Shirley Brice Heath (born July 26, 1939) is an American linguistic anthropologist, and Professor Emerita, Margery Bailey Professorship in English, at Stanford University.
Located only 6 miles apart in the central area of the Piedmont region in the Carolinas, both working class textile mill communities had similar demographics in terms of size and average salaries.
Heath not only immersed herself within both Trackton and Roadville's cultures, she helped identify and improve the curriculum as well as teaching styles needed in order for community members to receive a valuable education.
Heath reinforces the importance that all sponsors of literacy perform their own ethnographical work in order to appropriately and efficiently educate culturally diverse students [2].
Verbal play and "talking junk" is encouraged of children in order to handle situations in which they receive unpredictable responses and eventually lead to mastering the art of story telling.