Beyond right and wrong: A case study of a dialect-based curriculum in one ninth grade English class.

摘要

Both teachers and researchers believe education should consider pedagogical paths to use students' home dialects as tools for classroom instruction (Ball, 2006; Dutro, Dazemi. Balf, & Lin. 2008; Godley, Sweetland, Wheeler, Minnici, & Carpenter, 2006). Language use is more than just a way of speaking or writing; it reflects "particular ways of thinking, acting, interacting and knowing" (Brause & Mayher, 2003, p. 492). Because language is such a personal aspect of an individual's identity (Thornborrow, 1999) and because language also represents a person's community (Ochs, 1993), efforts by schools to eradicate non-Standard dialects are likely to fail, approaches that encourage students to find pride in their dialects while also offering them access to Standard English may prove more successful.;This qualitative case study implemented a dialect-based curriculum in one ninth grade English class in a mid-sized city in Virginia. A dialect-based curriculum was defined as a curriculum exploring language ideologies, language use, functions, and structure through dialectal literature and students' personal experiences with language. These components were met through discussions of style-shifting, translation activities, and examinations of the Critical Language Pedagogy concepts of language and power, language and society, and language and identity (Kirkland & Jackson, 2009).;I triangulated data collection through multiple documents and pre- and post-assessments. For analysis, I employed inductive and deductive analyses, as well as content analysis.;This investigation led to three findings, summarized here. Within these findings, student understandings related to race are also discussed. 1. Students' understanding of curricular concepts---language and power, language and society, and language and identity---evolved in three phases, during which students matured beyond their initial understandings. 2. Students moved from a deficit perspective of language to a valuation of AAE and other non-Standard varieties. 3. Students as a group did not dramatically improve their translation of AAE features to Standard English. This finding is illuminated by context and inconsistencies.