“STOP  KILLING  MY  VIBE”:  A  CRITICAL  LANGUAGE  PEDAGOGY  FOR  SPEAKERS  
OF AFRICAN AMERICAN LANGUAGE
By
April Baker-Bell

A DISSERTATION
Submitted to
Michigan State University
in partial fulfillment of the requirements
of the degree of
Rhetoric and Writing—Doctor of Philosophy
2014

ABSTRACT
“STOP  KILLING  MY  VIBE”:  A  CRITICAL  LANGUAGE  PEDAGOGY  FOR  SPEAKERS  
OF AFRICAN AMERICAN LANGUAGE
By
April Baker-Bell
Black and Brown students face an abysmal threat not only in classrooms but in
the world because of how they have been trained to understand themselves in and
through their language. Within communities and schools, students who communicate
in African American Language (AAL) encounter negative messages that suggest that
their language is deficient, inferior, wrong, and unintelligent. This study reveals the
consequences AAL-speaking students faced when using their language in academic
and non-academic contexts. It also reveals how these students responded to a
critical language pedagogical innovation. In particular, I explored how AAL-speaking
students in two ninth grade English Language Arts classrooms understood
themselves linguistically across multiple contexts and to determine if their
engagement with a Critical Language Pedagogy (CLP) could transform their
unfavorable attitudes toward AAL. Based on findings from this study, I drew the
following conclusions: (1) the students understood AAL to be a linguistic resource
with associated consequences in their everyday lives, (2) the students resisted and
held negative attitudes toward AAL before the CLP innovation,  and  (3)  the  students’  
responses following their engagement with the CLP suggested that the innovation
impacted their attitudes in important and dramatic ways.

Copyright by
APRIL BAKER-BELL
2014

Dedicated to the beautiful sons and daughters of Detroit.
Love, Peace, and Prosperity!

iv

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
First and foremost, thank you GOD for selecting me to carry out your plan. I
hope that I continue to follow the steps that you have ordered for me no matter how
rough the road may get. Unto you, be all the glory.
I would like to thank the students in English G and English B. You all are truly
amazing! I would not have been able to accomplish this project without each of you.
Thank you!
I would also like to thank my teachers: Dr. David Kirkland, Dr. Geneva
Smitherman Dr. Django Paris, and Dr. Denise Troutman. How fortunate am I to have
had the experience of working with such remarkable and brilliant scholars? I thank
each of you for your guidance, support, tough love, and encouragement. I especially
want to thank my chair, David, for going to bat with me and for me. And thanks for
teaching  me  how  to  “pay  it  forward.” I also want to acknowledge Dr. G aka The Jay Z
of Academics. Thank you for your high expectations of me, for challenging me, for
believing in my work, and showing me how to “be” in this academic world.
To my husband, Dominic Sr.: Thank you for being you, and for being patient,
supportive, understanding, and kind throughout this process. To my children, Akyra
(Ky Ky) and Dominic Jr. (DJ): Thanks for being my inspiration and my strength.
Because of you two, I never gave up. I want to thank my parents, Anthony and
Brenda Baker, for your hard work, sacrifices, and love. Most importantly, thanks for
teaching me how to read the world and respond to it with dignity and courage. To my
siblings, Tamara, Tanthony, Kakela, Anthony Jr., and Tanisha: I want to thank each

v

of you for your encouragement, support, and love, but most of all, thanks for believing
in me. Tamara, I would also like to express my sincere gratitude to you for taking care
of DJ while I collected data. To my nieces and nephews, Anita, Keonna, Kearah,
Emanuel, Ariana, Jeremiah, Alayna, and those who have not made their way into the
world yet: Thanks for having high expectations of me. I challenge myself to do better
because I know that you all are watching. To my grandma, the late Martha Baker: I
know you are proud. Thanks for all of the wisdom you shared with me during the 26
years we had together.
I want to acknowledge Cultivating New Voices fellows and mentors for the
support, fellowship, and mentorship. I especially have to thank Dr. Sonja Lanehart for
her many efforts. I would also like to acknowledge Davena Jackson, Esther Milu,
Mimi Henderson-Hudson, Dr. Les Loncharich, Raven Jones-Stanbrough, Sakeena
Everett, Sherrae Hayes, LaToya Sawyer, Kendra Mitchell, Dr. Malea Powell, Dr. Jeff
Grabill, Dr. Bill Hart-Davidson, and Dr. Stuart Blythe for your individual support
throughout the dissertation experience.

vi

TABLE OF CONTENTS
LIST OF TABLES ................................................................................................. x
LIST OF FIGURES ............................................................................................. xi
INTRODUCTION
“STOP  KILLING  MY  VIBE” .................................................................................. 1
Statement of Problem .......................................................................... 2
Statement of Purpose. .......................................................................... 3
Research Questions ............................................................................ 4
Data Sources ....................................................................................... 5
Organization of Dissertation ................................................................. 5
Definitions of Key Terminology and Ideas ............................................ 7
Conclusion ...................................................................................................... 8
CHAPTER 1:
“AIN’T  WE  DONE  BEEN  HERE  BEFORE”:  Review  of  the  Literature ................ 10
History of AAL ......................................................................................... 10
Development of AAL ........................................................................... 11
AAL in Education ............................................................................... 12
Factors Hindering and Helping the Success of AAL ................................ 17
Approaches in First Year Writing Classrooms ................................... 18
Monolingual/ Deficit Approaches ....................................................... 18
Multilingual/ Asset Based Approaches ............................................... 20
Approaches in K-12 Classrooms ....................................................... 21
Asset-Based Approaches .................................................................. 21
Language Attitudes and Student Learning ......................................... 23
Critical Language Pedagogies ........................................................... 26
Conceptual Framework ........................................................................... 28
Linguistic Hegemony ......................................................................... 29
Language Education ......................................................................... 30
Critical Language Pedagogy ............................................................. 31
Critical Instructional Approaches ....................................................... 31
Conclusion .............................................................................................. 33
CHAPTER 2
“ON  CRITICALLY  CONSCIOUS  LANGUAGE  AND  LITERACY  RESEARCH”:  
Methodology ...................................................................................................... 35
Theoretical Framework: Critically Conscious Language and Literacy
Research ................................................................................................. 35
Interpretive Experimental ................................................................... 36
Critical Qualitative Language and Literacy Research ........................ 40
Ethnographies of Language ............................................................... 40

vii

Linguistic Anthropology ...................................................................... 42
Critical Discourse Analysis ................................................................. 44
Implications for Present Study ........................................................... 46
Research Design .......................................................................................... 46
Research Questions .......................................................................... 47
Site Selection ..................................................................................... 47
Admission to the School and Classroom ........................................... 48
Participants ........................................................................................ 50
Chasse ............................................................................................... 50
Janel ............................................................................................. 51
Lola Long ...................................................................................... 51
Crystal ........................................................................................... 51
Allistar ........................................................................................... 52
Fetti Bravo .................................................................................... 52
B.O.B. ........................................................................................... 52
Lorenzo ......................................................................................... 52
Researcher’s Role ............................................................................. 53
Description of Curricular Innovation ................................................... 54
Lesson 1: The Historical, Cultural, and Political Underpinnings of
AAL ............................................................................................... 54
Lesson 2: Language, Identity, and Power .................................... 55
Lesson 3: AAL Features and Examples ....................................... 58
Lesson 4: Linguistic Profiling and Linguistic Discrimination .......... 60
Lesson 5: AAL in Everyday Life and Linguistic Celebration .......... 62
Data and Data Collection ................................................................... 64
Data Analysis ..................................................................................... 70
Procedure .......................................................................................... 71
Conclusion .................................................................................................... 76
CHAPTER 3
“EBONICALLY  SPEAKING”:  Students’  Understanding  of  the  Role  of  AAL  in  
Their Everyday Lives: ........................................................................................ 77
“I  Didn’t  Know  That  It  Had  Rules”:  Speaking  Ebonics   ........................ 78
“Before,  I  Thought  it  Was  Just Slang: Slang v. AAL ........................... 84
AAL: A Linguistic Resource ............................................................... 87
Judgment Day: Linguistic Consequences .......................................... 91
Conclusion ..................................................................................................... 97
CHAPTER 4
“KILLING  THEM  SOFTLY”:  Attitudes Toward Their Own
Language ........................................................................................................... 98
Hegemony in Student Responses ................................................................. 98
Hegemony in Visual Texts .......................................................................... 109
Internalized Attitudes and Student Learning ............................................... 114
Conclusion .................................................................................................. 115

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CHAPTER 5
“DESTROY  AND  REBUILD”:  Improving Attitudes Toward Their Own
Language ......................................................................................................... 116
From Linguistic Resistance to Linguistic Affirmation .................................. 118
Lola Long ......................................................................................... 119
Allistar .............................................................................................. 124
From Linguistic Ambivalence to Linguistic Affirmation ............................... 128
Fetti Bravo ....................................................................................... 128
From Linguistic Resistance to Linguistic Ambivalence ............................... 132
Crystal .............................................................................................. 132
From Linguistic Resistance to Linguistic Resistance ................................. 133
Mob Boy Rell and The Pope ............................................................ 133
Conclusion ................................................................................................. 135
CHAPTER  6  “HANDLING  UNFINISHED  BIDNESS”:
Discussion and Implications ............................................................................. 136
The Struggle is Real: Linguistic Resource and Linguistic
Consequences .......................................................................................... 137
Home ............................................................................................... 137
School .............................................................................................. 138
Community ....................................................................................... 138
Conclusions ..................................................................................... 139
Before the Critical Language Pedagogy: Consenting to Linguistic
Hegemony ................................................................................................ 139
After the Critical Language Pedagogy: Linguistic Affirmation .................. 140
Implications .............................................................................................. 141
Practitioners ..................................................................................... 141
Language Rights .............................................................................. 142
Asset-Based Pedagogies ................................................................. 143
Multilingual Writing Pedagogies ....................................................... 144
Limitations ........................................................................................ 145
Conclusion ............................................................................................... 146
APPENDICES .................................................................................................. 148
Appendix A: Informed Consent Form for Teacher ................................. 149
Appendix B: Assent Form for Students ................................................. 151
Appendix C: Informed Consent Form for Parents ................................. 153
Appendix D: Student Interview Protocol ................................................ 155
Appendix E: Attitudinal Assessment (page 1) ....................................... 158
Appendix F: A Conversation about African American Language ........... 160
Appendix G: African American Language in Everyday Life Activity ....... 163
Appendix H: Links to videos and discussion questions on linguistic
profiling and linguistic discrimination ................................. 164
REFERENCES ................................................................................................ 165

ix

LIST OF TABLES
Table 1: Data Collection Procedures ................................................................. 69
Table 2: Description and Analytical Frameworks ............................................... 71
Table 3: Coding Categories ............................................................................... 73
Table 4: Examples of Student Uses of AAL ....................................................... 83
Table 5: Shifts in Language Attitudes .............................................................. 117
Table 6: Categories for Language Attitudes ..................................................... 118
Table 7: Language Samples ............................................................................ 158
Table 8: Cartoon Representations 1 ................................................................. 159

x

LIST OF FIGURES
Figure 1: Conceptual Framework ....................................................................... 28
Figure 2: Conversation 1 From A Conversation about AAL Activity ................... 55
Figure 3: Student Drawing ................................................................................. 57
Figure 4: Language, Identity, Power, and Culture Activity ................................. 57
Figure 5: African American Language Features and Examples ......................... 59
Figure 6: Interview with Big Sean ....................................................................... 60
Figure 7: Linguistic Profiling Activity Instructions ............................................... 61
Figure 8: Linguistic Profiling Activity ................................................................... 62
Figure 9: Broken English Poem by Jamila Lyiscott (page 1) .............................. 63
Figure 10: Broken English Poem by Jamila Lyiscott (page 2) ............................ 64
Figure 11: Pre-Attitudinal Assessment (Page 1) ................................................ 66
Figure 12:  Allistar’s  Drawing (Pre) ..................................................................... 98
Figure 13: Dry Erase Board Discussion for English B ...................................... 106
Figure 14: Dry Erase Board Discussion for English G ..................................... 107
Figure 15: Visual Conversation A ..................................................................... 111
Figure 16: Visual Conversation B ..................................................................... 112
Figure 17:  Lola’s  Drawing (pre) ........................................................................ 123
Figure 18:  Lola’s  Drawing (post) ...................................................................... 123
Figure 19:  Allistar’s  Drawing  (pre) .................................................................... 126
Figure 20:  Allistar’s  Drawing  (post) .................................................................. 126
Figure  21:  Fetti  Bravo’s  Drawing (pre) ............................................................. 129
Figure 22:  Fetti  Bravo’s  Drawing (post) ............................................................ 131

xi

Figure 23: A Conversation about AAL I ............................................................ 160
Figure 24: A Conversation about AAL II ........................................................... 161
Figure 25: A Conversation about AAL III .......................................................... 162

xii

INTRODUCTION
“STOP  KILLING  MY  VIBE”
When I get corrected, I always feel a little upset. Like, what is it? What am I
doing wrong? And, how can I fix it? –From an interview with Lorenzo
When I came to school and was speaking like that when I was younger, all my
teachers  would  tell  me  that’s  not  the  right  way  to  talk.  I  just  started  crying…it  took  me  
down. I thought they were trying to scrutinize me. –From an interview with Janel
They  didn’t  know  anything  about  me.  They  didn’t  know  if  I  went  to  school.  All  
these As and Bs [and]  they  just  assumed  that  I’m  unintelligent, or I could be a baby
momma, or  didn’t  do  none  of  my  work—just because of the way I talk. --From an
interview with Janel
I’m  not  illiterate.  Some  people  think  if  you  talk  like  that  you’re  illiterate,  but  if  
you talk like that, it’s  just  the  way  you  grew  up. –From an interview with B.O.B
Because you say your words different, you shouldn’t  be  criticized.  There are
more things you could be criticized about, but never language. –From an interview
with Maverick
In his song Don’t  Kill  My  Vibe (2013), hip hop recording artist Kendrick Lamar
raps about how he strives to maintain in spite of negative vibes that are directed at
him. While he admits that his song has many hidden meanings, the  notion  of  “killing  
my  vibe”  is  universal.  This  notion  is  echoed  in  many  of  the  stories  that  the  students  at  
Leadership Academy shared with me about how they deal with having their vibes
killed through linguistic ideologies, microaggressions, and discrimination that suggest
that  their  language  is  wrong,  incorrect,  inferior,  or  invalid.  Kendrick’s  response  to  
those  responsible  for  killing  his  vibe  is  simply  “don’t  kill  my  vibe”,  but  how  do  you  
respond if the person killing your vibe is your teacher, principal, parent, neighbor, or

1

fellow church member? How do you maintain your vibe in environments that devalue
your language and culture, such as classrooms? As insinuated by Lorenzo, Janel,
B.O.B, and Maverick, killing their vibes mean killing their language, killing their
culture, killing their identity, killing their self-esteem, and killing their interest in
learning. This dissertation reveals the consequences some of the students at
Leadership Academy faced when using their language in academic and nonacademic contexts. It also reveals how the students responded to a critical language
pedagogical innovation that I created and implemented in their classrooms.
Statement of Problem
Black and Brown students face an abysmal threat not only in classrooms but in
the world because of how they have been trained to understand themselves in and
through their language. Within communities and schools, students who communicate
in African American Language (AAL) encounter negative messages that suggest that
their language is deficient, inferior, wrong, and unintelligent. These language attitudes
are reflected according to findings from the 1996-1998 Conference on College
Composition  and  Communication’s  survey  on  teachers’  attitudes  toward  language  
diversity (Richardson, 2003). They are reflected in the performance of Black and
Brown students in First-Year Writing (Horner, B., Lu, M., Royster, J. J., & Trimbur, J.,
2011) and K-12 classrooms (Kirkland & Jackson, 2008). They are reinforced in the
linguistic deficit theories that shape our disciplinary discourses and pedagogical
practices (Paris & Alim, 2014). More so, we see the consequences of our inability to
affirm  all  students’  languages  through  the  internalized  cases  of  inferiority  provoked  by  
these situations, and the relationship between linguistic ideologies and student

2

learning.
As with internalized racism, students who absorb negative ideologies about
their language may develop a sense of linguistic inferiority and lose confidence in
their own abilities and the learning process (Fanon, 1952, 2008; Labov qtd. in Hudley
& Mallinson, 2014). This is evidenced in the 1979 Black English Case where a
Federal  District  Court  found  that  teachers’  treatment  of  AAL  as  inferior  inhibited  Black  
students from learning (Turner and Ives, 2013). Hence, it is not that AAL-speaking
students cannot learn; they are not learning because they have been taught to
despise themselves and regard their linguistic resources as insignificant. These
internalized negative attitudes not only have tremendous academic consequences,
but also economic, social, and psychological consequences such as—feelings of
powerlessness and inferiority, unemployment, incarceration, or death.
To overturn this injustice, how might students be provided the opportunity to
value, sustain, and learn about the importance of AAL? How might literacy educators
and researchers investigate the implementation and effectiveness of consciousnessraising pedagogies that align existing theory and research on AAL with classroom
practice? There are few studies that exist that answer such pedagogical questions
about  how  to  increase  students’  critical  awareness  of  their  own  language  (Alim,  2005,  
2007; Baker-Bell, 2013; Godley & Minnici, 2008; Chisholm & Godley, 2011).
Statement of Purpose
With these questions and concerns in mind, I created and implemented a
curricular innovation that I refer to as Critical Language Pedagogy or CLP in two
urban high school English classes. The purpose of the study was two-fold: First, it

3

explored the students’ understanding of the role AAL played in their everyday lives.
Second, it tracked their language attitudes across a series of assignments to see if
the curricular innovation impacted their language attitudes.
Research Questions
There are two central research questions that guided the study:
1. How do AAL speakers understand the role of AAL across multiple contexts in
their everyday lives?
2. How might a critical language pedagogical innovation transform how AAL
speakers understand the nature of their language in relation to literacy and
life?
Beneath these questions are further areas of inquiry:


How do students’ understandings of language reveal how they see themselves
as learners?



How can classroom instruction (both as curricular and pedagogical
innovations) be leveraged to help students construct transformative
understandings of both their language and their identities related to language
and learning?



What can we as teachers learn from these understandings? That is, how might
understanding the relationship between language and identity and the
influence of classroom design/instructional delivery on the relationship
between language and identity help us to foster:
o critical ways for preparing teachers,
o culturally affirming ways for designing curriculum,

4

o more sensitive, transforming ways to engage students?
Further, how can this be done in line with language standards, such as the
Common Core Standards?


Finally, how might this work extend or help us more accurately articulate
theories of learning as they relate to applied sociolinguistic experiences
relative to classrooms and the various and mired products of difference and
respectability that complicate them?

Data Sources
Data sources for this study include: attitudinal assessments (pre and post),
interviews (pre and post), written artifacts, observations, and research memos. I
analyzed the data using critical discourse analytic methods. To identify variation in
the students’ attitudes, I collected some of the data in the following time-sequenced
process:


two weeks before,



immediately after,



and again three to seven weeks after the CLP was implemented.

Following is a roadmap that briefly outlines the remaining chapters of the dissertation.
Organization of Dissertation
Chapter 1, Ain’t  We  Done  Been  Here  Before, reviews the literature on AAL to
illustrate the longstanding dilemmas and visible discontinuities that have limited the
effectiveness of language education for speakers of AAL. In particular, I highlight the
deficit and uncritical asset approaches that reinforce linguistic and cultural
inequalities.

5

In chapter 2, Critically Conscious Language and Literacy Research, I describe
my methodological frame, which pulls from critically conscious language and literacy
research. In doing so, I describe and rationalize the impact of this approach on my
methods and research design. This chapter also introduces Leadership Academy and
the students that I worked with in English B and English G.
Chapter 3, “Ebonically Speaking”:  Students  Understanding of the Role of AAL
in Their Everyday Lives, tells stories from the students’ home, community, and school
lives to show how they understand AAL to function across academic and social
contexts. The chapter also shows how the students deem AAL a linguistic resource in
their everyday lives and sheds light on the consequences that many of them face
when using AAL at home and at school.
Chapter  4,  “Killing  Them  Softly”:  Attitudes  Toward  Their  Own  Language,
examines the student’s testimonies, written work, and multimodal drawings to make
sense of the attitudes they held toward AAL before the implementation of the CLP.
This chapter presents the resistant, ambivalent, and affirming attitudes the students
held toward AAL and its speakers.
In chapter 5, “Destroy  and  Rebuild”:  Improving  Attitudes  Toward  Their  Own  
Language, I display the students’  responses to the CLP and illustrate how it
transformed their attitudes toward AAL.
Chapter 6, Handling  Unfinished  Bidness”, concludes the dissertation by
detailing how this work extends theories of learning as they relate to applied
sociolinguistic experiences relative to classrooms and the various products of
difference and respectability that complicates them.

6

Definitions of Key Terminology and Ideas


African American Language (AAL)—describes the dynamic language
spoken by most (but not all) U.S. slave descendants or African Americans
(Smitherman,  2000).  I  favor  the  term  AAL  to  acknowledge  the  Africologist’s  
theory, which maintains that African American speech is the linguistic
continuation of Africa in an African American context (Kifano & Smith, 2003).
AAL is also referred to in other places as African American Vernacular English
(AAVE), African American English (AAE), Black English Vernacular (BEV),
Black English (BE), Black Dialect, Black Talk, and Ebonics.



