the systematic and grammatical features of the dialect. The notes include an explanation of verb tense formation, an explanation of pronunciation differences (phonology), the use of double negatives, the use of "be," theories about AAVE's origins, resources for further reading, and more. The presentation is designed to help students think about AAVE as a rich natural language as well as an aid in reading AAVE literature.