Because of the tendency to reject Black English speakers, perhaps as an excuse for maintaining social and racial prejudices, teachers should understand that nonstandard dialects result from geographical and/or cultural isolation and conflict (as in Applachian English), and from linguistic conflict (as in Chicano English). The language of many black people reflects both pidgin English--minimal communication produced by a conflict between seventeenth-century English and West African languages, and West African language structure--lacking verb or noun endings. Black English features, as seen in a typical example of one black student's composition papers, consist of few inflectional verb and noun endings, and the unusual use of derivational morphemes. To effectively help in the development of black students' writing, teachers' usual compulsive concern for correct mechanics should be replaced by an emphasis on students' writing more coherently (especially in theme development) and interestingly in their own dialect. (An appendix includes the black student's paper and an examination of Black English morphological examples.) (JM)