Finding a way to integrate authentic learning experiences and explicit instruction is essential if teachers are to adapt to the current policy environment while at the same time acknowledging the rights of students to determine their own goals for literacy learning. Toward this end, the author presents a case study of one student's development as…

Student essays for a college-level, department-wide final examination will be scrutinized to represent the ways that students who consciously employ rhetorical and intellectual traditions of Black discourses get penalized according to limited notions of academic writing. A dynamic intersection will be examined to show how this particular group of…

Purpose: In this study, the authors evaluated the contribution made by dialect shifting to reading achievement test scores of African American English (AAE)-speaking students when controlling for the effects of socioeconomic status (SES), general oral language abilities, and writing skills. Method: Participants were 165 typically developing…

Background/Context: Although progress has been made since members of the Conference on College Composition and Communication passed the Students' Right to Their Own Language resolution (1974), there still remains a demand to examine youth perceptions of language. Such examinations can help teachers and researchers improve curricular choices, honor…

The concept of "revoicing" has recently received a substantial amount of attention within the mathematics education community. One of the primary purposes of revoicing is to promote a deeper conceptual understanding of mathematics by positioning students in relation to one another, thereby facilitating student debate and mathematical…

The production of third-person /s/ on English verbs seems to be ahead of comprehension. Mainstream American English (MAE) is contrasted with African American English (AAE), in which /s/ is rarely supplied. Two studies explored what information children get solely from /s/ on the end of a verb. Sixty-five MAE- and 65 AAE-speaking four- to…

This study examines a Detroit suburb experiencing an unexpected influx of working class African American students. Dilemmas engendered a cultural mismatch between teachers and students. In a controversial climate where students cross the boundary line in search for educational parity, this study examines a seventh-grade English teacher who enacts…

At one time, academic inquiries into the relationship between socioeconomic class and language acquisition were commonplace, but the past 20 years have seen a decrease in work that focuses on the intersection between class and early language learning. Recently, however, against the backdrop of the No Child Left Behind legislation in the United…

Background: Both academic research and educational policy have focused on the diverse language resources of young schoolchildren. African American Language (AAL) in particular has a rich history of scholarship that both documents its historical evolution and sociolinguistic complexity and reveals the persistent lack of knowledge about AAL in our…

The concept of "Ubuntu" has recently received a lot of attention in spite of the fact that there is no consensus about its meaning. African scholars have strived to attain a common meaning and English translation, and while they agree that it is typically and solely African, the closest some have come up with is "African humanism". A South African…

Since the Oakland Unified School District passed its resolution on Ebonics in 1998, Ebonics has been a lightning rod for controversy of all sorts. The utilitarian intent of the original resolution was lost as the debate of Ebonics became intensely political and, to a great extent, marred by existing patterns of racial hierarchy and stigmatization.…

Production and perception of word-final "th" was assessed among 40 Black English- and 40 standard English-speaking children from grades one to four. The two dialectal groups were significantly different in production but not in perception of the word-final "th." Sequential developmental stages for the acquisition of word-final "th" are proposed…

Explores the distribution of /ai/ monophthongization in African-American and European-American speakers in Memphis, Tennessee. Presents evidence of extensive glide weakening in the African-American community in Memphis and compares it to the degree and contexts of glide weakening in the European-American community. (Author/VWL)

Presents evidence that Detroit African Americans are participating in a recent sound change that is typically associated with some White but not African American varieties in the American South. Reports a leveling pattern in which /ai/ monothongization has expanded to the salient pre-voiceless context in Detroit African American English (AAE).…

This article considers the comprehension of tense-aspect markers remote past BIN and habitual be by 3- to 5-year-old developing African American English (AAE)-speaking children and their Southwest Louisiana Vernacular English (SwLVE)-speaking peers. Overall both groups of children associated BIN with the distant past; however, the AAE-speaking…