His second argument is that nonacademic discourse "tries to render experience rather than explain it" (136). He feels that teachers hesitate to teach writing that renders an experience and that discourse that renders often "yields an important new "cognitive" insights" (136). His third argument is that nonacademic discourse is needed to help students understand and translate something taken out of the discourse of the textbook into "everyday, experimental, anecdotal terms" (136). If teachers teach their students with both academic and nonacademic discourse, the students will greatly benefit. According to the IRA/NCTE Standards for the English Language Arts, "all students must have the opportunities and resources to develop the language skills they need to pursue life's goals and to participate fully as informed, productive members of society." This is another reason for nonacademic discourse in schools. However, in order to teach both academic and nonacademic discourse, teachers need to know their students zone of proximal development and they need to teach their students to write to different audiences.
Vygotsky discusses the zone of proximal development; the idea that "learning should be matched in some manner with the child's developmental level" (85). This idea links to Elbow's academic and nonacademic discourse idea because it is important to know what level mentally you are teaching, so you know how to teach. It also links to Elbow because Vygotsky discusses learning as it relates to experience and that is what Elbow's nonacademic discourse is about. Vygotsky's zone of proximal development is the actual developmental level, "the level of development of a child's mental functions that has been established as a result of certain already completed developmental cycles" (85). Students are tested and given a mental age which may be different (higher or lower) than their actual age, but the mental age is the actual developmental level.
