Critical language awareness in the high school English classroom [electronic resource]
Keywords: Education.

Classroom practices that simultaneously address cultural identity and academic language have the potential to increase students' attachment to school while expanding their language repertoires. The set of studies collected here examine the study of language in school as a natural intersection between student identity and academic content. All three papers draw on data collected during a study of five high school English teachers in the San Francisco Bay Area, teaching in culturally and linguistically complex classrooms. The teachers taught at different schools, although three taught within the same school district. The five teachers were selected because they each articulated aspects of a critical language ideology during initial interviews. In addition, they all taught instructional units around the core text Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neal Hurston, a text featuring extensive use of African American English. Because the teachers articulated aspects of a critical language ideology and would be teaching a unit around a text featuring African American English, these classrooms were selected as likely sites to observe teaching and talk about language during literature-based English Language Arts instruction. The first paper examines what teachers need to know to teach about language variation from a critical perspective. Using the framework of Pedagogical Content Knowledge (PCK), the study examines the importance of valuing student knowledge as one aspect of pedagogical content knowledge for critical language teaching. The study employs micro-ethnographic discourse analysis of episodes of critical language teaching to show what happens when linguistic content knowledge and knowledge of language pedagogy are employed without attention to student understandings of language variation. The findings suggest that when student knowledge is not valued students may be resistant to linguistic terms and concepts. The second study builds on the first study by exploring what students know and believe about language variation through an analysis of survey and interview data. The study explores students' language ideologies in relation to a number of student characteristics including race/ethnicity, gender, home language, parental desire for the students to speak Standard English, and students' awareness of their own use of English language varieties. Analysis of the survey data in conjunction with the interviews reveals that students simultaneously hold both dominant and counter-hegemonic language ideologies. Students possess nuanced understandings of the racialized nature of language varieties, but respond to those understandings in very different ways. The findings suggest that teachers need to explore students' varied understandings as they attempt to teach about language variation in high school English classes. The third study examines the language ideologies communicated through teaching and talk about language during literature-based instruction. This study demonstrates the struggle of teaching with a critical language ideology in the face of dominant views of Standard English that pervade English classrooms and society at large. Drawing on data from teacher interviews and video recorded classes, this study uses a case study methodology to show how one teacher reflectively and deliberately used linguistic meta-language to consistently communicate the value of all language varieties. Contrasting cases illustrate points during classroom teaching where dominant language ideologies are likely to surface. Taken together these studies help move research on critical language pedagogy from theory to practice. The papers in this dissertation suggest a common theme; Teachers need to work toward understanding and valuing the prior knowledge and beliefs about language that their students bring to the classroom. Knowledge of linguistics and general pedagogy will have limited effectiveness without consideration of how approaches to teaching play out for particular students in particular contexts. Paper one highlights the importance of valuing student knowledge. Paper two begins to unpack patterns in students' knowledge and beliefs, and paper three highlights ways that teachers can maintain a critical language ideology even when students articulate dominant language ideologies. As work on critical language pedagogy moves to the classroom, consideration of students must play a central role.