Critical Language Pedagogy (CLP)—describes an instructional approach
that encourages students to interrogate dominant notions of language while
providing them space to value, sustain, and learn about the historical
importance of their own language. The CLP purposefully and unapologetically
places AAL at the center of the curriculum, while placing DAE at the margins in
an effort to increase students’ critical language awareness of AAL (Alim, 2005,
2007; Chisholm & Godley, 2011; Godley & Minnici, 2008; Kirkland & Jackson,
2008).



Curricular Innovation—describes research based curricular materials that
are designed to improve classroom practice. In the context of this study, the
curricular innovation was designed to positively impact language attitudes by
positioning AAL as valuable.



Dominant American English (DAE)—following in the work of Paris (2009), I
use DAE throughout this study in place of standard English (SE), standard

7

American English (SAE), Mainstream English (ME), or Language of Wider
Communication (LWC). I find this term useful when theorizing because it
foregrounds unequal power relations between DAE and AAL. Yet, within the
context of this study, I found the term challenging in the sense that it
sometimes reinforced the dominance it was intended to deconstruct. That is,
some of the students struggled at times to NOT see DAE as more important
than AAL despite our numerous discussions regarding language and power.


Language Attitudes—describes  a  speaker’s  feelings  toward  a  particular  
language and can be affirming, ambivalent, or resistant.
o Linguistic Affirmation—describes a speaker who values, embraces,
or has positive feelings toward their own language.
o Linguistic Ambivalence—also termed linguistic push-pull or linguistic
double consciousness in other places—describes a speaker who
embraces their language at the same time of rejecting it, or acquiesces
to linguistic hegemony at the same time of countering it.
o Linguistic Resistance—describes a speaker who devalues, rejects,
dismisses their language, or consents to linguistic hegemony.
Conclusion
As indicated above, Black students have been trained to devalue and despise

their language and identity. This is problematic given that negative language attitudes
and internalized inferiority interfere with student learning, language, literacy, and
identity development. Thus, this dissertation project traces student attitudes over a
series of assignments to see if the curricular innovation could positively impact their

8

negative perceptions of AAL. This project makes important contributions to the field
because it harvests positive attitudes, and without positive attitudes, students cannot
use their language as a critical resource to build other skills. This project also makes
significant contributions to the fields of rhetoric and composition and English
education by taking years of theoretical and descriptive research and translating it
into transformative practice that immediately respond to the language and literacy
needs of Black students in K-U settings.

9

CHAPTER 1
“AIN’T  WE  DONE  BEEN  HERE  BEFORE”:  
Review of the Literature
Despite there being decades of research on AAL and it being the most studied
and written about language in the world, we are yet to understand how it can be
embraced as a resource for educational innovation (Gilyard, 2005; Paris & Ball,
2011). Language scholars have consistently argued for teachers to shift their
pedagogies and practices to better support the rich linguistic resources that all
students bring with them to classrooms, yet many classrooms continue to be
informed by deficit theories and monolingual ideologies (Ball & Muhammad, 2003;
Canagarajah, 2006; Horner, Lu, Royster, & Trimbur, 2011; Kirkland & Jackson, 2008;
Shaughnessy, 1977; Smitherman, 1995; Young, 2009). What do we know from the
scholarly research about the particular tensions of language equity, theory, and
practice? And how might research be conducted to understand ways to resolve
them?
This critical review explores the longstanding dilemmas and visible
discontinuities that have limited the effectiveness of language education for speakers
of AAL. In light of this, two major areas of literature were critically reviewed: (1)
historical contexts of AAL and (2) factors helping and hindering the success of AAL in
schools. A review of these areas provides an understanding of the need for critical
language pedagogical innovations such as the one that I explore throughout this
dissertation.
HISTORY OF AAL
A historical overview of the development of AAL, American slavery,

10

segregation, and desegregation of schools are crucial to understanding the tensions
that underpin the stormy relationship between AAL and the U.S. education system.
Development of AAL
There are two competing perspectives regarding the history and development
of AAL. Anglicists argue that AAL is a dialect of British English, and Creolists contend
that it was created out of elements of West African languages and pieces and parts of
the English language. Scholars such as, Lanehart (2006) questioned the efficacy and
intentions of this longstanding debate, given that the outcome of it does not help AALspeaking students who are failing and being discriminated against in U.S. schools.
Lanehart’s  concerns  are  important  as  they  shift  our  focus  from  debating to addressing
what AAL-speaking children need in terms of education. Despite their hypotheses,
both  Creolists  and  Anglicists  seem  to  “agree  that  AAL  is  the  linguistic  legacy  of  
American  slavery  and  its  aftermath”  (Paris  &  Ball,  2011,  p.  87).  
European slave masters indeed provided the sociolinguistic conditions and
development of AAL in the U.S. through the manipulation and control of language
and literacy (Alim & Baugh, 2006). Enslaved Africans arrived to the U.S. chained
together and unable to communicate in the English language. They were purposely
separated from others who spoke their native language to prevent escapes and
rebellions. Further, they were segregated from dominant society, and denied access
to education. Essentially, enslaved Africans created AAL as a way to communicate
among each other and in a way that could not be understood by Whites (Moore,
1996; Baldwin, 1999; Paris & Ball, 2009). In this sense, AAL is a counter language
that allows the communication of simultaneous double meanings (Smitherman,

11

2000), as evidenced by coded spirituals, which were used to pass covert messages
that facilitated the escape of enslaved Africans (Wells, 2011).
AAL in Education
AAL did not come to be seen as a problem in the educational systems until
after integration when it became a reality that Blacks were beginning to make
economic headway (Alim & Baugh, 2006; Smitherman, 1974). Prior to the 50s,
Blacks had gone through school developing language and literacy skills in spite of
speaking AAL. Moore (1996) confirms that before integration, Black schools and
teachers relied on hallmarks of African education to teach Black youth language arts,
including impeccable standard usage. Yet, after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that
segregation of America’s  public  schools  was  unconstitutional, AAL was deemed
deficient and a barrier to learning. This makes it clear that it was not Black students
or  AAL  that  were  deficient,  but  the  teachers’  knowledges,  pedagogies,  and  practices.      
The growing crisis in classrooms prompted linguists such as Beryl Bailey to
address the African background of AAL. In particular, Bailey sought to dispel myths
and misconceptions that teachers had about Black  children’s  abilities.  She developed
a program during the 60s for teaching academic discourse to Ebonics speakers. She
also argued that there is a need for drastic revisions in language arts curriculum, and
she called for Black Language-specific instructional strategies for black children that
concentrated on the systematic differences between AAL and Standard English.
Bailey’s  untimely  death  prevented  her  from  testing  her  aspiring  linguistic  and  
pedagogical theories (Smitherman, 2005; Baugh & Smitherman, 2006).
Members of the Conference on College Composition and Communication

12

(CCCC) were also forced to take a stand regarding how teachers should address the
language needs of students from linguistically and culturally diverse backgrounds. In
April of 1974, CCCC adopted the Students’  Right  to  Their  Own  Language  (SRTOL)
resolution that defended the rights of students to use whichever patterns and
varieties of language that reflected their own style and identity. The resolution
opposed of and demystified the validity of DAE, and called for teachers to respect
language diversity and uphold the rights of students to their own languages. The
resolution also disputed the inaccurate belief that any one dialect is more prestigious
than another (Smitherman, 1999). The resolution sought to accomplish three goals:
(1) to heighten consciousness of language attitudes, (2) to promote the value of
linguistic diversity, and (3) to convey facts and information about language and
language variation that would enable instructors to teach their students more
effectively.
While the SRTOL resolution did respond to the cultural and linguistic mismatch
between classrooms and multilingual/ multicultural students and was theoretically
informative and practically important (Smitherman, 1999), it was limited in praxis.
Many educators were confused as to how they should pedagogically respond to the
variety  in  their  students’  languages.  Acknowledging  the  need  for  more  specific  
pedagogies, CCCC’s leadership appointed a committee to develop teaching
materials in support of SRTOL. The committee worked for nearly four years to
develop  “practical  classroom  assignments,  activities,  lectures,  and  teaching  units  that  
would show and tell how to apply the philosophy of the "Students' Right" resolution to
the day-to-day experience of teaching and learning”  (Smitherman,  1995,  p.  24).  

13

Unfortunately, CCCC decided not to publish the collection of materials (Smitherman,
1995).
Despite SRTOL, classrooms continued to operate as linguistic and cultural
battlegrounds for Black students. This is evidenced by the landmark 1979 Ann Arbor
Black English case where a Federal District Court found the Ann Arbor school district
responsible for failing to adequately prepare teachers to respond to the language
needs of 11 Black children at the Martin Luther King, Jr. elementary school. In
particular, the judge ruled “on  the  basis  of  failing  to  overcome  language  barriers,  the  
Ann  Arbor  school  district  had  violated  the  children’s  right  to equal educational
opportunity”  (Smitherman,  1981,  p.142).  The judge found that the school had not
taken steps to:


help teachers understand the problem,



help provide teachers with knowledge about the use of AAL, or



suggest ways and means of using that knowledge in teaching the
students to read.

Thus, the educational plan approved by the judge was in the form of teacher inservice, which proved to be an inadequate means to eliminate language barriers and
create equal opportunity for children. Scholars like Smitherman (1981) and Ball and
Lardner (1997) argue that a teacher in-service can only do so much and should have
simply been a component of a more comprehensive educational remediation plan
(Smitherman, 1981; Ball & Lardner, 1997).
Given crises such as the Ann Arbor Black English Case, it is easy to view
SRTOL as a theory that never lead to pedagogical transformation. However, this

14

would ignore the efforts of language education programs and curriculums that were
developed to improve the language education of AAL speakers. Several language
education programs under the name Standard English as a Second Dialect (SESD)
grew out of the height of Black Power and civil rights movement (Morgan, 2002). The
mission of SESD programs were to provide Black children with the same quality
education afforded to middle-class whites by introducing DAE in their linguistic
repertoires at the same time of respecting AAL (Morgan, 2002).
One of the most innovative SESD programs was the Bridge program, a crosscultural, comprehensive reading program that targeted students in grades 7-12.
Bridge was different from  many  SESD  programs  in  the  sense  that  it  “incorporated  
grammatical, verbal play, and discourse styles into the body of literature read by the
children”  (Rickford  &  Rickford,  quoted  in  Morgan,  2002,  p.  140). The programs also
included culturally relevant materials that respected oral traditions and made
language switching logical. The program was tested in various parts of the country,
and the results were extremely promising. A final edition of the Bridge program was
prepared and set to be published by Houghton Mifflin in December of 1976
(Simpkins, 2002). However, the program perished not long after its results appeared
in Newsweek magazine. According to Simpkins:
The article ignited a firestorm of controversy centered around the pedagogical
use of AAL. On television and radio talk shows, in editorials and other public
forums an endless parade of speakers voiced their negative opinions on the
use  of  AAL  in  the  classroom”  (112).  

15

Simpkins explains that though the stigma and myths associated with AAL roared
throughout the country, Black non-mainstream parents, teachers, and community
leaders in different parts of the country were supportive of the Bridge project. He
found  that  the  opposition  came  from  “professionals  whose  children  were  doing  well  in
school and did not attend inner-city  schools  or  public  schools  in  general”  (113).  
Simpkins confirms that negative media coverage, negative statements by
government and educational officials, and unfavorable responses from the Black
middle class prevented the Bridge program from being used in schools.
There were several other programs like Bridge, however, “the  written  historical  
record is sparse because so many educators and other professionals who
administered and taught in such programs did not publish or widely disseminate
information  about  their  programs  or  the  results  of  these  endeavors”  (Smitherman &
Quartey-Annan, 2011, pp. 257-258).
Also responding to the language needs of Black students during the late 60s,
early 70s was the Language Curriculum Research Group (LCRG), a Brooklyn-college
research collective. LCRG developed a composition curriculum that placed Black
language and culture at its center, created a textbook manuscript, and trained writing
teachers. The curriculum provided Black students with theories concerning:


AAL’s  origins  and  development,  



various examples of the use of AAL by African American journalists and
artists,



writing experiences about the language attitudes they encounter, and



an opportunity to explore the use of AAL in their own communities.

16

The group also developed a multifaceted approach for preparing educators to teach
Black students whose writings did not reflect the dominant language. Although the
LCRG created this information, because of political and conservative educational
discourses of the mid-70s, publishers were reluctant to adopt the textbook, which
ultimately ended LCRG and its projects (Wible, 2006).
Nearly 20 years after these efforts, we witnessed an all-too-familiar flare up
that reflected the stormy relationship between AAL and the educational system. In
December of 1996, the Oakland, California school board approved a resolution to
recognize AAL as the primary language used by many of the Black students in the
district and to take it into account when teaching DAE (Delpit, 2002; Rickford, 1997;
Paris & Ball, 2009). This welcomed overwhelmingly negative reactions from the
general public and led to the district revising its resolution. Unfortunately, the
resolution,  which  was  “intended  to  remedy  educational  failure  for  thousands  of  
students,  became  an  opportunity  for  people…to  voice  negative  attitudes  about  AAL”  
(Paris & Ball, 2009, p.89).
The historical dimension of AAL sheds light on how American slavery,
segregation, and integration of schools provided the sociolinguistic conditions and
consequences that we continue to see in U.S. schools. A re-examination of the
historical dimensions of AAL is crucial to understanding the factors that help and
hinder the success of AAL in school.
Factors Hindering and Helping the Success of AAL
Since the 1960s, language scholars have recognized that traditional ways of
understanding and responding to language diversity fail to do justice to the rich

17

resources that speakers of AAL bring with them to classrooms (Shaughnessy, 1977;
Canagarajah, 2006; Horner et al., 2011). Despite the fact that language use in our
world, nation, communities, and classrooms has always been diverse,
monolingualism is the driving force that informs our disciplinary discourses and
pedagogical practices. This mismatch has lead to deficit theories that seek to
eradicate non-dominant languages. As argued by Labov (1970), deficit theories are
extremely dangerous to the language education of speakers of AAL because they
divert attention from the real defects of the educational system to imaginary defects
of the child.
Deficit  or  monolingual  approaches  view  students’  heritages, languages,
literacies, histories, and cultural practices as deficient. The goal with this approach is
to correct what is presumed to be a deficiency and replace it with what is believed to
be the better heritage, language, literacy, history and cultural practices (Paris, 2012).
Conversely, some asset-based or multilingual approaches seek to respect and honor
students’  heritages,  languages,  literacies,  histories,  and  cultural  practices  at  the  same  
time of building dominant skills. Other asset-based pedagogies use students’  
languages, literacies, histories, and cultural practices as resources to build dominant
skills and to provide an understanding and space for sustaining marginalized ways
(Paris, 2012). In the sections to follow, I highlight examples of each of these
approaches through the context of first year writing and K-12 classrooms.
Approaches in First Year Writing Classrooms
Monolingual/ Deficit Approaches

18

One of the earliest approaches to language diversity that historically prevailed
in the teaching of writing is the traditional approach, also referred to as the
“eradicationist”  or “correctionist”  approach.  The traditional approach is chiefly
concerned with eradicating or modifying the languages used by multilingual students
in an effort to achieve the dominant language (Horner et al., 2011). The traditional
approach to language is problematic for many reasons, including:


it interferes with student learning as it may cause students to feel linguistically
inadequate and insecure,



it encourages teachers to judge the competencies of multilingual students
according the rules of DAE, and



it preserves the false ideal that there is only one way of practicing language.

Code-switching approaches were developed in response to the problems caused by
this approach. The code-switching approach uses AAL as a scaffold to DAE, which is
done by restricting AAL to informal contexts and DAE to formal contexts
(Canagarajah, 2006; Wheeler & Swords, 2006). For example, Canagarajah (2006)
explains that Elbow adopts a two-pronged approach to demonstrate how codeswitching can be practiced in writing classrooms. First, he allows multilingual students
to use their own languages during the early drafting stages of their writing. Next, he
teaches them copyediting skills during the latter drafting stages to ensure that their
final product adheres to the conventions of DAE. Elbow suggests that his strategy
empowers students because it invites their languages into the classroom at the same
time of giving them access to the language of power. One of the problems with
Elbow’s  strategy  is  that  it  reproduces linguistic hierarchies and monolingual

19

ideologies. It also postpones students’  critical  literacy  practices,  disables their
contexts of linguistic pluralism, and does not contribute to long-term goals of
accepting diverse languages (Canagarajah, 2006).
Young (2009) argues that code-switching urges composition teachers to
ignore race when teaching and discussing language diversity with Black students. He
insists that teachers cannot ask students to code-switch without mentioning the
politics and interconnectedness between language and race, as this would draw on
the  experiences  of  these  students’  heritages,  “then  render  them  invisible  [and]  extract  
their historical and contemporary experiences from the  discussion  .  .  .”  (p.  51).  
Monolingual approaches such as, the traditional approach and the codeswitching  approach  are  ineffective  as  they  impede  students’  language,  literacy,  and  
identity development and reproduces cultural and linguistic inequalities. The
traditional approach leaves students feeling as if they do not have a language, and
the code-switching  approach  uses  students’  language  as  a  scaffold, which suggests
that AAL and Black culture are inferior to DAE and dominant culture. The problems
associated with this approach demonstrate a need for multilingual approaches to
language diversity.
Multilingual/ Asset-Based Approaches
Disturbed by monolingual ideologies that continue to plague first-year writing
classrooms, language scholars (Canagarajah, 2006; Young, 2009, 2014; Lu et al.,
2011) have called for multilingual approaches to writing. Unlike code-switching, which
conveys  “the  image  of  an  on-off  switch  of  correctness  [and  incorrectness]”  (WilsonLogan, 2011), code-meshing is a multilingual approach that allows multilingual

20

speakers and writers to mesh two codes—their language and the dominant—to
accommodate more than one language within the bounds of the same text
(Canagarajah, 2006; Young, Barrett, Young-Rivera, & Lovejoy, 2014).
Translingualism is another multilingual approach to writing that is concerned
with addressing the gap between everyday language practices and the myths upheld
about language differences (Horner et al., 2011). Under this approach, language
differences are not viewed as a barrier to overcome or manage; instead, it is
regarded as a necessary resource that aids speakers, readers, listeners, and writers
with producing meaning (Horner et al., 2011). Translingualism views all languages as
resources that must be preserved, developed, and utilized. It extends STROL by
viewing  students’  languages  as  not  only  their  right,  but  also  their  resource  (Horner  et  
al., 2011). Alternatively, it questions what writers are doing with language and why.
While multilingual approaches such as, code-meshing and translingualism,
seek  to  value  students’  languages  and  cultures,  they  do  not  directly  address  
language attitudes that students may bring with them to the classroom. How might
multilingual approaches accommodate students who do not view their language as
socially or intellectually valuable? How might this approach speak to students like
those in my study, who have an inferiority complex as a result of their previous
language experiences? These concerns indicate that more work needs to be done
related to language attitudes.
Approaches in K-12 Classrooms
Asset-Based Approaches
Responding to the dismal academic performance of Black students in the early

21

90s, Ladson-Billings (1995) made a case for culturally relevant pedagogy, which can
be  defined  as  “a  pedagogy  of  opposition...[that  is]  specifically  committed  to  collective,  
not  merely  individual  empowerment”  (p.  160).  Culturally  relevant  pedagogy  grew out
of a need to link school and culture by respecting and building on the reality, history,
and perspectives of students. It rests on the following three criteria: (1) academic
success (2) cultural competence, and (3) critical consciousness. That is, despite
hostile and social inequalities, students should be provided opportunities to:


develop their academic skills,



maintain cultural integrity and academic excellence, and



develop a broader sociopolitical consciousness that enables them to
critique cultural norms, values, and institutions that produce and
maintain inequalities.

