We utilize positioning theory to analyze language use within two different language program models in elementary language arts classrooms. We explore how the positioning of minoritized languages as valuable facilitates the use of students' home languages in classrooms and allows us to examine the connections between language, identity, and power.…

Researchers have revisited the influence of African American English many times within extant scholarship over the past 4 decades. However, the resulting pedagogical developments within teacher training programs are inadequate. Through a survey of literature of relevant topics, this article provides a framework regarding training for preservice…

Purpose: Dialect-shifting has shown promise as an effective way to improve academic outcomes of students who speak nonmainstream dialects such as African American English (AAE); however, limited studies have examined the impacts of an interprofessional approach with multiple instructional methods. In this study, we developed a dialect-shifting…

In 2012, Trayvon Martin was killed by George Zimmerman, who, after a month-long highly-publicized trial, was acquitted of second-degree murder. In this study, I examine the testimony of Martin's childhood friend and key witness for the prosecution, Rachel Jeantel. Although Rachel Jeantel was an ear witness to the altercation between Zimmerman and…

With the ultimate goal of shifting the consistent, downward trajectory of African American adolescents' academic and personal success in formal schooling, the purpose of this study was to shift persistently negative perceptions about their native language and literacy practices, African American English (AAE), by fostering teachers' awareness,…

Purpose: We investigated and compared the outcomes from two standardized, norm-referenced screening assessments of language (i.e., Clinical Evaluation of Language Fundamentals Preschool--Second Edition [CELFP-2], Diagnostic Evaluation of Language Variation--Screening Test [DELV-ST]) with African American preschoolers whose spoken dialect differed…

The purpose of this study was to examine Cajun English (CE)-speaking children's marking of infinitival TO. To do this, CE-speaking children's marking of infinitival TO was compared to the marking of infinitival TO by Southern White English (SWE)- and African American English (AAE)-speaking children. Marking of infinitival TO also was examined as a…

This study explores a psychosocial concept coined by the author referred to as "Urban Critical Literacy" (UCL). UCL is an emergent four-step strategy employed by five African American young men as they navigated their cultural worlds of home and school in an urban setting. Critical literacy is the theoretical conceptual framework that…

Previous research has demonstrated mixed findings pertaining to the risk conferred by variation from Mainstream American English (MAE) for African American children in our education system. Based on the research on language, behavior, and reading, the present study sought to examine the relative and combined contributions of culturally appropriate…

One of the challenges of gaining a broader appreciation of Deaf history is the need to examine the contributions of Deaf people of color. This article summarizes the contributions of black Deaf individuals to the scholarly and public history of the period from the 1980s to the present. We begin with the 1980s since that was the era when the…

This article undertakes a textual analysis of an autobiographically informed novel, "American Street," to analyze the process of identity formation of a Black Haitian immigrant youth in the United States. Black immigrant youth remain an understudied demographic in literacy research compared with their Latinx and Asian immigrant…

Leveraging the aesthetic turn in hip-hop scholarship, this article examines how some of the goal-directed and compositional techniques of DJs can be used to redesign and remix African American literature courses. Specifically, we focus on drops and blends, two moves evident among DJs and turntablists in hip-hop culture. Anchoring our analysis to…

This essay asserts the importance for English/Language Arts educators to become conversant with the features of Black Language and the cultural and historical foundations of this speech genre as a rule-bound, grammatically consistent pattern of speech. These features go beyond grammar to include such conventions as a reliance on storytelling as a…

Despite a wealth of scholarship documenting its linguistic complexity, students in the United States are rarely encouraged to speak or write in African American Language (AAL) in their primary classrooms. The authors documented how one teacher and his highly diverse second-grade class examined, explored, and experimented with AAL in an…

This study explored pre-service teachers' knowledge and awareness of dialectical code switching in classroom settings. A Likert-type scale survey and semi-structured interviews were conducted as part of an embedded, mixed-methods research design. Twenty-two undergraduate students responded to the online survey and 28 volunteered to be interviewed…