Having always been a terrible student (grade 1 all the way through PhD program), and a dyslexic, dysgraphic, ADHD type, I appreciate what you've said. It is not just "poverty-shaming," it is far beyond that. It is an attack on every human difference that schools exploit to divide our society into winners and losers.

Story: I had a brilliant (best-selling) author (and professor of writing and grammar) volunteer to edit my "first" (and still only in print) novel. We sat in a coffee shop one winter's day, and after she had said, "Your narrator can sound illiterate, but you, as the author, should not." A somewhat harsh statement, especially when it is your classic "biographically-informed" first novel. For about an hour we looked at sentences and paragraphs in a traditional editing mode as she corrected grammatical mistakes.

Finally, she looked at me and said, "You have no idea what I'm talking about." I admitted that I didn't. I didn't even know most of the grammar terms she was using. If any teacher had ever presented those to me, it had remained either inaccessible then or irretrievable now.

"Here's what we're going to do," she told me. "You write in visual imagery and you use rhythm to convey what's happening. That's what matters here." She insisted that I take the book and divide it up so it looked and read like poetry - clause-by-clause. I did that. It was incredibly difficult, but I got my rhythm down. When I was done, she helped me put it back together with punctuation.

When I now work with student writers, and especially those who teach student writers, I strongly encourage "tell your story first" - often by dictating to their computers or phones. The important thing is to validate them as storytellers with something in them that the world should hear. After that, we talk about how to reach diverse audiences. Then a writer has a reason to see if and when traditional grammar can help, and then there is motivation to learn it.

-- The Drool Room https://www.amazon.com/Drool-Room-Ira-Socol/dp/0615165443