Culturally relevant pedagogy is important as it reflects the beginning of a pedagogy
that systematically aimed at including Black students’  language and culture in the
classroom as authorized and official knowledge. While this work remains extremely
important, there  is  a  need  for  pedagogies  that  move  us  “beyond  rationalizing  the  
need  to  include  linguistic,  literate,  and  cultural  practice”  (Paris & Alim, 2014, p. 88).
Taking up this work, Paris (2012) problematizes and extends Ladson-Billings
notion of culturally relevant pedagogy by pointing out the need for pedagogies that
value and preserve the practices of our multiethnic and multilingual society. As it
stands, culturally relevant pedagogies do not support this goal. Culturally sustaining
pedagogies,  however,  “seeks  to  perpetuate  and  foster  linguistic,  literate,  and  cultural  
pluralism as part of the democratic project of schooling and as a needed response to

22

demographic  and  social  change”  (Paris  &  Alim,  2014,  p.  85).  In  this  sense,  Paris  is  
shifting pedagogies from being concerned with using heritage languages as merely a
bridge to the dominant norms demanded in school. Instead, Paris believes that
pedagogies should be centered on the contemporary cultural and linguistic ways of
communities of color (Paris & Alim, 2014). Culturally relevant and sustaining
pedagogies demonstrate how teachers might work to value and sustain their
students’  cultural,  linguistic,  and  literate  practices,  yet  there  is  still  a  need  for  
pedagogies that address students who view their linguistic and cultural practices as
inferior. How might these pedagogies be extended to address students who
internalize and reproduce systemic inequalities?
As demonstrated by the aforementioned approaches, scholars are currently
calling for multilingual and asset-based approaches to address the language needs of
AAL-speaking students. Still, many classrooms are informed by deficit theories and
monolingual ideologies, which echo  teachers’  language  attitudes (Ball & Muhammad,
2003; Canagarajah, 2006; Horner, et al., 2011; Kirkland & Jackson, 2008;
Shaughnessy, 1977; Smitherman, 1995; Young, 2009).
Language Attitudes and Student Learning
There is a considerable amount of research that suggests that teachers tend
to have negative attitudes toward AAL (Sledd,1969; Taylor, 1973; Williams, 1970,
1973; Bowie, 1994; Byrnes & Kier, 1994; Blake & Cutler, 2003; Richardson, 2003).
These negative attitudes reflect what Smitherman (1990) refers to as the cycle of
American  (mis)education:  “mis-educated adults are served up more mis-education in
college, they return to the public schools to train and mis-educate students , and this

23

mind-set is thus perpetrated for generations" (p. 306). In other words, Smitherman is
suggesting that teacher education programs do not equip teachers with the tools
necessary to address language diversity. This is confirmed by teachers who indicated
on the 1996-1998  CCCC’s survey  on  teachers’  attitudes  that  they had never taken a
course on language diversity. Ball  and  Muhammad’s  (2003)  research  also  revealed  
that many teacher education programs do not require their pre-service teachers to
take  a  language  diversity  course  before  exiting  their  program.  Teachers’  lack  of  
preparation and language attitudes can have a lasting impact on student attitudes
and  student  learning.  In  fact,  teachers’  negative  language  attitudes  and  outdated,  
unproductive, uncritical teaching methods have been named a barrier to academic
achievement faced by Black students (Cazden, 1999; Ball & Muhammad, 2003; Ball
& Lardner, 2005; Alim, 2005, 2007; Gilyard, 2005; Kirkland & Jackson, 2008).
The impact of language attitudes on student learning is exemplified by the Ann
Arbor  Black  English  case.  Because  the  teachers  treated  the  students’  language
system as inferior, it created a psychological barrier that inhibited the students from
learning (Turner & Ives, 2013). These attitudes and beliefs about language are also
tightly woven into our pedagogical practices (Reaser, 2006, Reaser & Wolfram, 2007
quoted in Charity Hudley & Mallinson; 2014). For example, Cassar (2008 quoted in
Young et al., 2014) noted that after implementing code-switching in her classes,
many of her students had more negative attitudes about themselves and their
language after than they did before. She indicated that her students needed more
emotional support following the instruction. Similarly, Kirkland and Jackson (2008)
found that after implementing contrastive analysis curriculum and instruction, the

24

Black males they worked with retained and reinforced negative attitudes about AAL.
They concluded that contrastive analysis pedagogies address the technical
differences between AAL and DAE but not the critical linguistic issues that the
students in their study wrestled with on a day-to-day basis. During a conversation
with  her  students  about  the  features  of  AAL  used  by  characters  in  Alice  Walker’s  The
Color Purple, Jordan (1989) noticed that some of her students’  first  reactions  to  the  
use of AAL in the text were negative. She was even more astonished that two of the
students who criticized the language were ironically using patterns of it. Fortunately,
Jordan  was  knowledgeable  about  AAL  and  used  her  students’  responses  to  the  text  
as a pedagogical opportunity to  discuss  the  richness  of  AAL  as  well  as  “heighten  their  
consciousness  of  language  in  the  face  of  fixed,  monotonous  linguistic  label”  (Kinloch,  
2005, p. 89). While Jordan provides an excellent example of how African American
literature can be used as a platform to embrace AAL and promote language diversity,
this is not the case in all classrooms.
The biggest consequence of negative language attitudes is when students
internalize them. Charity Hudley and Mallinson (2014) posit that speakers who
absorb messages that suggest that their language is wrong, incorrect, dumb, or
stigmatized may react with internalization1. Internalized negative linguistic messages
can lead to linguistic insecurity2, which causes speakers to feel insecure, discouraged
and contributes  to  them  “losing confidence in the learning process, their own abilities,

“a  process  whereby  members  of  a  stigmatized  group  accept  negative  messages  
about their self-worth”  (Charity  &  Hudley, 2014, p. 65).
2
A term coined by Labov (1972) to explain how negative linguistic messages causes
speakers to feel insecure, anxious, unconfident or apprehensive when
communication.
1

25

their education, and  school  in  general”  (Labov,  1995;;  Charity  Hudley  &  Mallinson,  
2014, p. 33). The impact of negative language attitudes on student learning
underscores the need for CLPs that  disrupt  Black  students’  negative  attitudes  and  
beliefs about their own language.
Critical Language Pedagogies
Alim’s  (2007)  idea  of CLP is situated within a framework of critical awareness
and targets schools not only as a primary site for language wars but also as a site
obligated to provide linguistically and culturally diverse students with a critical
awareness  of  their  “social  and  linguistic  reality”  (p.  163).  Alim  recognizes  the  tensions  
between the development of CLP and the lack of its broader implementation;
therefore, he argues that CLPs should  incorporate  both  theory  and  practice  “so  that  
innovative approaches might begin to be implemented in classrooms as part of a
broader educational movement advocating locally relevant and continually negotiated
curricula”  (p.  63).
There  are  not  many  examples  of  how  Alim’s  notion  of  CLP is being applied in
schools; however, Godley and Minnici (2008) provide a description of how they
applied CLP to a weeklong unit about dialects and language variation in three tenth
grade English classes. Their model draws on scholarship from the fields of New
Literacy Studies, linguistics, and critical pedagogy. Current perspectives in each of
these fields push toward rethinking and reimagining approaches to language
instruction, particularly for linguistically and culturally diverse students.
The  first  component  of  Godley  and  Minnici’s  framework  is  identifying  and  
critiquing dominant language ideologies. This component promotes the examination

26

of questions,  such  as,  “How  can  language  be  used  to  maintain,  reinforce,  and  
perpetuate  existing  power  relations?”  and,  “How  can  language  be  used  to  resist,  
redefine,  and  possibly  reverse  these  relations?”  (Alim,  2007,  p.  166).  The  second  
characteristic of their CLP framework is dialogism, which requires a classroom space
that  values  and  highlights  students’  viewpoints  through  discussion  and  debate.  A  
dialogic  classroom  environment  must  be  democratic  and  obliterate  “the  distinction  
between teacher and student so that everyone can teach and learn through
classroom  conversations  about  language,  language  ideologies,  and  language  use”  
(Godley  &  Minnici,  2008,  p.  323).  The  final  component  places  students’  everyday  
language experiences and use at the center of intellectual discussion. This
component is premised on the belief that for language instruction to be genuinely
critical,  it  must  “build  on  students’  understandings  of  the  world  around  them,  including  
language  use”  (Godley & Minnici, 2008, p. 324).
Godley and Minnici’s (2008) study is important in that it provides an example
of what CLP looks like in practice. It also reveals that the implementation of CLP can
contribute to the literacy learning of students who speak AAL by revealing and
critiquing dominant language ideologies,  building  on  students’  existing  knowledge  
about language, and giving students tools to change dominant representation of AAL
(pp. 341-342). Finally, the researchers concluded that:
language and literacy instruction grounded in critical language pedagogies can
help students become more aware of the language choices that they make as
readers, writers, speakers, and listeners, and can teach students to be more
critical  citizens  within  a  democratic  society”  (p.  342).  

27

Though these findings are fruitful, there is still a need to understand the impact CLPs
have on student language attitudes and learning.
Conceptual Framework
The review and critique of the literature confirms that research on AAL does
not account for the attitudes that students hold toward their own language, nor does it
offer any ways to help students foster positive views of AAL (Kirkland & Jackson,
2008). This understanding contributes to me developing a conceptual framework that
speaks to the language needs of Black students. The conceptual framework for the
critical language pedagogy that I implemented in this study encompasses aspects of
Smitherman’s  (2006)  view  of  language  education,  Alim’s  (2007)  notion  of  critical  
language  pedagogy,  Kirkland  &  Jackson’s  (2008)  idea  of  critical instructional
approaches, and Fanon’s  (2008) concept of linguistic hegemony. Taken together,
these concepts, theories, and assumptions help me to address AAL-speaking
students’  negative  language  attitudes.  
Figure 1: Conceptual Framework
Language
Education
(Smitherman,
)

Critical
Instructional
Approaches
(Kirkland &
Jackson)

Critical
Language
Pedagogies
(Alim)

Linguistic
Hegemony
(Fanon)

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Linguistic Hegemony
Linguistic hegemony is important to this study as it offers insight into the power
relationship embedded in AAL and DAE. Fanon (1952, 2008) is one of the most
important voices in this conversation as he adds significant cultural and racial
components of oppression that help explain how linguistic hegemony is a direct
consequence  of  the  colonial  undertaking.  Indeed,  his  work  “articulates  the  systematic  
practices of colonial powers to use language and texts to promote colonial ideologies”  
(Morrell, 2008, p. 62). One of the practices that Fanon sheds light on is the
relationship between language and culture. He argues, “to  speak  is  not  just  being  
able to use a morphology of such and such language, but it means above all
assuming a culture  and  bearing  the  weight  of  civilization”  (p.  1-2). In other words, the
issue of language is not necessarily about speaking DAE in place of AAL, but more
about Blacks appropriating White culture. Fanon explains:
The more the colonized have assimilated the cultural values of the [dominant
group], the more he will have escaped the bush. The more he rejects his
blackness,  the  whiter  he  will  become…and  the  more  White  he  becomes,  the  
closer he comes to becoming a true human being (pp. 2-3).
Naturally, this linguistic  dilemma  leads  to  the  “oppressed  wanting  to  become  more  
like its oppressors; the colonized wanting to be more like the colonizer; or the Black
who  wants  to  become  White”  (Morrell,  62).  It  also  creates  a  linguistic  and  cultural  
schizophrenia in the minds of Black people. According to Fanon, speaking in the
mother tongue will imprison Blacks and perpetuate a conflictual relationship, yet

29

speaking  in  the  colonizer’s  language  could  also  lead  to  alienation from their own
culture as well as the dominant culture.
Debose (2006) contends that linguistic hegemony is achieved through:
ideas, attitudes, myths, and values, and these are perpetuated through
education  and  socialization…  In  the  realm  of  lifestyle,  and  culture,  the  
customs and practices of elite groups symbolizes the benefits of the
membership in the elite and serve as desirable attainments for persons
striving toward elite status. When a particular language or way of
speaking is associated with the elite, the ability to speak that language
and speak it correctly may serve as a legitimating function (p. 31).
Fanon presents psychoanalysis of how this notion of linguistic hegemony
produces an inferiority complex in Black people. He contends that Blacks have been
unconsciously trained since early childhood to correlate Blackness with wrongness.
This unconscious mental training leads to internalization, psychological trauma, and
mental wounds that become inherent in their personality (Fanon, 1952, 2008).
Linguistic hegemony will help to explain why and how speakers of AAL support and
participate in the subjugation of AAL to DAE. The concept of linguistic hegemony
emphasizes the need for counter-hegemonic language pedagogies that disrupt
negative language attitudes.
Language Education
The basis for the curricular innovation that I created and implemented in this
study is also informed  by  Smitherman’s  idea  of  language  education  for  Black  
students. She recommends that they are introduced to the study of AAL—it’s  

30

systematic properties, its history, the connection between AAL and African life and
culture beginning in the high school years. She explains that the lack of knowledge
regarding their history is at the root of the problem for Black students today as they
“have  no  sense  of  their  role  and  purpose in history, no understanding of where they
came  from,  and  consequently,  no  vision  for  where  they’re  going.”  (p.  143).  With  this  in  
mind, the CLP used in the current study introduces students to the historical, cultural,
and political underpinnings of AAL.
Critical Language Pedagogy
I also  draw  on  Alim’s  (2007)  idea of CLP,  which  he  terms  a  “freireian pedagogy
of  language”  to  provide  students  a  critical  awareness  of  their  social  and  linguistic  
reality. Alim suggests that a CLP include the following three components: (1) engage
teachers in the same type of critical language pedagogies outlined for their students,
(2) provide teachers and their students  with  a  “wake  up  call”  of  linguistic inequality,
and (3) encourage teachers and students to interrogate received discourses on
language, which are always connected to issues of race, gender, power, class, and
sexuality. In the current study, I build on the second and third components of  Alim’s  
framework.
Critical Instructional Approaches
I also rely on Kirkland and Jacksons’  (2008)  notion  of  critical instructional
approaches, which calls for literacy educators to encourage students to view AAL as
an asset instead of a liability. Providing students with an opportunity to value AAL
could revise their thinking about the language. Kirkland and Jackson recommend that
language instruction for AAL-speaking students:

31

1. address critical-linguistic issues,
2. make students aware of the historical importance of AAL,
3. consider the significance of all sociolinguistic forms and provide students with
opportunities to investigate, accommodate, and critique such forms,
4. address negative assumptions about languages and their speakers,
5. is explicit about the political act of language; i.e., making students aware that
every time they speak or write, they are engaging in a political act,
6. provide instruction to all students, regardless of race or ethnicity, which offsets
the assumptions that perpetuate linguistic discrimination (pp. 148-149).
The CLP also falls in  line  with  Alim  and  Smitherman’s  (2012)  thinking about an
alternative approach to traditional language pedagogies that:
expects much more from students [and goes] beyond traditional
grammar lessons to teach students how to analyze and manipulate
language in their social worlds. It teaches students that we must do
more than study the relationships between language, racism, and
power—we must do what we can to alter them (p. 189).
In the context of CLP, I use the term critical in line with other language and
literacy researchers who challenge barriers to social change, inequality, and
democracy by resisting the reproduction of the ideas and values of privileged and
dominant groups (Willis  et  al.,  2008).  In  using  the  term  critical,  it’s  important  for  me  to  
point out some of the ideas and historical roots that underpin it. The use of the term
can be traced to the ideas and thoughts associated with the Frankfurt School.
Frankfurt School philosophers  “have  understood,  talked,  and  written  about  the  role  of  

32

language and critical thought in the consumption, production, and distribution of
knowledge and the consciousness-raising of emancipated citizens throughout the
history of western civilization”  (Morrell,  30).    Though  critical  theorizing  within  the  
Frankfurt School examined relationships between individuals, ideas, class, and
power, it did not include the oppression of people of color and women. The ignoring
of race/ethnicity and gender led to scholarship and voices that are integral to new
understandings of criticality (Willis et al., 2008). Indeed, many African American
critical theorists added balance to traditional Eurocentric viewpoints by emphasizing
the experiences of people of color, women, and the intersection of multiple
oppressions. Willis et al. (2008) explains that African American scholars:
defied ideology ad cultural hegemony and challenged the use of sciences as
proof of racial, intellectual, and moral inferiority by drawing from broader,
historical, cultural, and intellectual, and lineages as well as by highlighting
political, economic, social, and racial oppression. Their scholarship uncovered
the ideological and racist ideas that dominated Western thought and
perpetuated the oppression of African Americans, which was allegedly by
scientific facts, but more accurately affirmed social and political injustices (p.
24).
Collectively, these scholars showed that the ideologies, values, and beliefs held and
promoted by their oppressors must be challenged.
Conclusion
A review of the literature helps explain why AAL has yet to be embraced as a
resource for educational innovation in many K-12 and first-year writing classrooms.

33

From the historical dimensions of AAL, we learned that American slavery,
segregation, and integration provided the sociolinguistic conditions and
consequences that we still see in schools today (e.g. deficit approaches, negative
language attitudes, and internalized inferiority). The successes and hindrances of
AAL in education shed light on multilingual and asset-based approaches that are
aimed at valuing, sustaining, and using AAL as a linguistic resource. However, and
as shown throughout this literature review, there is a need for pedagogies that
address AAL-speaking students’ negative attitudes toward their own language. The
conceptual framework developed for this study helps me to address this need. In
chapter 2, I demonstrate how the conceptual framework for this study informs my
methodological design and influences my data collection instruments to be used.

34

CHAPTER 2:
“ON  CRITICALLY  CONSCIOUS  LANGUAGE  AND  LITERACY  
RESEARCH”: Methodology
“We  challenge  the  status  quo  in  language  and  literacy  research  that  ignores  
and marginalizes oppression as we advocate for valuing, respecting,
appreciating…[and  sustaining]  the  systems  of  meaning-making
and  communicating  used  by  all  people.”
--From On Critically Conscious Research
The purpose of this study was to explore how 18 AAL-speaking students made
sense of the role of AAL in their everyday lives and to determine the impact of a
curricular innovation on their language attitudes. This study builds on previous
studies were conducted to explore how students experienced AAL in academic
contexts and the impact of language pedagogies on those experiences (Baker-Bell,
2013; Chisholm & Godley, 2011; Godley & Minnici, 2008; Kirkland & Jackson, 2008).
These studies were useful in designing a curricular innovation aimed at transforming
the  students’  language  attitudes  and understanding the role AAL played in their
everyday lives. In this chapter, I shed light on the theory grounding my methodology
and methods by presenting examples from critical language and literacy research.
Following  this,  I  move  into  describing  the  study’s  research  questions,  design,  site,  
participants, and the methods of data collection and analysis.
Theoretical Framework: Critically Conscious Language and Literacy
Research
I understand this study within the framework of critically conscious research
(CCR), which is an approach that challenges hegemonic ideology and traditions in
the field of language and literacy by resisting the reproduction of ideas and values of
privileged and dominant groups (Willis et al., 2008). In particular, critically conscious

35

language  and  literacy  researchers  “aim  to  deconstruct,  demystify,  and  articulate  the  
relationship among disparate beliefs, thoughts, and actions as well as to illustrate
how these ideas influence equity and social  justice”  (p.  52).  CCR  falls  within  the  
tradition of critical theory and encompasses a plethora of intersecting and
interdisciplinary  principles  and  processes.  Indeed,  “there  is  no  singular  history,  
theory, or methodology that is common to all criticality, nor are methods reduced to a
single  set  of  steps,  guidelines,  and  criteria”  (p.  51).  Still,  critical  methods  do  address  
and  challenge  “taken-for—granted assumptions about objectivity, validity, reliability,
and who should be involved in the research process”  (qtd.  in  Willis  et  al.,  2008,  p.  
51). CCR not only punctuates the methodological frame for this study, but it also
underpins my research questions, data collection, analysis, interpretation, and
recommendations.
Interpretive Experimental Studies
One  of  the  methods  grounding  my  study  is  the  “doll  test”  used  in  Brown v.
Board of Education to document the psychological effects that segregation had on
Black  children’s  self-esteem. As part of their experiment, psychologists Clark and
Clark presented Black and White dolls to children between the ages of three and
seven and asked them numerous questions to determine their racial perception and
preference. The researchers concluded that segregation, prejudice, and
discrimination caused Black children to develop a sense of inferiority and self-hatred
(“Brown  v.  board  at  fifty,  2013).    
Reminiscent  of  the  “doll  test”,  Kirkland  &  Jackson  (2008)  used  multimodal  
drawings to explore the effects code-switching and contrastive analysis (CA)

36

pedagogies  and  instructional  approaches  had  on  students’  attitudes  toward  AAL.  
Working with Black males in a mentoring program (10-14 years of age), the
researchers developed and implemented an experimental curriculum and used pre
and post illustrations to determine its impact. They also relied on observations,
interviews,  and  student  work  to  help  make  sense  of  the  young  men’s  post  language  
attitudes. Their integration of multimodal drawings (pre and post) and the
experimental curriculum enact the kinds of methodological moves I make in my
project. A key finding from the Kirkland and Jackson study suggest that the young
men retained and oftentimes reinforced negative attitudes about AAL following the
CA curriculum and instruction.
My study is also influenced by a number of programs that incorporated
experimental curriculums to address the language needs of Black students during the
60s and 70s. Language education programs under the name of Standard English as
a Second Dialect (SESD) were designed to get Black students to add DAE to their
linguistic repertoires at the same time of respecting their home language. Most SESD
programs accomplished this by exposing students to:


dialect stories and folk tales,



grammatical exercises that reviewed AAL structure exclusively,



grammatical structures that tested DAE structure exclusively, and



contrastive exercises that included both forms.

One example of an SESD program was the Bridge program, which was designed for
students in grades 7-12. Similar to the materials I used in my study, Bridge
“incorporated  culturally  relevant  materials  that  included  respect  for  oral  traditions  and  

37

made dialect  shifting  logical  as  opposed  to  simple  structural  exercise”  (Morgan,  2014,  
p. 124).
The LCRG also used an experimental curriculum that bridged sociolinguistic
research on AAL with composition studies to create reading materials, writing
assignments, and classroom projects that incorporated African American language
and culture at the center of the composition curriculum. Most of the assignments
provided students with opportunities to compare and contrast AAL and DAE in an
effort  to  “better  prepare  [them]  to  identify  where  AAL  grammar  and  syntax  ‘interfered’  
with  their  ability  to  write  in  DAE”  (Wible, 2006, p. 359). Although my study moves
beyond  the  contrastive  analysis  method,  I  do  pull  from  other  areas  of  the  LCRG’s  
curricular innovation, such as:


expose AAL’s  origins  and  development,



provide examples of the use of AAL by African American journalists and
artists,



provide opportunities for students to write about their experiences with
attitudes toward AAL, and



conduct ethnographic research on the use of AAL in their communities.

A key finding from the study suggested that the LCRG had cultivated habits of selfawareness and self-reflection. In particular, AAL speakers left the classroom feeling
proud of their language and heritages.
Similarly, Gilyard and Richardson (2001) used an experimental curriculum in
four  basic  writing  courses  at  two  major  universities  to  understand  how  Black  students’  
speech could be used to develop what they refer to as critical academic writing. The

38

study, which spanned winter 1996 to winter 1998, included 52 Black first year
students—30 females and 22 males—who placed in basic writing. As part of the
curriculum, the students received writing instruction over a ten-week time frame using
African-centered materials and instructional stimuli. More specifically, the students
received training that involved the following four components:


instruction in academic writing/ rhetorical practices,



examination of the African American literacy tradition,



the writing process, and



writing workshops.

Data sources included a variety of questionnaires, assessment scales and field
notes. Quantitative analyses included a bivariate analysis of essay mean scores and
Black discourse mean scores. Qualitative analyses consisted of the researchers’  
analyses  of  the  students’ writing samples as a way of understanding the Black
discourse styled-texts that they produced. Findings form the study suggested that
Black students who used Black discourse in their writing scored higher than those
students who did not.
From the implications of the previously discussed studies, we learn that
experimental curriculums can be helpful in assessing the impact of a curricular
innovation on student learning. However, experimental methods alone do not provide
much insight into the ways in which the participants in my study understood AAL to
work across various contexts (i.e. home, community, school). In this way, it was
important for me to consider critical qualitative methods, such as critical ethnography,
linguistic anthropology, and critical discourse analysis.

39

I recognize that the meshing of critical approaches and experimental methods
may be seen as contradictory. On the one hand, the critical approaches I use
challenge hegemony, marginalization, and oppression and envisage possibilities for
social change for Black students. At the same time, experimental methods have a
long, colonizing history that has resulted in egregious violations of human rights and
suffering for Black people (e.g. Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment). While I do
acknowledge the baggage that experimental methods carry, I understand that not all
experimental methods cause harm. The experimental curriculum that I use falls in line
with some of the principles that guided the abovementioned studies such as the Clark
and  Clark’s  Doll Experiment, which helped to reveal attitudes, raise awareness, and
create consciousness. Ethical concerns about experimental methods typically pertain
to participants in control groups and the type of treatment that the experimental group
receives. In this study, I do not use a control group nor do I subject the participants to
treatment that could cause them harm. Given the scope of my project, experimental
methods offer me a way of assessing the impact the CLP I designed had on the
students’  language  attitudes.
Critical Qualitative Language and Literacy Research
Critical ethnography is an approach that acknowledges how hegemonic forces
have shaped history and is committed to praxis and emancipatory action (Willis et al.,
2008). Quantz  (1992)  explains  that  critical  ethnography  seeks  to  “re-present the
culture, the consciousness, or the lived experiences of people living in asymmetrical
power  relations”  (qtd. in Willis et al., 2008).
Ethnographies of Language

40

Alim (2005) turned to critical ethnography to help him make sense of how
Black students at a linguistically and culturally diverse high school shifted their styles
up according to eight interlocutors. The two-year long ethnographic and
sociolinguistic study explored the stylistic variation of the copula—one of the features
that give AAL its distinctiveness—based on race, gender, and Hip Hop cultural
knowledge. Alim generated hundreds of audio and videotaped conversations,
interviews, and ethnographic notes from his experience teaching a course at the high
school and visiting the neighborhood barbershop where the study took place. Results
from his study showed that the students shifted their speech style according to their
interlocutor’s  race,  gender,  and  Hip  Hop cultural knowledge.
Concerned with how Black males and Black language are degraded, Kirkland
(2011) used critical ethnographic methods to study the language practices of 16
young men in a mentoring program to make sense of how Black males construct
identities through their language and literacy practices. To accomplish this, Kirkland
blended the research traditions of critical ethnography and critical discourse analysis
and gathered data for nearly a year that documented  the  young  men’s  bragging  
practices.  In  particular,  he  captured  videotapes  of  the  young  men’s  activities  during  
mentoring sessions, took detailed field notes immediately after the sessions, and
conversed regularly with the young men to record their perspectives. Findings from
the study suggest that educators and researchers study marginalized and
underrepresented groups outside the context of school and describe Black males
through their literacy practices.

41

Kinloch (2010) conducted a study that detailed how two Black males perceived
AAL and DAE in their struggle to acquire academic success. In particular, she: (1)
worked with the young men for more than two years in their school and community
contexts, (2) observed their language and speech patterns, (3) examined their
reading and writing practices, and (4) studied their engagement with their teacher,
administrators, peers, and community members in a variety of contexts. Data sources
included field notes, classroom observations, audio and videotaped rap sessions,
formal and informal interviews, and student written responses. Findings from
Kinloch’s  ethnographic  study  revealed  that  the  students continued to struggle with the
relationship between AAL and DAE at the same time of challenging notions of DAE.
These findings indicate the potential for additional research on students’  perceptions
of language in relation to their success and survival.
By spending a prolonged amount of time with their participants, Alim, Kirkland,
and Kinloch  were  able  to  capture  their  participants’  lived  experiences  in  ways  that  my  
study will not. However, I do employ ethnographic methods that give me insight into
how my participants understand their language to work across various contexts.
Linguistic Anthropology
According to the Society for Linguistic Anthropology (2014), a linguistic
anthropological approach examines the function of language in shaping
communication, forming social identity and group memberships, organizing cultural
beliefs and ideologies, and developing a common cultural representation of natural
and social worlds.

42

Ball (1995, 2000) applied a critical linguistic anthropological approach to her
research on the oral and written practices of four Black students in formal and
informal contexts. Ball revealed that students demonstrated an ability to skillfully
manipulate and interchangeably use AAL and academic English during discussion,
and they style switched with ease depending on their degree of personal engagement
in the conversation. She also reported that the students displayed a mastery of
multiple literacy practices, perspectives, formulaic patterning, and interactive
involvement with the audience, orally based text patterns, and implicit topical links
through the use of anecdotes.
In his study in a multiethnic high school, Paris (2009) explored the deep
linguistic and cultural ways in which students employed linguistic features of AAL.
Paris spent a year collecting ethnographic and sociolinguistic data, including field
notes, formal interviews, and recordings of informal conversations to examine the
ways students shared AAL across ethnicity. His study demonstrated that
Mexican/Mexican American and Pacific Islander students showed the use of many
important features of AAL. His study also confirmed that AAL was a major player in
bilingual Latino/a and Pacific Islander students forging their identities as members of
their ethnic communities and as members of the broader youth culture.
Morgan‘s  (2002)  15-year study on Black experiences in the U.S. relied on
methods of linguistic anthropology to identify and analyze the attitudes, norms,
changes, developments, and innovations of language and verbal form and function
within society. Her study also explored the impact gender and socioeconomic status
had on language and identity. Data sources included fieldwork, interviews, and

43

research conducted on Black women, youth, and families in Chicago, Philadelphia,
Los Angeles, and Mississippi. Her findings showed that many discourses are
organized around misinformation, misconceptions, and vicious stereotypes of Blacks.
Thus, her thoughtful and committed research presents accurate portrayals of Black
values and cultural practices.
Critical Discourse Analysis
Smitherman (2000) defines discourse as a socially and historically situated
way  of  being  through  spoken  or  written  words  relative  to  one’s  culture,  community,  
and identity. She explains that Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) grew out of the need
for  a  critical  inquiry  into  language  that  moves    “beyond  the  immediacy  of  the  linguistic  
text  to  consider  matters  [such  as]…the  perpetuation  of  inequality  through  language,  
and the historical backdrop against which these power-plays  are  enacted”  (p.  7).
Indeed, Wodak and Meyer (2008) argue that CDA is not necessarily interested in the
linguistic units of text but rather its social phenomena. Wodak (1995) defines CDA as:
a set of approaches that analyze opaque as well as transparent structural
relationships of dominance, discrimination, power and control as manifested in
language. In other words, CDA aims to investigate critically social inequality as it
is  expressed,  signaled,  constituted,  legitimized…by  language  use  or  in  
discourse. (Smitherman, 2000, p. 7).
Nonetheless, there are many different approaches to CDA, some which are
theoretically and analytically diverse. For example, Gee (1999, 2005) explores
spoken and written language as it is used to enact social and cultural perspectives
and identities (Kirkland, 2011). His integrated approach investigates discourse in

44

contexts of human situations to discern how certain discourses influence processes,
practices,  and  patterns.  Gee’s  two-pronged approach to discourse uses the phrase
“little  d”  to  refer  to the analysis of language-in  use  and  “Big  D”  to  refer  to  the  analysis  
of non-language stuff, such as power, history, and ideology. (1989) focused on how
language was used in its everyday and professional settings. This approach enables
critical discourse analysts to examine how the ways in which we communicate are
constrained by structures and forces of those social institutions in which we live and
function.
Despite the diversity in approaches, CDA has a number of distinctive features.
One of its main goals is to show how privilege is used in language to stabilize or
intensify inequities in society. Fairclough and Wodak (1997) summarize the main
tenets of CDA as follows:
1. CDA addresses social problems
2. Power relations are discursive
3. Discourse constitutes society and culture
4. Discourse does ideological work
5. Discourse is historical
6. The link between text and society is mediated
7. Discourse analysis is interpretive and explanatory
8. Discourse is a form of social action (p. 2).
van Dijk (2003)  explains  that  CDA  is  “a type of discourse analytical research that
primarily studies the way social power abuse, dominance, and inequality are enacted,
reproduced and resisted by text and talk in the social and political context.”

45

Therefore, critical discourse analysts work to understand, expose, and ultimately
resist issues such as power, dominance, hegemony, ideology, class, gender, race,
discrimination, interests, reproduction, institutions, social structures, and social order.
Implications for Present Study
The abovementioned studies demonstrate that we can learn something from
comparative or contrastive analysis of student responses. Those responses can be
choices (Clark and Clark), translational types of reading, or drawings (Kirkland &
Jackson). To trust this, we can also learn something from being among participants in
a situated setting: listening to conversations, observing them, and collecting material
that they have produced or responded to. We can learn something from a broad
series of analytic approaches about this data from critical to theoretical perspectives
on language such as discourse analysis and cultural textual analysis that appreciates
the cultural rhetorical work situated among groups of people.
Research Design
I designed this study in response to the negative language attitudes toward
AAL and Black identity that I observed among Black students while teaching and
researching in linguistically and culturally diverse classrooms. As discussed in
chapter 1, research shows that these negative attitudes present a barrier to academic
achievement  and  impede  AAL  speakers’  language,  literacy,  and  identity  development  
(Ball & Lardner, 2005; Cazden, 1999; Fogel & Ehri, 2006; Kirkland & Jackson, 2008).
Thus, I designed and implemented a curricular innovation or CLP in two urban high
school English classes to assess its impact on the students’  language  attitudes.  I
piloted the research design among eleventh grade students in 2011. The design has

46

since been modified to include pre and post attitudinal assessments, interviews, more
curricular materials, and a prolonged time frame.
Research Questions
In seeking to understand this phenomenon, I ground my research in the
following questions:
1. How do AAL-speaking students understand the role of AAL across multiple
contexts in their everyday lives?
2. How might a critical language pedagogical innovation transform how AALspeaking students understand the nature of their language in relation to
literacy and life?
Site Selection
The study took place at Leadership Academy3, an open enrollment, tuition-free
public charter high school located on the northwest side of Detroit. At the time of the
study, Leadership Academy had been open two years and served approximately 200
ninth and tenth grade students who commuted from all across Detroit and nearby
suburbs. 99% of the students were African American and 85% of that population
qualified for free and reduced lunch. The student/teacher ratio was 20:1, and there
was an extended school day (8am-4:30pm) and year (211.5  days)  with  six  “Super  
Saturday”  modules.  All  classes  were  60  minutes  long,  except  on  Thursdays.  
Thursdays were abbreviated days, so classes met for only 40 minutes.
Leadership Academy prides itself on offering leadership-focused education
that engages and inspires students to achieve at the rigorous level necessary to
I use pseudonyms for all names and locations to protect the identity of the
participants and the school.
3

47

ultimately graduate with a college degree and thrive in life. My analysis of the English
Language Arts curriculum indicated that the English courses were strongly influenced
by the common core standards. For language use, this meant that students had to
“demonstrate  command  of  the  conventions  of  standard  English  grammar  and  usage  
when  speaking  and  writing.”    
Admission to the School and Classroom
The first day that I observed English B and English G4, Mrs. Helen introduced
me to her students by saying:
Remember I told you all about Mrs. Baker-Bell?  She’s  here  from  Michigan  
State and will be working with us for a few months on a project about
language.  She’s  not  like  those  other  people—you  know  the  ones  that  I’m  
talking about. They come watch us and then we never see them again. Mrs.
Baker-Bell  is  not  like  that;;  she’s  good.
Mrs.  Helen  was  expressing  a  concern  that  I’ve  heard  time  and  time  again  from  urban  
teachers regarding researchers who  “hit  it  and  quit  it.”  That  is,  researchers  who  enter  
schools  and  classrooms  “as  a  stranger”,  collect  data,  and  bounce. Mrs. Helen
referencing  me  as  “good”  indicated  that  she  viewed  me  as  a  legit  researcher  who  was  
worthy of working with her students (Winn & Ubiles, 2011). Her confidence in me as a
researcher comes from her participation in one of my earlier studies that explored
teachers’  practices  and  approaches  to  language  diversity.  At  that  time,  Mrs.  Helen  
was using code-switching strategies—which she admitted did not work—to get her
students to translate from AAL to DAE. She viewed my dissertation project as a
4

I will refer to the all-boys class as English B and the all-girls class as English G
throughout this dissertation.
48

follow-up to that work and an opportunity to explore alternative ways of approaching
AAL in her practice.
Though Mrs. Helen welcomed me into her classroom with open arms, I still
reached out to the principal for final approval. The principal, excited about the project
because Mrs. Helen was excited about the project, approved it without hesitation.
Still, my ticket to admission was not bought. The students had to reach their own
conclusions about who I was separate from their principal and teacher. Sure enough,
they had their own way of determining my legitimacy. The students read me with
questions like:


You grew up in Detroit? Eastside or Westside?



What schools did you teach at?



What high school did you go to?



How old are you?



You got any kids?



What is this project about?



What you gone do with this stuff (data)?
In addition to being forthright in my answers to their questions, it was important

for me to reassure the students that their perspectives and knowledges are valuable
and  will  help  future  and  current  educators  better  support  Black  students’  language  
and literacy  practices.  I  found  myself  saying  things  like  “There  are  no  right  or wrong
answers”  and  “I’m  not  interested in WWYTS (What would your teacher say?), but
WWYS (What would you say?). It  wasn’t  enough  for  me  to  simply say this to the
students, it was important for me to enact it.

49

Participants
I worked with Black students in two ninth grade English classes from May 3 rd
to July 9th.. The classes were gender-based: English B consisted of 14 boys and
English G consisted of 11 girls. Out of the twenty-five students, I ended up only
working  with  eighteen  of  them.  I  was  unable  to  fully  assess  seven  of  the  students’  
experience with the CLP due to attendance-related problems that prevented them
from fully participating in the study.
Mrs. Helen identified her students as speakers of AAL based on the linguistic
patterns that she observed in their speech and writing. All of the students confirmed
this following activity one. The students understood that their participation was
voluntary, and they would not receive a grade for taking part in the study. As a small
token of appreciation, I donated $250 to help pay for a class set of Romeo & Juliet
books that Mrs. Helen had been raising money for. In addition to snacks that I
brought periodically, I provided focal students with $10 gift cards to their favorite
restaurant for what I considered to be going above and beyond participating (meeting
outside of school, during their lunch, returning their work via mail, responding to
emails, texts and so forth).
Out of the 18 who participated, I worked more closely with eight of them.
These focal participants were selected following my analyses of their pre-attitudinal
assessments. I include a brief description of each of them below along with an
explanation of why I invited them to be focal participants.
Chasse was very responsible and mature to be fourteen years of age. In one
conversation she informed me that before making it to school everyday, she had to

50

wake, prepare, and drop her younger siblings off at school. She never had time to
meet with me after school as she needed to make it home to look after her siblings
while her parents worked. Mrs. Helen mentioned that she was amazed at how well
Chasse did in school given her adult-like responsibilities. I selected Chasse to be a
focal participant because of the correlation she made between language and race on
her pre-attitudinal assessment.
Janel was outspoken, thought provoking, and witty. She self-identified as a
“robust  code-switcher.”	
  In other words, she was able to switch from speaking in AAL
to DAE (or vice versa) wit h ease. Janel shared interesting stories with me regarding
the push back she experienced when using both DAE and AAL in the contexts of
home, school, and church. I selected Janel to be a focal participant because she
indicated on her pre-attitudinal assessment that she was comfortable using AAL,
though she sometimes used DAE for survival.
Lola Long was quiet and inquisitive. She explained that her view of AAL was
highly influenced by how her parents treated it at home. That is, her parents would
discipline her if they overheard her using features of AAL. She later admitted that her
parents’  unfair  treatment  of  AAL  stemmed  from  the  discrimination  her  father  received  
upon entering the U.S. as a speaker of Trinidadian Creole. Her parents simply did not
want Lola and her siblings to face the same linguistic consequences. I selected Lola
to be a focal participant because her initial attitude toward AAL and Black identity was
extremely negative.
Crystal, a soft-spoken young woman, had recently moved to Detroit from Las
Vegas. Though she admitted to using AAL at school sometimes, she informed me

51

that it was unacceptable to use AAL at home. Crystal was asked to be a focal
participant because of her interpretation of her language practices in urban and
suburban spaces.
Allistar was  an  honor’s  student  who  was  a  member  of  the  school’s  basketball  
team. He was deemed a classroom leader by many of his peers. I selected Allistar to
be a focal participant because he was very critical of AAL and Black identity at the
same time of employing features of the language in his speech and writing.
Moreover, I noticed that the character he illustrated to represent his negative
perception of AAL ironically resembled him.
Fetti Bravo was also a member of the basketball team. I found him to be laidback and knowledgeable about AAL prior to the CLP. For example, he was the only
student in the beginning stages of the study to identify AAL as a distinct language in
its own right. I selected Fetti to be a focal participant because, unlike most of his
peers, his view of AAL was not negative on his pre-attitudinal assessment.
B.O.B. was selected to be a focal participant because of the comparisons he
made between speakers of AAL and speakers of DAE on his pre-attitudinal
assessment.  In  particular,  he  suggested  that  AAL  speakers  usually  “won’t  get  good  
grades”,  and  he  implied  that  DAE  speakers  “get  straight  As”  and  are    “book  smart.”.  
B.O.B appeared to be very interested in the project. He would occasionally make it to
class early to share interesting insights that he discovered about AAL. Following the
study, he frequently checked in with me via email to get updates on the project.
Lorenzo, a mature and candid young man, was selected to be a focal
participant because of his part in a follow-up discussion to the pre-attitudinal

52

assessment.  After  hearing  his  peers  refer  to  AAL  speakers  as  “bad”  and  “ghetto”,  
Lorenzo  interrupted  the  discussion  and  said  something  along  the  lines  of  “that’s  not  
always true because I speak  like  that,  and  that  doesn’t  necessarily  mean  that  I’m  bad  
or  ghetto.”  
Researcher’s  Role:
Early on, Mrs. Helen and the students understood my role to be co-teacher,
researcher, and participant. That all changed after Mrs. Helen suddenly learned that
a new team was hired to manage the school, and all of the staff had to reapply for
their positions. Though Mrs. Helen was committed to co-teaching and tried to as
much as she could, prepping job materials and preparing to be re-interviewed5
occupied most of her time. This, of course, impacted my position as participantobserver. For instance, my observation role came completely secondary to my
teacher role. This challenged me to be flexible. One necessary decision was to audiorecord all class sessions to capture some of the student interaction, conversations,
that I would ordinarily observe. I also ran into an unexpected moment related to
classroom discipline that challenged me to think about how to address discipline
issues as a researcher who is also the teacher.
I ran into many challenges with implementing this study including school
cancellation due to inclement weather and building problems, unexpected field trips,
and an unplanned district-wide writing assessment. Though these issues did not

Mrs. Helen, the principal, and many of the other teachers and administrators were
not rehired for the following school year.
5

53

interfere with data collection, they did interrupt how much time I had originally
planned on spending in the classroom.
Description of Curricular Innovation
The CLP was designed to develop the students’ critical awareness of AAL.
More specifically, I used problem-posing  activities  (Freire)  to  encourage  them  “to  
interrogate dominant notions of language and become active agents in their own
language  education”  (Baker-Bell, 2013, p. 358). The CLP lasted two weeks and
consisted of five lessons.
Lesson 1: The Historical, Cultural, and Political Underpinnings of AAL.
This lesson was intended to provide students with evidence about the historical,
cultural, and political underpinnings of AAL. The key activity for this lesson was A
Conversation about African American Language (AAL), which included an inquirybased worksheet specifically designed to engage students in three critical
conversations about AAL. As seen in figure 2 below, each conversation included two
or three characters that were designed to contribute a specific point of view to the
discussion.  For  example,  the  first  character  in  figure  2  questions:  “What  is  African  
American Language (AAL)? Is it incorrect, improper, or broken-English?  Is  it  slang?”  
This character represents the uniformed perspective of AAL typically held by the
general public and was initially held by the students in English B and English G. The
second character in the conversations was designed to counter or interrogate
dominant assumptions about languages by providing a historical, political, or cultural
perspective of AAL. Finally, the worksheet includes a blank section that provides

54

space for the students to contribute their ideas, thoughts, and perspectives to the
conversation.
Figure 2: Conversation 1 From A Conversation about AAL Activity

Lesson 2: Language, Identity, Culture, and Power. The second theme
encouraged students to interrogate received discourses surrounding language,
identity, power, and culture. For example, each activity prompted students to
question, examine, and reflect on issues pertaining to identity, power, and culture
based on their everyday experiences with language. The first activity for this lesson
invited the students to explore the relationship between language and identity by
viewing drawings created by students from the pilot study (see figure 3). Immediately

55

after this activity, I opened up a discussion with the students regarding what
assumptions can be made based on the drawings. The second activity entailed the
students  reading  Smitherman’s  (1999)  scholarly  article  Ebonics, King, and Oakland:
Some  Folks  Don’t  Believe  Fat  Meat  is  Greasy and participating in a discussion about
the intersection of language and culture. The article was intended to provide students
with an understanding of the role culture plays in language. Following this, we had a
class discussion about what they learned from the article. The final activity (see figure
4) for this theme asked the students to examine the ideology grounding code
switching, specifically the discourse surrounding AAL in formal and informal settings
(Wheeler & Swords, 2006) through the lenses of identity, power, and culture. This
activity prompted to discuss how DAE can me empowered and DAE can be
disempowered in formal and informal settings.

56

Figure 3: Student Drawing

Figure 4: Language, Identity, Power, and Culture Activity

57

Lesson 3: AAL Features and Examples. Under this lesson, the students
were  exposed  to  some  of  AAL’s  grammatical features, rhetorical features,
vocabulary, and phrases. For the second aspect of this lesson, the students analyzed
features of AAL used in an interview by Detroit-native hip-hop artist, Big Sean. After
culling features of AAL from the interview, the students were challenged with
translating the interview in DAE. This activity helped students to understand that
there are some features of AAL that cannot be explained in DAE. The students then
engaged in a conversation regarding their experiences translating the interview from
AAL to DAE as well as discuss the significance of AAL in that context.

58

Figure 5: African American Language Features and Examples

59

Figure 6: Interview with Big Sean

Lesson 4: Linguistic Profiling and Linguistic Discrimination. Lesson four
was designed to make the students aware of how language has been used to profile
and discriminate against linguistically and culturally diverse groups. The first activity
under this lesson was an online test that evaluated the students’  linguistic profiling

60

abilities6 (see figures 7 and 8). More specifically, the test asked the students to listen
to  a  short  piece  of  audio  and  describe  the  person’s  race  or  ethnicity  based  on  the  
speech they heard. The test informs you whether your description was correct or
incorrect. Instead of working individually on this activity, the class completed the
activity as a group. For the second activity, the students viewed three YouTube video
clips: 1) a 20/20 special on African Americans who were denied housing as a result of
sounding black; 2) a public service announcement from HUD (US Department of
Housing and Urban Development), and (3) a clip of a documentary of the Ann Arbor
Black English Case. These clips ignited a rich discussion about social inequality
associated with linguistic profiling and linguistic discrimination.
Figure 7: Linguistic Profiling Activity Instructions

6

The  test  was  featured  on  ABC’s  20/20  program.  
61

Figure 8: Linguistic Profiling Activity

Lesson 5: AAL in Everyday Life and Linguistic Celebration. One of the
activities under this lesson asked the students to examine their own language
practices from their actual lived experiences (Alim, 2007). To do this, the students
were challenged with documenting their communication behavior for one weekend. In
addition to providing the students an opportunity to reflect on how they use AAL in
their everyday lives, I wanted to conclude the CLP by showing the students examples
of Blacks who embrace AAL. For this activity, the students watched and discussed
spoken word artist, Jamila Lyiscott, perform  her  poem  “Broken  English” (Figure 9 and
Figure 10)

62

Figure 9: Broken English Poem by Jamila Lyiscott (page 1)

63

Figure 10: Broken English Poem by Jamila Lyiscott (page 2)

Data and Data Collection:
In the following section, I include a detailed description of each data source
that I used throughout the study.

64

Attitudinal Assessment: I used the attitudinal assessment (pre and post) to
examine the impact of the curricular innovation on the students’ language attitudes
(see figure 11). Inspired by the assessment tool used in Kirkland and Jackson’s  
(2008) study, I asked the students to read two language samples (Language A and
Language B)7, draw a cartoon to represent each sample, and write a paragraph that
expresses their feelings about the language and its speakers. The use of drawings
are important because they provide the students a way to articulate their view of
language in ways that they may not be able to via spoken or written language. I
administered the attitudinal assessment before, immediately after, and again 3-7
weeks after the CLP had concluded. As a pre-test, the attitudinal assessment gave
me as sense of the students’ initial attitudes toward AAL. The post-test gave me
insight into the impact of the CLP on the students’  language attitudes. The purpose of
administering the attitudinal assessment 3-7 weeks later was to determine if the
students’  attitudes  were  sustained.  

Language A represented AAL, and Language B represented DAE. The students
were not informed of this during the pre-assessment.
7

65

Figure 11: Pre-Attitudinal Assessment (page 1)

Interviews: Before the study began, I conducted three preliminary interviews
with Mrs. Helen to learn more about the context, the students, and language
instruction. I interviewed her once again after the study concluded. I also conducted
interviews with each of the focal participants after they completed the pre and post
attitudinal assessment. A semi-structured interview protocol (see appendix c) was
used to elicit information pertaining to the students’ language attitudes and follow-up
on the nuances in their responses to the attitudinal assessments. The interviews
were audio recorded and lasted between 5-18 minutes. Interviews were conducted at
a  table  in  the  corner  of  the  hallway  or  in  the  teachers’  lounge. Both locations were

66

empty when the interviews took place, which prevented disruptions and afforded
privacy for the students to share their realities. Focal and non-focal students were
informally interviewed following the attitudinal assessment that was disseminated 3-7
weeks after the CLP concluded. These questions were not preplanned; instead, they
evolved  in  response  to  the  participants’  overall  experiences.      
Immediately after the interviews were conducted, I sent most of the audiorecordings to GMR transcription services to be transcribed. The transcripts were
returned within 3-5 days, which made it possible for me to analyze my data sooner. I
proofread each transcript by listening to the recorded interviews and reading the
transcripts at the same time. I had to make changes to some of the transcripts when
features of AAL were inaccurately transcribed to represent features of DAE.
Written Artifacts: Each participant produced written artifacts as a result of the
various activities they participated in. I analyzed the students’  written  responses  to  
five of the activities they completed during the implementation of the CLP, including A
conversation about African American Language, Language, Identity, Power, and
Culture, African American Language in Your Everyday Life, African American
Language Writing Prompts, and An Ethnography Language in Your Everyday Life.
The written artifacts helped me identify the impact the CLP had on the participants’
language attitudes as well as capture the moment when their attitude seemed to have
shifted.
Audio Recordings: The students also participated in activities during the
curricula experience that required oral responses as in the case of discussions and
group activities. For example, during the linguistic profiling/linguistic discrimination

67

lesson, the entire class worked together to complete a linguistic profiling quiz. The
audio recording captured these moments in ways that field notes would not have
been able to.
Observations: I engaged in multiple observations throughout the course of the
study. In the first four weeks, my observations focused on the following: the setting
(school and classroom), the interactions between teacher/student,  the  students’  
interactions with each other, and language use and reaction. During the CLP, my
observations focused on how the students responded to the activities. Immediately
after the CLP concluded, my observations focused on the students’ responses to the
post-attitudinal assessment. These observations were documented in a notebook that
I  titled  “field  notes.”  Before  the  classes  started,  I  sectioned  off  two  areas  of  the  
notebook—I labeled one section English B and the other English G. I dated both
sections and wrote down the times that I met with each class.
Research Memos: I wrote or recorded research memos after meeting with
both classes each day. The memos helped me to capture my personal thoughts such
as my speculations, feelings, challenges, ideas, hunches, and impressions (Creswell,
2011). These memos assisted me with refining lessons, think through issues that
threatened the research design, and critique my role as researcher, participant, and
facilitator.
Data Collection: The table below provides an overview of my data collection
procedures. I include a description of each phase on the following table.

68

Table 1: Data Collection Procedures
Phase

Length of Phase

Data Collected

Before CLP 8

4 Weeks





Observations
Pre-Attitudinal
Assessment
Pre-Interviews

Implementation of CLP

2 Weeks




Student Artifacts
Observations

Immediately after CLP

2-3 days



Post-Attitudinal
Assessment
Post-Interviews
Observations




Weeks after CLP

Beyond

3- 7 Weeks



Post 1- Attitudinal
Assessment
Informal Interviews




Email Exchanges
Text Exchanges



Intermittently

Phase 1: Before the implementation of the CLP, I observed each class two to
three days per week for four weeks. I also administered the attitudinal assessment in
addition to selecting and interviewing focal participants during this phase.
Phase 2: During the implementation of the CLP, I spent everyday in both
classes for two weeks. I collected student artifacts, observations and wrote reflective
and descriptive notes.

69

Phase 3: The Monday after the CLP ended, I returned to both classes for two
to three days to administer the attitudinal assessment, interview focal participants,
and observe.
Phase 4: I continued to visit both classes for one to two days per week for
three weeks. During these visits, I had informal interviews with focal and non-focal
participants. I also administered the attitudinal assessment for the third time to a
small group9. Most of the focal participants who were absent returned their
assessments via U.S. postal mail 4-7 weeks later.
Phase 5: I remained in contact with many of the focal participants throughout
the summer. We used text messages and/or emails to check on one another. Most of
our conversations were about what they were up to and what I was up to. I am still in
communication with B.O.B., who drops me a line every now and again to get updates
about the study or to inform me about his progress in school.
Data Analysis
My central units of analysis for this study were linguistic, attitudinal, and
performance development. A linguistic analysis of AAL in the students’ speech and
writing helped me confirm the students’  linguistic practices with regard to RQ1.
Attitudinal units of analysis were necessary in helping me make sense of what the
students’  language attitudes were before and after the CLP. Finally, performance
development as a unit of analysis helped me to track variation in the students’
attitudes across the activities. The attitudinal and performance development units of
analyses were useful in addressing RQ2. The table below provides a description of
Attendance issues and end of the year procedures interfered with all of the students
completing the attitudinal assessment at this stage.
9

70

the analytical frameworks I used to answer each research question. This is followed
by my procedures for data analysis.
Table 2: Description of Analytical Frameworks
Research
Questions
1

2

Data

Data Collection

Transcripts
Field notes
Written Artifacts



Transcripts
Field Notes
Written Artifacts











Data Analysis

Pre-Attitudinal
Assessment
Interviews
Student Work
Observations



Linguistic
Analysis

Interviews
Attitudinal
Assessments
Written Work
Audio Recordings



Discourse
Analysis
Visual Discourse
Analysis
Critical Discourse
Analysis
Comparative
Analysis





Procedure:
Step 1. Organized and Prepared Data for Analysis: I began this process by
separating the data that I collected from both classes10. I then sorted the data in the
chronological order in which they were collected. Next, I placed the data into colored
hanging file folders based on its source. For example, attitudinal assessments were
placed in blue folders and separated by pre, post, and 3-7 weeks post. Interview data
was placed in red folders and separated by pre and post. Written artifacts were
placed in green folders and separated by activity, and finally, field notes were placed
in yellow folders and separated by date. The hanging file folders were then stored in
a black portable file box. Audio-recordings  were  labeled  by  the  activity  or  participant’s  
I followed the remaining steps for the data that I collected from both English B and
English G.
10

71

name, date, and time. These files were then uploaded to dropbox. I also kept an
electronic version of transcriptions in a file folder on my desktop, and field notes were
typed and stored into my private wordpress account.
Step 2. General Understanding of Data: To obtain a general sense of the
study’s  overall  meaning,  I  read  through  all  the  data  multiple  times  with  my  research  
questions in mind. From my loose analysis of the data, I reported two initial findings:
(1) there was evidence that the students used AAL in and out of school contexts, and
(2) negative and positive attitudes toward AAL persisted throughout the study. At this
level of analysis I identified the students’ attitudes as negative or positive based on
findings from the pilot study.
Step 3. Data Reduction and Coding: For RQ1, I went through all the data and
underlined passages where the students discussed their experiences with AAL
across various contexts. I noted that the consequences the students associated with
using or not using AAL or DAE in these contexts.
Based on my initial finding for RQ2, I organized the data (see table 4) into two
segments: negative attitudes and positive attitudes. I then used these segments to
code the data. For example, I used a green highlighter to code negative attitudes,
and a yellow highlighter to code positive attitudes. It was during this process that I
realized I had not accounted for those students whose attitudes toward AAL were
neither negative nor positive. I labeled this code neutral. Next, I copy/pasted or typed
descriptions from the data that aligned with each category into a spreadsheet. As I
sorted the data into the three categories, two additional topics emerged. I coded and
categorized them as linguistic push-pull and attitudinal shift. Linguistic push-pull

72

represented those students who embraced AAL and resisted it at the same time.
Attitudinal shift indicated when there was variation in the students’ language attitudes
(e.g. from positive to negative). I then added these new categories to the spreadsheet
and organized data around them. Before finalizing categories, I took a deeper look at
the data descriptions that I coded. This examination revealed an important distinction
in the students’  attitudes. That is, the data indicated that the students not only held
attitudes toward AAL (the language itself), but also Black identity (including Black
cultural practices and fashions). From this discovery, I developed new codes and
categories and resorted and recoded the data. Since I was using Microsoft Excel to
code the data, I found it much more useful to use a color code versus a word code.
My final selective categories and codes are shown in the chart below.
Table 3: Coding Categories
Categories
Codes

Attitudes Toward
Language
Positive Attitude
Negative Attitude
Linguistic Push-Pull
Attitudinal Shift

Attitudes Toward Identity
Positive Attitude/ Identity
Negative Attitude/ Identity
Positive Attitude/ Image
Negative Attitude/ Image
Negative Attitude/ Behavior

When writing up the findings to this study, I decided that positive, negative, and
linguistic push-pull did not fully describe the students’ attitudes toward AAL. In the
end, I used linguistic affirmation in place of positive; linguistic resistance in place of
negative, and linguistic ambivalence in place of linguistic push-pull.
Step 4. Displaying Data: Following the coding process, I created and filled out
various data summary tables and matrices to make sense of how the data answered

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my research questions. For RQ1, I created a summary table to compile what the
students said about how AAL works in their everyday life. For RQ2, I created a
summary  table  that  tracked  each  of  the  participants’  language  attitudes  across  all  of
the assignments they completed as a way of assessing the impact of the curricular
innovation.  For  this  summary  table,  I  listed  each  participant’s  name  down  the  vertical  
axis of the spreadsheet, and I listed a description of each activity (including attitudinal
assessments, interviews, and field notes) along the horizontal  axis.  The  participants’
response to each activity was then recorded in each column. In this way, this
summary table helped me track how the students’ language attitude changed over
time.
Step 5. Applying Analytical Frames: For this level of analysis, I asked
questions of the data that were foregrounded in a variety of analytical frames. I
describe the frameworks that I used to analyze the data below.
Linguistic Analysis: With regard to RQ1, I performed a linguistic analysis of
AAL  on  the  participants’  spoken  and  written  language  to  confirm  their  linguistic  
identities.
Attitudinal Analysis:  to  strengthen  my  analysis  of  the  students’  attitudes,  I  used  
Fanon, Gramsci’s, and Wiley’s notion of linguistic hegemony to corroborate their
language attitudes. In particular, I checked the attitudes that I coded negative to see if
they confirmed linguistic hegemony, and for the attitudes that I coded positive, I
checked to see if they disconfirmed linguistic hegemony.
Visual Discourse Analysis (VDA) is a method for studying visual language that
identifies how certain social activities and social identities get played out. In this

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study, I used VDA to help me make sense of the discourses that emerged within the
students’ drawings with regard to language and the macro and micro conversations
underpinning them (Albers, 2013). Together with the written text that accompanied
the drawings, I was able to confirm the students’  language attitudes and how they
changed over time.
Discourse and Critical Discourse Analysis: I used discourse analysis to
confirm and disconfirm the students’  language attitudes toward AAL. I specifically
applied  Gee’s  (2011)  situated  meaning  and  fill  in  tools  to  words  and  phrases  that  the  
students commonly used to depict AAL. The situated meaning tool forced me to
move beyond the normal and routine range of meaning of words and phrases, and
the fill in tool helped me to understand what a listener would need to know, assume,
and infer to understand the words and phrases. I also used Critical Discourse
Analysis to make sense of how the students acquiesced to linguistic hegemony.
Comparative Analysis: I did a comparative analysis of the data to arrive at
conclusions for RQ2. First, as another way of confirming and disconfirming the
students’  language attitudes, I compared how they responded to the AAL language
sample in relation to the DAE language sample on the attitudinal assessments.
Second, to determine the impact the CLP had on the students’ language attitudes, I
compared their before and after attitudinal assessments and interviews.
Step 5. Member Checks and Triangulating: Before drawing conclusions about
the study, I triangulated different data sources and compared them to the feedback
that I received from member checks. I was able to engage in member checks during
my post interviews (both immediately after the CLP ended and 3-7 weeks later) by

75

asking the students if they felt their attitudes toward AAL had changed. I also asked
them to point to and discuss specific activities from the CLP (or sources unrelated to
the CLP) that they believed contributed to this change. I then compared my findings
along  with  feedback  from  member  checks  to  the  focal  participants’  attitudinal  
assessments, interviews, and written work to triangulate my findings.
Conclusion
This chapter provided a detailed description of the study’s  research  
methodology. I employed critical qualitative methods to understand how the youth
understood AAL across multiple contexts. An experimental curriculum was designed
and implemented to see if it could positively impact the  students’  negative  language
attitudes. Data collection methods included attitudinal assessments (pre and post),
interviews (pre and post), written artifacts, observations, and research memos. To
identify variation in the youth’s  attitudes,  I  collected  some  of  the  data in the following
time-sequenced process: two weeks before, immediately after, and again three to
seven weeks after the CLP was implemented. I analyzed the data using multiple
analytical frameworks, including discourse analysis and critical discourse analysis.
From here, I drew final conclusions in which I discuss in chapters 4, 5, and 6.

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CHAPTER 3
“EBONICALLY  SPEAKING”:
Students’  Understanding  of  the  Role  of  AAL  in  their  Everyday  Lives
“Classrooms  should  be  more  responsive  to  students’  languages  and  identities  by  
listening  to  their  social,  cultural,  and…community  lives.”  
--Valerie Kinloch, To Not Be a Traitor of Black English
Allistar:
“[Without  AAL],  I  wouldn’t  be  able  to  communicate  with some of the people
around  me.  Some  people,  that’s  the  only  language  they  know  mainly.  So  it  
would  like  cut  me  off  from  them.  If  you  can’t  understand  each  other,  you  can’t  
really  speak.”  
Janel:
“My  everyday  life  would (emphasis hers) be impacted if I stopped speaking in
AAL  because  all  my  friends  &  family  would  say  “Oh,  you  tryna  talk  all  proper,  
nah?”  and  my  friends  would  barely  understand  me.”  
Chasse:
“…that’s  how  I  talk  &  it  is  so  hard  to  speak  any  other  way  because  I’ve  talked  
like this my whole life.”  
The above quotations are telling of the invaluable role that AAL played in the
everyday lives of the students at Leadership Academy. For Allistar, Janel, and
Chasse, AAL is intimately connected with loved ones, community, and personal
identity (Delpit, 1995; Smitherman, 2006). In this sense, the absence of AAL would
interfere with the students sustaining and building connections within their homes and
communities (Boutte & Johnson, 2013). The goal of this chapter is to reveal how the
students in English  B  (the  boys’  class)  and  English  G  (the  girls’  class)  made sense of

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the role AAL played in their everyday lives. In particular, I shed light on the ways they
understood AAL to work across various contexts (i.e. home, community, school).
“I  Didn’t  Know  That  It  Had  Rules”:  Speaking  Ebonics
Within moments of observing both English B and English G for the very first
time, it was clear that AAL played a major role in the students’ lives. The boys, who
entered the classroom wearing navy blue vests, white shirts, light-khaki colored dress
pants, a black belt, and black dress shoes were  using  features  of  AAL  (e.g.  “this  ain’t  
no…”,  “What  is you talking  about?”,  “I’m  not  gone talk when you talk!”)    to  debate  
about whether Lebron James would win the 2013 NBA Finals MVP Award. Though
the  boys’  uniforms  followed  the  school’s  dress  code  to  a  tee,  their  Ebonics11 violated
what some of their teachers would deem the language of school. A class period later,
the girls entered the room in a similar fashion; that is, they wore uniforms that were in
line  with  the  school’s  expectations,  but  they  were  speaking  a  language  that  was  not.  
Janel and Lola Long, for example, entered the classroom using features of AAL in a
brief exchange about Janel wearing  her  younger  brother’s  clothes:  
Janel: I be wearing his basketball shorts and stuff.
Lola Long: That’s  ghetto!
Janel: I  don’t  care.  
All of the students self-identified12 as members of the AAL speech community.
I also corroborated this by examining their interviews and written work for lexical,
grammatical, and rhetorical features of AAL. During my initial interview with B.O.B, for
11

I use African American Language (AAL) and Ebonics interchangeably throughout this chapter.
I directly asked my focal participants during their interviews if they used AAL and or DAE. All of the focal
participants admitted to using both AAL and DAE in their everyday lives. Non focal-participants indirectly identified
themselves as users of AAL during their engagement with one of the later activities. For instance, on a writing
prompt,  Dela  wrote,  “At  home  I  most  definitely  feel  comfortable  because  I  grew  up  speaking  African  American  
Language.”  
12

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instance, he used grammatical and lexical features of AAL to explain a drawing that
he created to represent someone who speaks AAL.  B.O.B.  explained,  “All  the  people  
that I see that’s  on the streets be talking that way...”  In  this  exchange,  B.O.B  used  the
grammatical feature regularized agreement when  he  says  “all  the  people that I see
that’s” (vs. all the people that I see that are). Regularized agreement permits subjects
and verbs to agree in AAL that would be deemed grammatically incorrect in DAE
(e.g. They was outside playing). In other words, the subject-verb agreement
grammatical feature that is available in DAE is non-existent in AAL. To be clear, this
does not imply that there are no subject-verb rules in AAL. For example, while it is
grammatical  in  AAL  to  say  “It  don’t matter”,  “You is silly,”  or  “She have to  go”,  it  is  
ungrammatical  to  say  “I  has  a  dream” or  “They  has  to  pick  up  their  school  books.”  I  
clarify  this  because  AAL  has  often  been  characterized  as  a  “lazy  language”;;  however,  
like all languages, AAL is systematic, rule-governed and deep-rooted (Rickford,
1997).
B.O.B. also uses the lexical item streets in his comment to explain a person
who  “skips  school”  and  “talk  with  slang.”  The  word  streets  is  a  versatile  term  in  AAL  
that serves many purposes (Smitherman, 2006). For instance, B.O.B uses streets to
describe  a  person’s  actions  (i.e.  skips  school;;  talks  with  slang),  whereas  Dee  Dee  
uses  the  term  to  describe  a  place  where  “African  American  boys  [speak]  AAL”  and  
“smoke  marijuana.”  Crystal,  on  the  other  hand,  uses the word streets to explain a
lifestyle—a way of speaking, dressing, and treating self and others—when she states,
“My drawing is about an African American teen who talks street and wears his pants
on  his  knees.  He  doesn’t  talk  respectful  to  his  friends or his self.”

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Like many terms in AAL, streets is a word that appears intelligible in DAE;
however, the semantic, linguistic, and social rules for using the term in AAL can be
totally different (Smitherman, 2006). This is important to note because it brings
attention to a critical issue that scholars who advocate code-switching13 and
contrastive analysis 14 approaches to language instruction fail to address (Delpit,
1992; Delpit & Dowdy, 2002; Wheeler & Swords, 2006). That is, these approaches
are based on the premise that AAL can be easily translated into DAE; however, there
are some parts of AAL that are untranslatable or cannot be properly explained in
DAE. This critique makes evident that code-switching and contrastive analysis
approaches are a response to the technical differences between AAL and DAE, but
they do not attend to the semantic and social differences (Kirkland & Jackson, 2008)
nor does it address the cultural friction speakers of AAL experience when trying to
move between two worlds (Soliday, 2002).
Another trait of AAL that B.O.B. uses in his response is the verbal marker,
habitual be (i.e.  “All  the  people…be talking that way). Speakers of AAL use this
feature when describing a recurring or habitual event, state or activity (Rickford,
1997).  Thus,  B.O.B.’s  use  of  be incorporates past, present, and future activity
simultaneously to convey the meaning that the people he has observed in the streets
usually use AAL to communicate. This feature is one of the most described structures
of  AAL  (Wolfram,  2006),  and  it  has  been  dubbed  the  language’s  “showcase  variable”  

An approach concerned with getting users of AAL to develop facility in DAE by
restricting AAL to informal contexts and DAE to formal contexts (Canagarajah,
2006; Wheeler & Swords, 2006).
14
An  approach  that  draws  students’  attention  to  the  differences  between  AAL  and  
DAE to teach the latter (Rickford, 1999).
13

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(Smitherman, 2006) because it distinguishes AAL from other varieties of English
(Alim & Smitherman, 2012).
Allistar also uses the habitual be feature while describing his college-aged
brother’s  ability  to  code-switch between AAL and DAE in various settings: “But when
he around his friends, like we all be outside  and  talking,  he’ll  talk  like  that.  But  if  he
around certain people, he don’t.” Allistar’s  use  of  be helps him to explain how he, his
brother, and their friends talk whenever they are outside together. He also adheres
to grammatical rules of AAL when he uses the regularized agreement feature to
explain  instances  when  his  brother  makes  a  conscious  decision  not  to  use  AAL  (“if he
around certain people, he don’t”). Another salient grammatical trait of AAL that is
present in Allistar’s  statement  is  the  optional S15 feature (e.g. “When he_ around his
friends”  for  “When  he  is around  his  friends”  and   “But if he_ around certain people”  
for  “But  if  he  is around  certain  people”).  The  optional  S refers to is, are, and other
forms of the verb to be (Alim & Smitherman, 2012), and it is not required in the
African American Language system. Basically, the optional S feature allows Allistar to
communicate  “without  using  so  many  words”,  as  his classmate, Fetti Bravo, puts it.
Identically,  Janel  confirms  that  “[AAL  is]  easier.  It’s  not  like  I  gotta pronounce all [of
this and] pronounce all of that. I just say what I feel like  saying.”  Similar  to  Alim  and
Smitherman’s  thinking  (2012),  Fetti  and  Janel’s  responses  suggest  that  the  optional S
feature (like many other features of AAL) provides speakers a more concise and
efficient way of communicating.

Often referred to as zero copula or copula absence. I use the term optional S to
refer to this feature in an effort to move away from using deficit language to describe
AAL.
15

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Like B.O.B and Allistar, Janel also uses distinctive features of AAL during my
initial interview with her. At one moment in our conversation, Janel shares a story
about how a group of African American women at her church viewed her as ghetto
and  unintelligent  because  of  her  use  of  AAL:  “…they was like all from 21 Mile and
they was all like yeah, she ghetto…she  don’t  know  nothing.”  Albeit  brief,  Janel’s  
statement encapsulates many features of AAL including regularized agreement (they
was) and the lexical item, ghetto. Ghetto, in this context, bears particular meaning in
African American communities. It describes more than a disadvantaged area of the
inner city where Blacks reside as previously defined by Smitherman (1994, 2000).
Janel’s  use  of  ghetto  illustrates  how  the  term  has  evolved  over  time  and  is  now  
commonly  used  to  describe  a  person’s  behavior,  style  of  dress,  language,  values,  
and so forth in  a  negative  or  positive  manner  (e.g.    “I  thought  it  was  just  ghetto  
speaking  and  slang”;;  “I  learned  that  people  who  speak  AAL  are  not  ruled  out  as  
ghetto”;;  “Not  all  people  who  use  AAL  are  ghetto  and  dumb”;;  “My  uncle  told  me  not  to  
act like that because that’s  just  plain  rude  and  ghetto”).  Given  this  meaning,  when  the  
women  at  Janel’s  church  called  her  ghetto,  they  did  not  mean  that  she  lived  in  the  
ghetto; instead, they were offensively suggesting that her way of speaking or
behaving was ghetto.
Janel also uses multiple negation,  as  in  “she don’t  know  nothing”,  to  explain  
how the women at church degraded her for using AAL. The multiple negation feature
is marked by its presence of negation at more than one point in a sentence (Fought,
2006). Often mistaken as an ungrammatical double negative in DAE, multiple
negation is permitted, grammatically correct, and necessary in AAL. Janel also uses

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the signifyin feature when she states that the women at her church are “from  21  Mile”,  
which is a road located in a suburb far away from the inner city. Signifyin is a mode of
discourse that has a double meaning and can be used to provide playful commentary
or a serious social critique (Smitherman, 2006). In this way, Janel was not only using
“21  Mile”  to  explain  the  location where these church women resided, but she was
also implying that they were boojee or uppity-acting.
As seen in table 4, I highlight additional examples of AAL used by other
students during interviews or on written assignments. I provide these few examples
out of several to demonstrate the students’ verbal skills and high level of
sophistication with using AAL.
Table 4: Examples of Student Uses of AAL
Students

Features

Examples

Mob Boy Rell

Optional S

…I  picked  Ida  for  the  
second because she_ so
nice and calm and she is
civilized.

Crystal

Chasse

The Pope

Sound Patterns
Have pronounced as haf

Well most of the time it

Intensive Habitual
Progressive

You steady be talking

Third  Person  “s”

This is my cousin

doesn’t  haf to be true.
when I say stop talking.
because she talk_ like
this all the time and
always saying her
grammar all wrong.

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This above section displayed and explained features of AAL that some of the
students at Leadership Academy most commonly used. I also showed how these
features contrast with features of DAE. In the next section, I write about how the
students initially viewed AAL as slang and how they responded upon learning about
its grammatical, rhetorical, historical, political, and cultural features.
“Before,  I  Thought  It  Was  Just  Slang”:  Slang v. AAL
Though the students eventually described AAL as essential to their every day
lives and self-identified as members of the AAL speech community, this was not the
case at the onset of the CLP. The students initially dismissed16 AAL  as  a  “real”  
language and casually referred to it as slang, street, hood, and so on. Although I will
work through how these terms represented the students’ negative attitudes toward
AAL in later chapters, I take time to briefly discuss how their perceptions of AAL as
slang stifled their understanding of the role the language played in their day-to-day
lives. In the course of introducing the first lesson to the students, I learned that all
except one student had ever heard of the terminology African American Language,
Ebonics, or Black English to describe their way of speaking. For instance, when I
asked both classes if they could identify the language listed under Language A
(which was representative of AAL) on the pre-activity worksheet, the students in
English G unanimously  blurted  out  “slang”,  and  after  a  few  moments  of  silence  in  
English B, one student, Fetti Bravo, raised  his  hand  and  replied,    “Ebonics.” The
students’  overall  responses  mirror  how  AAL  is  often  and  unfairly  treated  “as  the  
dumping  ground  for  slang”  (Kinloch,  2010,  p.  124).  The students did not understand
that slang represents the new and short-lived vocabulary of a language (e.g. chillin,
16

The  youth’s  initial  attitudes  toward  AAL  will  be  fully  discussed  in  the  chapter 5.

84

homey, off the chain, jive turkey), whereas AAL refers to words (like ashy), distinctive
patterns of pronunciation (thank instead of think; sang instead of sing), and grammar
(we is instead of we are) that are more systematic, deeply rooted, and stable over
time (Green, 2004; Rickford, 1997). As I explained to the students in English B and
G, slang can go out of style, but a language stands the test of time. In this way, slang
only represents the vocabulary of a language, and languages not only include
vocabulary but also distinctive patterns of pronunciation and grammar. (Rickford,
1997).
Because the students viewed AAL as mere vocabulary during the initial stages
of the CLP, almost all of them indicated that they only used AAL among their friends,
and they found it disrespectful to use it around their parents. For example, during my
interviews with focal participants, Lola Long, Crystal, and Fetti Bravo, Lola explained:
“…I speak  [AAL]  with  my  friends  and  [DAE]  respectful  like  with  my  parents...”  Crystal  
echoes  this  when  she  states,  “I  would  say  [I use AAL] maybe sometimes around my
peers.  But  most  of  the  time  I  speak  [DAE].  I  wouldn’t  talk  like  this  [AAL]  around  my  
mom…because  that’s  disrespectful.”  Like  Lola  Long  and  Crystal,  Fetti  Bravo  
explains, “[AAL  is]  the  way  I  just  talk  around  my  friends  and  stuff...”  I was curious
about the students’  understanding of AAL. More specifically, I wanted to know why
they labeled it disrespectful and were claiming to only use it among friends, especially
since I noticed that they were employing features of AAL during their interviews with
me.
To make sense of what the students understood to be representative of AAL, I
asked them to look at the language sample for AAL listed on the pre-activity sheet

85

and  point  to  “which  words  wouldn’t  be  acceptable  to  use  with  your  parents?”  Lola  
Long  stated,  “I  would  never  say  trippin’. Similarly, Allistar pointed to the words
“Trippin’ and dime piece.”  Likewise, in a conversation about how he uses language
and  where,  Lorenzo  explained,  “You  don’t  want  to  go  up  in  no  interview  just,  you  
know, just saying,  ‘What’s  up?’”  As seen with Lola, Allistar, and Lorenzo, many of the
other students immediately zeroed in on the slang expressions versus the
grammatical or rhetorical features of AAL when pointing out what they found to be
unacceptable about the language. The students’ false impression of AAL being the
equivalent to slang helps explain why they may have labeled it disrespectful and
designated it as a language that they use primarily among friends.
The students’ understanding of AAL eventually expanded beyond slang once
they learned of the grammatical, rhetorical, historical, political, and cultural features of
AAL (more on this in chapter 5). For example, many of the students were able to
describe AAL as a language not only important among friends, but also in their home,
school, and community contexts. Allistar confirms this in a post-interview: “Because  
at first, I thought African American Language was like the slang we use. They [his
parents]  don’t  like  that,  but  they  use  the  real  African  American  Language.”  In  other  
words, Allistar now understands that AAL consists of more than just slang features,
and while his parents do not use the slang features, they use other features.
According to Alim and Smitherman (2012), Black slang is often viewed as the
sole representation of AAL because many of the other features are not widely known
outside of the Black community. At the same time, the students I worked with at
Leadership Academy, albeit using non-slang features of AAL in their speech, could

86

only point to its slang characteristics when asked to identify representations of the
language. This indicates that, just like the general public, some speakers within the
Black community conflate slang and AAL because they too are unfamiliar with the
many features of their own language.
From this section, we saw how students initially conflated AAL with slang and
how this confusion interfered with their understanding of the role AAL played across
various contexts in their everyday lives. I also distinguished the difference between
language and slang, specifically highlighting examples of AAL and Black slang.
Finally, I demonstrated how the students understood AAL to work across various
contexts after learning that the language consisted of more than just slang. Next, I
illustrate how the students identified AAL as a linguistic resource.
AAL: A Linguistic Resource
By the close of the CLP, the majority of the students identified AAL as the
primary language that they used across various settings in their everyday lives. In
fact, as I previously highlighted and will show in this section, AAL functioned as a
linguistic resource in the students’ home, school, and community lives. This idea of
linguistic  resource  is  most  easily  understood  in  the  context  of  Smitherman’s  “theory  of  
reality”:  
Language…  represents  a  people’s  theory  of  reality;;  it  explains,  interprets,  
constructs, and reproduces that reality. Thus, the repair of the linguistically
maimed  psyche  of  Blacks  requires  a  reappropriation  of  one’s  culture,  which  
also includes language (1998, p. 100).

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In essence, AAL was a vehicle for the students to define, control, and make sense of
their realities. Without this, the students are left to articulate a world that is not
representative of their own.
In the context of home, many of the students described AAL as an intimate
language that connects them with their family. I received numerous responses that
mirror the following remarks made by some of the focal participants. On one of the
final  activities,  Fetti  Bravo  wrote  “I  talk  to  my  parents  in  AAL  because  it’s  how they
speak.”  Likewise, Chaise, who previously stated that she is most comfortable
communicating  in  AAL,  wrote,  “My  mother  uses  AAL,  so  it’s  like,  if  I  don’t  talk  like  I  
usually  talk  [AAL],  no  one  would  understand.”  Mob Boy Rell writes that he is most
comfortable using AAL in the context of  home  because  “that’s  where  [he] picked the
language  up  from.”  Janel  explains,  “If  I’m  with  my  daddy,  he  be  talkin  the  same  way  
with  me.  He  be  like,  girl  come  on  and  dah,  dah,  dah.”  Likewise,  after learning that
AAL was indeed a language and not just slang, Lola admits that she uses AAL with
her  family.  She  explains,  “I  use  AAL  with  my  family  sometimes…[I]  learned  it  from  
[them]  and  what  they  have  said.”  The students’ brief responses are telling of the
crucial role that AAL played in their home lives. For one, they show that AAL is the
students’ mother tongue—the language in which they uttered their first words, and
the language that formed and sustains the fundamental bond between them and their
parent(s). It is important for educators to keep this in mind when working with AALspeaking students.  As  Smitherman  (1997)  puts  it,  “when  you  lambast  the  home  
language  that  kids  bring  to  school,  you  ain’t  just  dissin  dem,  you  talkin  bout  they  

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mommas!”  Such dissin “disregard[s] strengths that children have and at the same
time  condemns  their  families  and  communities”  (Boutte and Johnson, 2013, p. 306).
In community settings, many of the students,  like  Janel,  implied  that  “AAL  can  
contribute to you succeeding in this area, because other members can relate and
understand  you.”  Janel’s  comment  is  important  in  many  ways. First, it suggests that
she has experienced successes and failures when using AAL. Second, it shows that
while AAL does not lead to success in academic spaces where students are taught to
speak and write for audiences that are oftentimes imagined, it does lead to success
in community spaces where the audiences are always real. Janel confirms this
second point in an  interview  when  she  states,  “If I put ain’t on a sentence test, they
gonna  say  that’s  wrong…but  if  I’m  saying  it  to  my  friends,  then  ain’t is right and am
not is  wrong.”  
Wakene further emphasizes the importance of AAL in community spaces
when  he  writes,  “everybody would think I changed [if I stopped speaking in AAL].
They  would  think  I’m  not  from  [my  city].”  In  this  sense,  Wakene  is  suggesting  that  
AAL identifies him as a member of his local community. Not conforming to the
language expectations could put him at odds with other members and interfere with
his participation in the community. In like fashion, Maverick shows us the
consequences he may face if he uses DAE in community contexts.
Maverick:

like  some  people  don’t  really  know  like  umm  Dominant  American
English.  [If]  they  do…they  just  don’t  use  it.  So  when  you  like  
regular talking (AAL), it makes it more easier to talk. If you just
talkin with your friends, it slips out.

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Baker-Bell: Yeah.
Maverick:

and if you just stop and start using language B (DAE) every time
you speak to somebody, I think they will view you different.

Baker-Bell: ok.
Maverick:

like  “he’s  changing”  or  he’s  different  than  he  used  to  be.  

In this example, Maverick shows us that DAE is rarely used in his communication
with friends, and in fact, it conflicts with the language conventions expected within the
context of community. Together with Janel and Wakene, Maverick confirms
Smitherman’s  (2006)  assertion  that  language  is  a  tie  that  binds,  provides  solidarity  
with your community, and gives a sense of personal identity. Lorenzo, who labels
AAL  a  “hood17”  language,  also  corroborates  this  when  he  states,    “I  speak  the  
hood….  That’s  why  I  have  a  lot  of  friends  the  way  I  have  cause,  I  mean,  a  lot  of  them  
is more in the streets, more hood.”  
Beyond home and community settings, a few of the students discussed AAL
being vital in the context of school, primarily to communicate with their peers.
According to Janel:
We   all   talk   like   that.   I   don’t   think   there’s   a   student   here   that   don’t… I
think   that   it’s   honestly   just   about   your   work…I could sit here and talk
this language for days but I’m  getting  my  work  done,  so  I  think  language  
don’t  have  nothing  to  do  with [it].
To put it differently, Janel is suggesting that all of the students at Leadership
Academy use AAL, and she cleverly states that AAL should not interfere with their

17

a language used in a particular neighborhood; like ghetto, can be used negatively or positively (Smitherman,
2006).

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academic achievement. Fetti Bravo explains that AAL is useful in the academic
setting  if  “you  don’t  get  something  from  the  teacher  and  a  kid  wants  to  help you. The
kid   won’t   talk   like   the   teacher.   He’ll   talk   in   African   American   Language.”   In other
words, Fetti is implying that he and his peers use AAL to help each other with
schoolwork because they share a common language that they do not always share
with their teacher. Chasse explains  that  AAL  in  the  context  of  school  “helps  me  to  be  
comfortable around others like   I’m   at   home   because   no   one   criticize   me   because  
everybody  uses  it.”  Though  Chasse  claims  that  she  does  not  get  criticized  for  using  
AAL in the context of school, some students had different negative experiences using
AAL at school. I will discuss this at great length in the next section.
AAL functioned as a linguistic resource in the students’ home, school, and
community lives. Though AAL was a vehicle that intimately joined the students with
their families, provided solidarity between them and their communities, and was
resourceful when helping one another in school, the students also faced linguistic
consequences when using AAL in those same contexts. In what follows, I share how
students faced negative consequence when using AAL across multiple contexts.
Judgment Day: Linguistic Consequences
Though the majority of students described AAL as a linguistic resource in their
everyday lives, many of them shared stories that reveal that AAL is not always seen
as socially or intellectually valuable in the context of school or home (Kirkland &
Jackson, 2008). Dee Dee, for instance,  explains:  “In school when I use African
American Language I always get corrected by certain teachers, and it makes me feel
uncomfortable  because  that’s  the  only  language  I  know.”  In  the  same  way,  Janel  

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gives an emotional account of how she was treated by teachers when she used AAL
as an elementary school student:
Baker-Bell: Where would you say you grasped your understanding of
dominant American English?
Janel:

School because when I came to school and I was speaking like
that [AAL] when I was younger, all my teachers would tell me
that’s  not  the  right  way  to  talk.  

Baker-Bell: Oh, okay.
Janel:

So, yeah, had to learn how to say it the right way.

Baker-Bell: Okay, all right. Like, how did that make you feel?
Janel:

Sad because I was an emotional  kid  and  I  just  started  crying…it  
took  me  down.  I  thought  they  were  trying  to  scrutinize  me…so  if  
they told me I was speaking wrong, I would cry.

Unfortunately for Janel, having her language corrected is not a thing of the past. She
explains how teachers at Leadership Academy, namely her math teacher, Ms.
Minnie, and her English teacher, Mrs. Helen, also suppressed her language.
Baker-Bell: …So  what  happens  at  school  if  you  say  ain’t  or  you  use  AAL?
Janel:

Well,  it  depends  on  which  teacher  I’m  with  because  if  I’m  in  Ms.  
Minnie’s  class,  she’ll  correct  us  too  quick…she’s  like  that’s  not  
the right way.

Baker-Bell: What class is that?
Janel:

Math. And the students be like we not in English; this math class,
Ms. Minnie. And of course Mrs. Helen correct  us  all  the  time…  

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Just to be clear, I did not ask the students to name which teachers had problems with
them using AAL; however, like Janel, many of the students identified Ms. Minnie and
Mrs. Helen as the main teachers who correct them. My interview with Allistar
reaffirms this.
Baker-Bell: Does  anything  happen  at  school  with  this  language…?  
Allistar:

Yeah,  like  when  I’m  in  math  class,  if  you  say  one  o  four  [104],  
she’ll  make  you  repeat  the  whole  sentence  out  like  one  hundred  
and four.

Baker-Bell: Oh really? (sounding surprised).
Allistar:

Yeah,  Mrs.  Helen  don’t  like  you  to  use  choppy  sentences  either.  

Though many of the students stated that Mrs. Helen corrected them when using AAL,
during a preliminary interview, Mrs. Helen indicated that she does not correct her
students. Most   of   my   observations   of   Mrs.   Helen’s   interactions   with   the   students
confirm her assertion; however, I did notice one instance where she called a student
out for using AAL. It happened in English B during a discussion about the DO NOW
topic, which was on violence and video games. Mrs. Helen asked the boys if any of
them wanted to respond to the topic. Mob Boy Rell raised his hand and explained,
“They   be   trying   to   brainwash   you   and   make   you   believe   that   video   games   are  
responsible  for  violence.”  Mrs.  Helen  turned  to  me  and  said  (loud  enough  where  the  
other   students   could   hear   her),   “Although   he   said   that   in   a   non-eloquent way, he is
really   smart.”   Mrs.   Helen   may   have   thought   Mob   Boy   Rell   did   not   receive   her   diss  
toward his language, but it most certainly did not go unnoticed. A few weeks after this
incident, he explained,   “AAL   do   not   do   anything   for   me   in   school   because   school  

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members   will   act   like   I’m   dumb.”   Mob   Boy   Rell   is   describing   what   it   feels   like   to  
experience linguistic microaggressions,   which   are   “mini   assaults”,   biases,   or  
indignities   against   one’s   language (Charity Hudley & Mallinson, 2014). Like other
microaggressions, linguistic microaggressions are subtle and assumed not to be a
big deal by those who are not on the receiving end of it. However, speakers who face
linguistic microaggressions may internalize these negative messages causing them
to feel insecure, unconfident, or apprehensive when communicating or learning
(Hudley   &   Mallinson,   2014).   Mob   Boy   Rell’s   experience underscore the need for
linguistic awareness to help avoid the everyday microaggressions speakers of AAL
experience.
My observations along with the students’ comments confirm  Alim’s  (2007)  
thinking that teachers are “a primary conduit of the cultural reproduction of
prescriptive and sometimes of prejudicial  language  ideologies”  (p.162).  As  imagined,
this oftentimes leads to deficit approaches to the teaching and learning of AAL (Paris,
2012),  and  contributes  to  teachers’  negative  attitudes  and expectations. Many
scholars (Ball & Lardner, 1997; Rickford,1999; Fogel & Ehri, 2006; Kirkland &
Jackson, 2008) are attentive to teachers’ unjustifiably negative attitudes toward
students who speak AAL and how those attitudes lead to negative consequences for
students. More specifically, Fogel and Ehri (2006) argue that:
Negative assessments and reduced expectations can impact students by
significantly depressing their motivation, self-confidence, and self- efficacy;
interfering with their ability to learn to read, write, and speak DAE; and
supporting a self-fulfilling prophecy of poor performance and low achievement

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(p. 466 )
Correspondingly, Kirkland and Jackson’s  (2008)  research  showed  that  monolingual
pedagogies did not help AAL-speaking students foster positive views of AAL.
Instead, these approaches increased  students’  negative  perceptions of AAL and
impeded their language and literacy development. Unfortunately, many teachers like
Mrs. Helen and Ms. Minnie are unaware of how their attitudes and approaches to
AAL maintain white cultural and linguistic hegemony (Alim & Smitherman, 2012).
Meanwhile, students such as those at Leadership Academy, continue to receive a
language education that postpones their critical literacy development (Canagarajah,
2006) and encourages them to devalue their language, identity, and culture.
Boutte and Johnson (2013) insist that students do not receive negative
messages about AAL until they enter academic settings. However, the students in my
study complicate this by describing the negative consequences they faced by using
AAL in the context of home. For example, Fetti Bravo explains that he learned to say
things  the  “right  way”  from  his  mom  and  school.  When  I  asked  him how his mom
teaches  him  to  speak  the  “right  way”,  he  exclaimed,  “Well,  if  I  say  something  the  
wrong  way,  like  if  I  say  ain’t,  she’ll  tell  me  to  say  something  else.”  Harmoniously,
B.O.B explains that when he speaks AAL at home, his mom corrects him. He then
says,  “I need to speak DAE when around certain individuals so I will not embarrass
my  mom  in  public.”    Moreover,  in a conversation with Janel, about how language is
used at home, she explains:
If  I’m  with  my  momma,  she’ll  correct  me.  But,  if  I’m  with  my  daddy,  he  be  
talking  the  same  way  with  me.  But  that’s  just  when  he  talking  to  us  because  
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when  he  talk  on  the  phone,  like  he  be  correct,  he  be  like  “Hello.”  I  be  like  umhim,  he  ain’t  slick.  
Janel’s  remarks  shed  light  on  two  ways  that  parents  communicate  to  their  children  
that  something  is  wrong  with  AAL.  For  one,  correcting  a  child’s  language  obviously
sends a message that they are doing something wrong.  Second,  Janel’s dad
choosing to use DAE vs. AAL on the phone translates to Janel and her siblings a
sense of inauthenticity about AAL.
Lola explains that she senses this inauthenticity almost everyday by observing
her  father’s  use  of  AAL.  “Just  like  if  you  see  your  dad  out  talking  with  his  friends,  he’ll  
use a different way of talking. Like he would use like nothing’—all the words he
wouldn’t  use  with  you,  that’s  how  you  know.”  Lola  is  saying  that  her  father  models  
how she should use language by solely using DAE when he communicates with her,
yet she has observed him using AAL when talking among friends. This experience,
she explains,  teaches  her  that  it’s  “a  certain  time  and  place”  when  AAL  is  acceptable  
(primarily with friends), and contributes to her negative view of AAL when used
outside of that context.
As evinced by the above examples, AAL speakers face consequences that
many other speakers never face in the context of home and school. Some
consequences include students having their language corrected and suppressed by
teachers. But there are other more extreme and lasting consequences (feelings of
linguistic and cultural inferiority internalized to the point of academic failure). Hence,
teachers’  negative  attitudes  adversely  affect  students’’  education  and  identity.  The  

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negative subliminal messages that the students received about AAL in the context of
home also affect the way in which they feel they had to move in the world.
Conclusion
This chapter sheds light on how the students in English and English B
understood AAL to be functioning across various contexts in their everyday lives. We
learned that the students were indeed members of the African American speech
community, and they used AAL in their home, school, and community lives. Initially,
the students  did  not  realize  that  AAL  was  a  “real”  language,  thus,  they  casually  
referred to it as slang. To distinguish AAL from slang, I provided a linguistic analysis
of the students’ language samples to describe the unconscious rules and processes
they used in their spoken ad written language. Eventually the students recognized
that AAL was not mere slang and represented a language that was closely tied to
their loved ones, communities, and personal identities. This led to the students
describing AAL as a linguistic resource in their everyday lives. Still, many of the
students faced negative consequences when using AAL in the context of home and
school. In chapter 4, I explore the students’ testimonies, written work, and multimodal
drawings to make sense of the attitudes they held toward AAL before the
implementation of the CLP.

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CHAPTER 4
“KILLING  THEM  SOFTLY”:
Attitudes Toward Their Own Language
“Given  the  complex  yet  enduring  relationship  between  language  and  identity,  Black  
students, through language instruction, though certainly not language instruction alone,
come  to  despise,  not  only  their  language,  but  also  themselves.”
--David E. Kirkland and Austin Jackson, Beyond the Silence
Exactly two weeks before the students in English B and English G began their
in-depth study of AAL, I disseminated a pre-attitudinal assessment, which was
specifically designed to capture their initial attitudes toward AAL. The activity asked
the students to: (1) read two language samples18, (2) draw a cartoon to represent
each language, and (3) write a paragraph that expresses their feelings about the
languages  and  speakers.  In  this  chapter,  I  explore  the  students’  attitudes  toward  AAL  
and Black identity before the implementation of the CLP. I suggest that the students
reveal practices that are illustrative of linguistic hegemony and its relationship to AAL
and DAE.
Hegemony in Student Responses
Figure 12:  Allistar’s  Drawing  (Pre)

18

The students were not informed that sample A represented AAL and Sample B represented DAE.

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Cartoon Representation A: I think this is someone with little education
or someone who is just trying to be cool. He has his beater on and
sagging pants. Maybe it is what he like or even all he know. I think he
knows  better  but  just  don’t  do  it.  He  looks  like  a  thug  because  he  look
like he does not care. He have no car but nice clothes. Loves to talk
about others.
Cartoon Representation B: I think that this guy went to college and
have a interview. He is very smart and or is trying to fit in. He has a
house and a car and is striving for the best.
The  drawing  and  comments  above  reveal  Allistar’s  attitude  toward  AAL  before  
I implemented the CLP in his classroom. His remarks and drawing not only tell his
negative attitude toward AAL and its speakers, but also they disclose traces of his
unconscious negative view of himself. For example, the clothing of the cartoon he
constructed to represent AAL ironically resembled the fashions I observed him and
some of his male peers wearing on Free Dress Friday19. That is, many of the young
men wore sagging pants, white tees, jewelry chains, and designer shoes. What is
more, Allistar used grammatical features of AAL to admonish the cartoon he
constructed to represent AAL all while singing the praises of the cartoon he
constructed  to  represent  DAE.  Allistar’s  negative  reaction  to  AAL  (“little  education”,  
“looks  like  a  thug”,  “he  does  not  care”)  and  positive  response  to  DAE  (“went  to  
college”,  “he  is  very  smart”)  mirror the views of not only many of his peers in English
B and English G, but also the opinions of the general public (Lippi-Green, 2012; Paris
& Ball, 2011; Smitherman,1981). The assumptions that underlie these attitudes are
19

A Friday where students were able to wear clothes outside of the school uniform.

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disturbing, but perhaps even more damaging is the potentially negative impact they
have on student achievement and student learning (Ball & Lardner, 2005; Cazden,
1999; Charity Hudley & Mallinson, 2014).
Allistar’s  response  demonstrates  that  he  internalized  and acquiesces to the
asymmetrical relationship between DAE and AAL. For example, although he admits
to being a speaker of AAL and uses it on his pre-attitudinal assessment, he still views
speakers of AAL as inferior to speakers of DAE. We see another example of this
represented through his drawing. As previously mentioned, there was a close
resemblance between Allistar and the cartoon he constructed to represent AAL.
Allistar  was  an  honor  student  and  played  on  the  school’s  basketball  team,  yet  he  
described the cartoon he constructed to represent AAL as a thug with little education.
Despite admitting to being a speaker of AAL and the striking resemblance between
him and the cartoon he constructed, Allistar did not question or interrogate the power
embedded in DAE and the powerlessness embedded in AAL.
Further, by saying that the AAL-speaking  cartoon  “knows  better,  but  just  don’t  
do  it”,  Allistar  is  suggesting  that  speakers  of  AAL  are  consciously  choosing  to  use  
AAL in place of DAE out of defiance. Many teachers hold this belief as well; however,
it is important to understand that students are not necessarily choosing to
communicate in AAL over DAE. Many of them are communicating in AAL because
they do not have the linguistic proficiency in DAE. As Simpkins points out:
Many  “non-mainstream”  Black  students  who  speak  AAL  “do  not  know  where  
AAL stops and where DAE begins. They find it difficult to perform the fine
discriminations that are necessary to code-switch. While they know a great

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deal about [DAE], the gaps in their learning prevent them from seeing it as a
unified whole (116).
This is an important point, especially for educators who penalize their students for
continuing to speak and write in AAL even after being corrected and taught DAE.
These students are not intentionally violating the rules of DAE.
Allistar’s  statement  about  his  AAL  cartoon  “know[ing]  better,  but  just  [not  doing]  
better”  could  also imply that speakers of AAL do not do better because they speak
AAL instead of DAE. This belief was also echoed  by  many  of  Allistar’s  peers.  For  
instance,  B.O.B.  writes  that  a  person  who  communicates  in  AAL  “will  skip  school  and  
won’t  get  good  grades…but  he  honestly  wants  help  from  people  that  are  smart and
can  keep  him  focused.”  He  also  asserts that speakers of DAE  are  “book  smart”  and  
“keep  their  grades  up.”  Lola  makes  a  similar  move  on  her  pre-attitudinal assessment
when  she  suggests  that  speakers  of  AAL  “don’t  care  about  school”,  but  speakers  of  
DAE  “love school”  and  “have  great  grades.”  Allistar,  B.O.B.,  and  Lola responses
reinforce linguistic hegemony. For one, the students actively accept DAE as the
language of power, demonstrating that they have internalized the myth that DAE is
inherently superior to AAL. Consequently, they fault speakers of AAL for not doing
better or getting good grades, and their responses indicate that they believe this is
due to the inadequacy of AAL rather than the unequal power relationship dominant
and non-dominant groups.  Lola,  B.O.B.,  and  Allistar’s  consent  to the superiority of
DAE is needed in order for the total system of hegemony to work (Suarez, 2002).
Consent  is  secured  through  the  “manufacturing  of  mass  content,  a  mass  belief,  or  the  
naturalness  and  correctness  of  this  social  order”  (p.  513).  In  this  way,  speakers  of  

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AAL internalize, consent, and perpetuate negative messages about their language,
culture, and identity because these messages are continuously reinforced through
attitudes upheld by the general public, beliefs embedded in their language education,
and consequences associated with using AAL.
Debose (2006) acknowledges that hegemonic ideas and values are chiefly
perpetuated through education and socialization, which explains how DAE continues
to be deemed the language of power in schools. Fetti hints at this during his
interview:
Baker-Bell:

In your response, you mentioned that Language B (DAE) is
proper English—this one right over here (pointing at the DAE
language sample). Why do you think that this language is
proper? What informed your thinking about that?

Fetti Bravo: Because  it’s  the  way  you  should  speak.
Baker-Bell:

How  did  you  come  up  with  that…”the  way  you  should  speak?”  
Where does that come from?

Fetti Bravo: Well, from being in school and stuff. I learned how to write.
How  to  say  things  the  right  way…put  the  words  and  
apostrophes and all that stuff.
Fetti is confirming that linguistic hegemony is asserted in school through the
incessant  characterization  of  DAE  as  the  “right  way”  to  speak  and  AAL  as  the  “wrong  
way.”    Allistar  reaffirms  Fetti’s  thinking  during his interview:.
Allistar:

When you speak like that, it shows your knowledge.

Baker-Bell:

When you speak like this (pointing to language sample A or

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AAL), it shows your knowledge?
Allistar:

It  shows  that  you  don’t  have  knowledge.  

Baker-Bell:

Why?

Allistar:

Because  it’s  like  you’re  not  speaking  in  complete  sentences…like
what  they  teach  you  at  school,  you’re  not  doing.    

Fetti and Allistar’s  remarks  demonstrate  how  schools  are  complicit in the
reproduction of linguistic inequalities. Further, their responses indicate that they
support these linguistic inequalities. For example, Fetti Bravo claims that using
punctuation and words correctly are representative of DAE, and according to Allistar,
incomplete and choppy sentences characterize AAL. Neither of these examples
accurately represent features of DAE or AAL. This is yet another exertion of
hegemonic control because their depiction of AAL and DAE are premised on an
ideological structure that stigmatizes one language while privileging another.
Immediately after completing their pre-attitudinal assessments, I invited
students to share their drawings and written comments with the class. The discussion
in English G began with Chasse and Janel sharing their thoughts.
Chasse:

Okay, umm, so I said Language A (AAL) is really about an
African American who sags and wears their hat backwards. And
my drawing B (DAE) is a Caucasian male who wears a belt and
has his hat on straight. The African American male is talking to a
group of friends who can understand his words, and the
Caucasian male is talking to adults who can relate. Language A

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is like  talking  when  you’re  at  home,  and  Language  B  is  like  
talking  at  school  or  when  you’re  talking  to  an  adult.  
Baker-Bell:

Interesting. Who else wanna talk about what they have?

Janel:

Okay, I said the difference between Language A (AAL) and
Language  B  (DAE)  is  that  with  language  A,  I‘m  with  my  friends  
and  I’m  comfortable  enough  to  talk  in  slang  or  incorrectly.  With  
language  B,  I  don’t  want  to  seem  unintelligent  or  ignorant,  so  I  
would talk properly or knowledgably in front of an administrator.

We  learn  a  few  things  from  Chasse  and  Janel’s  reactions  to  the  pre-attitudinal
assessment. First, strikingly similar to the young men in Kirkland and Jackson’s  
(2008) study, many of the students in English B and English G illustrated that they
had gained  “a  terse  understanding  of  issues  of  language  appropriateness  and  the  
value  of  specific  language  forms  in  specific  social  contexts”  (141).  For  example,
Chasse explains that AAL is a language that is appropriate for speaking at home and
DAE is the appropriate language to use at school or when speaking with adults.
Similarly, Janel regards AAL as appropriate when communicating with friends but not
with authority figures. The unevenness in  both  girls’  responses  imply that they have
consented to dominant language norms. This also indicates that Chasse and Janel,
like many of their peers, have bought into what Young et al. (2014) refers to as
linguistic segregation:
If segregation keeps Blacks and Whites separate, assigning them each
to separate settings on the  basis  of  race,  then  wouldn’t  code-switching
amount to a form of linguistic segregation, since African Americans are

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asked to use their language in appropriate settings and almost none of
those settings are academic or professional? (p. 3)
Speakers of stigmatized languages, like Janel and Chase, tend not to question this
separate and unequal approach because their consciousness have been developed
to support linguistic hegemony, not counter it. Wiley (2000) suggests that:
Linguistic hegemony is achieved when dominant groups create a
consensus by convincing others to accept their language norms and
usage as standard or paradigmatic. Hegemony is ensured when they
can convince those who fail to meet those standards to view their failure
as being the result of the inadequacy of their own language (p. 113).
Janel and Chasse acquiesce to this process of linguistic hegemony by
associating DAE with being proper and knowledgeable and AAL with being informal,
slang, ignorant, incorrect, and unintelligent. These beliefs were commonly held by
most of the students in English B and English G. This can be exemplified by the
descriptions of AAL and DAE that emerged from our discussion of the pre-attitudinal
assessment, which I recorded on the dry erase board (see figures 13 and 14).

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Figure 13: Dry Erase Board Discussion for English B

As illustrated by figure 13, the boys described DAE (the language B sample)
as  “good”,    “civilized”,  “suburbs”,  “non-slang”,  “clean  cut”,  and  “happy”.  On the other
hand, they described AAL (the language A sample) as  “bad”,  “ghetto”,  “inner-city”,  
“slang”,  “nappy fro”,  “smokes”,  and  “unshaved”.  The  girls  labeled  AAL  (language  A)  
“African  American”,  “sags”,  “hat  to  back”,  “home  language”,  “with  friends”,  
“incorrectly”,  “slang”,  “sloppy”,  “sunglasses”,  “trouble”,  “silly”,  “playful”,  “bad  kids”,  
“don’t  care  about  school”,  and  “loud.”  They  used  words  like  “proper”,  “white”,  “hat  
straight”,  “school  language”,  “respectful”,  “proper”,  “knowledge”,  “fancy”,  “teacher”,  
“love  school”,  “always  ready/  prepared”  to  describe  DAE  (see figure 14).

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Figure 14: Dry Erase Board Discussion for English G

By believing and participating in the subjugation of AAL to DAE, the students
in English G and English B illuminate the process by which dominant language norms
are internalized, unquestioned, and then legitimated (Suarez, 2002).
Nevertheless, after viewing the descriptions written on the dry erase board and
listening to their peers, Janel and Lorenzo—who were in different classes—began to
interrogate the assumptions underpinning the negative views of AAL, though they
initially contributed to them. As illustrated below, after hearing Lola debase speakers
of AAL, Janel bluntly expressed her disagreement.

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Lola:

Okay, so for like cartoon A (or AAL), I drew like bad kids. Like
[they] don’t  care  about  school.  

Janel:

But  that’s  not  true.  Just  because  you  talk  with  slang  don’t  mean  
you  don’t  care  about  school.  

Lola:

I’m  not  saying  it’s  everybody,  but  certain  people  do  think  like  that.  

Likewise in English B, Lorenzo began to dismantle the negative descriptions that he
and his peers had of AAL and its speakers after he listened to me restate them to the
class.
Lorenzo:

That’s  not  always  true.  Because  I’m  not  negative. Like for
Language A (or AAL), everybody just assume that just cause
what  he  said  …  means  he’s  bad…they  not  always  bad.  You  can’t  
always say  you  think  they’re  ghetto  or  bad.

Baker-Bell: So  you’re  saying  that  a  connection  is  being  made  between this
language (pointing to AAL) and a certain type of person. And you
are saying just because you speak a certain type of language
does not mean that you are negative or bad.
Lorenzo:

Yeah.

Janel and Lorenzo were beginning to understand that language does not exist apart
from identity, and they disagreed with how the mere use of AAL constituted their
identities and positioned them negatively in the world. Their comments also
demonstrate that the stereotypes and assumptions that underlie criticisms of AAL and
its speakers are uninformed and baseless.

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By examining hegemonic processes embedded in the students’ responses to
the pre-attitudinal assessment, we are able to see the process by which unequal
power relations between AAL and DAE are internalized and maintained. For the
remainder of this chapter, I analyze the hegemonic processes embedded in the
students’  drawings  to  make  sense  of  their  attitudes toward their racial identity.
Hegemony in Visual Texts
As seen throughout this study, the students’  negative  attitudes  toward  AAL
and positive attitudes toward DAE not only reflect the languages themselves, but also
the speakers of those languages. Allistar demonstrated this early on in this chapter
when he drew a cartoon to represent AAL that wore a wife beater tank top, sagging
pants, a backwards cap, braids, and a chain around his neck. Allistar indicated in his
written response that this cartoon looks like a thug and has nice clothes, but no car.
For the cartoon he constructed to represent DAE, Allistar drew a man wearing
glasses, trousers, a dress shirt, and tie. He writes that this speaker is very smart,
attended college, has a house and a car, and is striving for the best. Allistar’s  visual  
response underscores how ideologies about language can be translated into
stereotypes about speakers of those languages (Charity Hudley & Mallinson, 2014).
In  my  analysis  of  the  students’  drawings,  I  noticed  two reoccurring themes across
their visual texts. I used Albers (2013) notion of visual conversation, which describes
a unified expression of a social collective in three or more texts, to help me make
sense  of  these  themes.  I  also  corroborated  my  analysis  of  the  students’  visual  texts  
with their written responses. The visual conversations that emerged from the
students’  drawings  primarily dealt with language and race; however, I did observe a

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brief conversation among the drawings about language and gender. In particular, I
noted that six out of seven of the students whose drawings were part of this visual
conversation constructed images of males to represent AAL (see figure 15, images 14; figure 16, images 5, 6, and 8). When I pointed this observation out to the young
women  in  English  G,  they  informed  me  that  “girl’s  don’t  talk  like  that.”  The young men
in English B agreed with this sentiment. The  students’  view  of  AAL  as  a  masculine  
language is an example of gender bias that exists in AAL. Some scholars (Troutman,
2001; Morgan, 2002) have called attention to a gender bias in research on AAL, but
they were speaking of gender bias related to AAL discourse features. In this study,
we focused on syntactic features, and both genders use the same syntactic features
with equal frequency. The visual conversation on language and gender demonstrates
that there are other types of language biases that need disrupting.
The visual conversation pertaining to language and race demonstrated that the
students  had  made  assumptions  and  reached  conclusions  about  a  speakers’  race  
based solely on the language included on the pre-attitudinal assessment. For
instance, in a discussion following the pre-attitudinal assessments, many of the
students revealed that their AAL cartoon represented a Black person and the DAE
cartoon represented a White person. The images associated with AAL included:
sideways or backwards baseball caps (see figure 15, images 1-4; figure 16, image 5),
sagging pants (see figure 15, images 1 & 3; figure 16, images 6-8), and distinct hair
styles such as an afro (figure 16, image 6) and a hi-top fade (figure 16, image 8).

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Figure 15: Visual Conversation A

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Figure 16: Visual Conversation B

Again, the students’ written responses to the pre-attitudinal assessment
helped me to make sense their attitudes toward the cartoons and the images that
they associated with speakers of AAL. Many of the students used words such as—
“disrespectful”,  “thug”,  “ghetto”,  “bad”—to depict the cartoon they constructed to
represent  AAL.  Other  students  suggested  that  their  cartoon  “skips  school”  or  “does
not  care  about  school”,  “gets  in  trouble”,  and  “gets  bad  grades.” For instance, Lola

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stated that the cartoon she constructed (figure 16,  image  7)  to  represent  AAL  “was  a  
bad  and  disrespectful  person  and  don’t  care  about  school.”  B.O.B,  who  drew  image  6
(see figure 16),  explained  that  he  “honestly  think  that  [the  AAL  cartoon]  is  a  ghetto  
boy who is talking about not liking school really. He is the type of person that will skip
school  and  won’t  get  good  grades.  He  also  dress  like  he  is  a  thug  that  try  to  run the
streets…”    Based  on  their  visual  and  written  responses,  I  concluded  that  the  students  
had developed negative racial attitudes about speakers of AAL.
The visual conversation on language and race also revealed that the students
associated  a  “suite  and  tie”  (Figure  15, image 2),  “wearing  a  belt”  (figure  15, image 13), “buttoned  up  shirts”  (figure  15;;  image  1  &  3;;  figure  16, image  8),  “eyeglasses”  
(figure 15, image 1; figure 16, image 6 & 8) with DAE. Reminiscent of Kirkland and
Jackson’s  (2008)  work,  “an  aura  of  success  pervades  the  [DAE]  character[s]  and  an  
air  of  accomplishment  is  artistically  woven  onto  the  image[s]”  (141).  Many  of  the  
students indicated that the cartoon they constructed to  represent  DAE  was  “smart”,  
“good”,  “can  never  do  anything  bad”,  and  so  on. Chasse, who created image one in
figure 15, constructed her DAE cartoon in direct opposition to her AAL cartoon. That
is,  her  DAE  cartoon  is  wearing  a  belt  and  a  hat  that  she  indicates  is  “on  the  right  way”  
in comparison  to  her  AAL  cartoon  “who  sags  &  wears  their  hat  backwards.”  Her  
response to the pre-attitudinal assessment not only sets up a linguistic hierarchy that
places DAE at the top and AAL at the bottom, but also a cultural hierarchy that places
Black culture at the bottom and dominant culture at the top.
Still,  I  had  a  hard  time  grappling  with  the  students’  attitudes  toward  AAL  and    
DAE.  Although  cultural  markers  such  as,  “sagging”  and  “backward  and  sideways  

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baseball  caps”  are  perceived  negatively  by  dominant culture and older generations,
this is not necessarily the attitude held among Black students, particularly those who
identify with hip-hop culture. For them, sagging can simply indicate their fashion
sense, or it could symbolize freedom, cultural awareness, or their rejection to the
values held by mainstream society (Forsyth, 2011; Westbury, 2010). According to
Albers (2013), the visual language embedded in texts oftentimes reflects the context
and reality in which it was created, and is  “informed  by  [the  students’] interactions
with  other  texts  and  conversations”  (88).  This means that the students may have
constructed their texts in response to the hostile attitudes that are upheld about their
language and culture in schools and mainstream society.
Asking students to draw cartoons to represent AAL and DAE not only uncover
how hegemony gets played out in visual texts, but also racial identities and linguistic
stereotypes (Albers, 2013). From their visual responses, we gather that many
students exemplified negative racial attitudes toward speakers of AAL. As seen with
Allistar, we also see that these negative attitudes sometimes reflect the students’  
unconscious negative perception of themselves. In the next section, I discuss the
impact of internalized attitudes on student learning.
Internalized Attitudes and Student Learning
As indicated by the written and visual responses, many of the students in
English B and English G accepted and internalized hegemonic language ideologies
that suggest that AAL is inferior, incorrect, wrong, and so forth. These internalized
negative attitudes about their own language have tremendous learning
consequences. Labov (1970) argues that students who absorb negative messages

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about their language experience linguistic insecurity (Labov), which causes speakers
to have self doubt and feel inferior, confused, or discouraged. Negative language
attitudes may also cause students to lose confidence in their education, their
teachers, and the learning process. If students lose confidence in the language and
learning process, then they will be unable to use their language as a resource to build
other skills. This demonstrates that there is a deep connection between language
ideologies, language attitudes, and student learning.
Conclusion
Students who experience negative messages that suggest that their language
is wrong, inferior, or incorrect may react to these messages with internalization. This
chapter demonstrated that the students in English G and English B internalized and
acquiesced to hegemonic language ideologies that suggest that they are
linguistically inadequate. Their written and visual responses to the pre-attitudinal
assessment demonstrated that the students considered AAL to be “bad”,  “ghetto”,  
and  “incorrect”  while  viewing DAE  as  “proper,”  “respectful”,  and  “knowledgeable.”  
Their negative attitudes toward AAL were associated with Black males wearing
sagging pants, backwards or sideways baseball caps, jewelry chains. These
negative messages about their language and culture can lead to internalized
inferiority, which can have a damaging effect on student learning. This underscores
the need for counter-hegemonic pedagogies that provide students with a critical and
cultural understanding of AAL. In  chapter  5,  I  explore  students’  engagement  with  the  
CLP to see if it can transform their negative attitudes toward AAL

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CHAPTER 5
“DESTROY AND  REBUILD”:
Improving Attitudes Toward Their Own Language
“If  language  attitude  change  is  tantamount  to  changing  a  world  view…then  we  need  
to get to work on these attitudes quick, fast, and in a hurry.
--Smitherman, The Last Barrier of Integration
The previous chapters demonstrated that the students in English G and
English B internalized and reinforced hegemonic language ideologies before I
implemented the CLP in their classrooms. According to Kirkland & Jackson (2008),
students will retain and reinforce linguistic and cultural hegemony if they continue to
receive a language education that fails to address the social, cultural, and political
complexities of language. To transform AAL-speaking  students’  negative  language  
attitudes, there is a need for counter-hegemonic language pedagogies that work to
rebuild language education for Black students. This chapter documents some of the
students  in  English  B  and  English  G’s  responses  to  the CLP that I implemented in
their English classrooms. More specifically, I will track  a  few  of  the  focal  participants’
language attitudes over a series of assignments, including pre and post attitudinal
data, to show how the CLP seemed to have impacted their attitudes toward AAL in
important ways.
When looking  across  the  students’  pre  and  post  attitudinal  assessments  and  
interviews, I noticed the following shifts in their attitudes: (1) Linguistic Resistance to
Linguistic Affirmation, (2) Linguistic Ambivalence to Linguistic Affirmation, (3)
Linguistic Resistance to Linguistic Ambivalence, and (4) Linguistic Resistance to
Linguistic Resistance.

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Table 5: Shifts in Language Attitudes

Linguistic Affirmation

Linguistic Affirmation

Linguistic Ambivalence

Linguistic Ambivalence

Linguistic Resistance

Linguistic Resistance

Linguistic resistance describes a speaker who devalues, rejects, dismisses
their language, or consents to linguistic hegemony. Linguistic ambivalence describes
a speaker who embraces their language at the same time of rejecting it, or
acquiesces to linguistic hegemony at the same time of countering it. Linguistic
affirmation describes a speaker who values, embraces, or has positive feelings
toward their own language. The table below provides more detail about the shifts in
the  students’  attitudes,  including  the  number  of  students who fell within each
category.

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Table 6: Categories for Language Attitudes

Categories

Linguistic
Resistance

Linguistic
Affirmation

Linguistic
Ambivalence

Linguistic
Affirmation

Linguistic
Resistance

Linguistic
Ambivalence

Linguistic
Resistance

Linguistic
Rsistance

Description

resisted AAL before the
CLP; embraced AAL
immediately after CLP
resisted and affirmed AAL
before CLP; embraced AAL
immediately after
resisted AAL before CLP;
resisted and embraced AAL
immediately after.
resisted AAL before CLP;
resisted AAL after CLP

Number of
student whose
responses fell
within this
category
13
2
1
2

In  the  following  sections,  I  present  examples  of  three  of  the  focal  students’  
language attitudes before, during, and after the critical language pedagogy to
illustrate the changes that I found in 15 of  the  students’  attitudes  toward  AAL.  Finally,  
I will briefly discuss the students whose attitudes toward AAL were ambivalent or
seemed not to have changed following the CLP.
From Linguistic Resistance to Linguistic Affirmation
When selecting the students to write about for this category, I chose Lola Long
and Allistar because I found their responses to be representative of those students
whose pre and post attitudes demonstrated a clear shift from linguistic resistance to
linguistic affirmation. Though their attitudes toward AAL shifted from resistant to
affirming, none of the students in this category responded to the CLP exactly the
same.  I  begin  this  section  by  documenting  the  change  in  Lola  Long’s  attitude  during
her engagement with the CLP.

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Lola Long
It  was  clear  from  the  very  start  that  Lola  “felt  some  kind  of  way” 20 about AAL.
For example, on the pre-attitudinal assessment, she personified AAL by constructing
two male cartoons with hi-top fades21 and sagging pants (see figure 17). The
dialogue  that  she  wrote  to  correspond  with  the  cartoons  was  “I  don’t  care  about  this  
lame  South  High  [School].  They  trippin.”  Lola  commented  that  the  two  males  she  
drew  for  AAL  are  representative  of  people  who  are  “disrespectful”,  ‘bad”,  and  “do not
know  how  to  speak.”  Quite  the  opposite,  the  cartoons  she  constructed  for  DAE  
included  two  males  with  short  haircuts  who  “wore  glasses  and  dressed  in  suits.”  She  
characterized  the  DAE  cartoons  as  “good”,  “respectful”,  “and  “having  manners.”  The  
disparities in her visual and written responses to both language samples reinforce the
dominance of DAE and its speakers and the inferiority of AAL and it speakers.
Another  misconception  that  stands  out  from  Lola’s  response  is  this  notion  that  
speakers of AAL devalue or oppose of school. This is evident when she states that
her AAL-speaking  cartoons  “don’t  care  about  school”  in  comparison  to  her  DAEspeaking  cartoons  who  in  Lola’s  words  “love  school”  and  “get  great  grades.”  Morgan  
(2002) explains that this belief that speakers of AAL oppose school is common, and
she argues that speaking AAL has nothing to do with Blacks’ beliefs about education.
She posits “Black  people  believe  that  education  is  the  key  to  success”  (134).  From  
my teaching and research experiences in linguistically diverse classrooms, I have
found this perception to be fueled by a lack of awareness of AAL. In other words,

An  expression  used  when  one’s  feelings  about  something  are  unfavorable.  
a style of haircut worn by African American males where the hair on the side of the
head is worn very short while the hair on the top of the head is very long.
20
21

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when students use AAL in the context of school, many teachers believe that they are
consciously choosing to break the rules of DAE, rather than speaking a language that
reflects  their  culture,  heritage,  and  experiences.  Though  Lola’s  initial  attitude  toward  
AAL was negative, she admitted to using the language with her friends. Even so, she
made it clear that it is inappropriate to use AAL outside of that context.
After being exposed to the historical, cultural, and political underpinnings of
AAL, I immediately noticed that Lola began to interrogate her own as well as
dominant notions of language. For instance, after learning that AAL was rule-based
and intimately connected with a history of oppression, resistance and rich linguistic
and  literary  achievement  (Rickford  &  Rickford,  2000;;  Paris,  2009),  she  stated,  “I  did  
not know it was good definitions to AAL. I always thought it was bad.”  Further,  in  
response to learning that enslaved Africans created a language despite not having
access to formal education and being purposely separated from others who spoke
their native language (Moore, 1996; Baldwin, 1979; Paris & Ball, 2011), Lola
questioned,  “why  don’t  people  let  us  [use  AAL]?”  She  followed-up on this during her
post-interview:
I did not know that it was like, you know, there used to be slaves who put the
English language and their language together to make these words. I just
thought we were just making them up.
In this sense, Lola, like many of her peers, is admitting to have never had an
opportunity to value or learn about AAL. This response also indicates that Lola was
beginning to realize the richness of AAL and that it reflects ingenuity on behalf of
herself and her ancestors, not ignorance. As I have discussed elsewhere (Baker-Bell,

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2013),  responses  like  Lola’s  indicate  that  the  students are beginning to develop an
awareness  of  AAL.  Alim  (2007)  refers  to  this  stage  as  a  “wake-up  call”  and  the  first  
step in challenging linguistic inequality.
About mid-way through the CLP, the students wrote various reflections about
their experiences learning about AAL. Responding to a prompt about the most
valuable thing she has learned thus far,  Lola  stated,  “I  learned  that  you  can  use  AAL  
in  a  positive  way  and  it  is  a  language  and  it’s  ok  to  use.”  This  statement  indicates  that  
she did not consider AAL a language, positive, or appropriate prior to the CLP. She
also  specified  that  her  “feelings  are different now because [she] learned new things
about  AAL  that  she  did  not  know.”  Smitherman  (2006)  suggests  that  the  study  of  AAL  
could  “open  up  avenues  of  self-exploration and discovery”  for  AAL-speaking students
(142). Lola illustrated this during her post-interview when she described her feelings
about AAL after learning that it was a language in its own right:
It  made  me  feel  like  we  weren’t  dumb.  Because  if  they  [enslaved  Africans]  
were making up a new language,  we  made  something  too.  I  mean,  we’re  not  
dumb like most people think we are.
It is clear from this statement that learning about the history of AAL had a positive
impact  on  Lola’s  self-esteem and her view of her heritage. This is significant
according to  Howard  Dobson,  former  chief  of  New  York’s  Schomburg Center for
research in Black culture, who argues that Black students lack self-esteem and selfknowledge because they have little understanding of their history and heritage
(quoted in Smitherman, 2006).  And  according  to  Smitherman  (2006),  “lack  of  

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knowledge  about  history…is  at  the  root  of  the  problem  of  miseducation  of  Black  
students today”  (143).
Lola was able to connect more intimately with the CLP after being introduced
to linguistic profiling and linguistic discrimination. In particular, it stimulated her to
reflect  on  her  father’s  linguistic  experiences  in  the  U.S.  as  a  speaker  of  Trinidadian  
creole.
He had a problem when he first came here. My mom had to teach him
English so he could speak better and know what to say when looking for a job.
Certain times, depending on where [we] go, some people might judge him and
be  like  “why  he  speaks  like  Caribbean?”  or  “oh,  he’s  not  from  here”. You know,
they’ll  say  these  little comments like that.
Lola’s  father’s  experiences  served  as  an  additional site for her to explore and
interrogate links between language, discrimination, and power (Alim, 2007). This
example also illustrates that Lola was making sense of how speakers of other nondominant languages are profiled and discriminated against.
By the end of the CLP, it was apparent that  Lola’s  attitude  toward  AAL  had  shifted  
from linguistic resistance to linguistic affirmation. This is most evident by the absence
of negativism toward AAL on her post-attitudinal assessment. For example, instead of
the two males with sagging pants who did not care about school that she initially drew
on her pre-attitudinal assessment, she drew two females--one with glasses and one
without-both smiling and wearing shirts and pants on the post-attitudinal assessment.
Though she uses AAL (“wassup”;;  “nun  much,  chillin”) to personalize these
characters, the underlying message being conveyed is not antagonistic nor is it

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dismissive of AAL as seen on the pre-attitudinal assessment. Instead, there is an
aura of confidence surrounding the AAL-cartoons as they have a casual conversation
among each other. I  also  noticed  that  Lola’s  drawing  on  the  post-attitudinal
assessment was a reflection and critique of dominant language ideologies. For
instance,  Lola  explains  that  “cartoon  representation  A  is  showing  a  girl  and  her  friend  
talking  in  AAL,  [and]  cartoon  representation  B  is  showing  a  girl  saying  don’t  use  AAL,  
use  DAE.”  This  brief  example  reflects  an  overarching issue that most speakers of
AAL have experienced—that is, the threat of having their language and linguistic
practices  eradicated  or  gentrified  “in  favor  of  the  adoption  of  white  cultural  practices  
and  linguistic  norms”  (Alim,  2007,  p.  162).
Figure  17:  Lola’s  Drawing  (pre)                                   Figure  18:  Lola’s  Drawing  (post)

She  further  explains  that  her  “picture  show that  you  can’t  talk  about  somebody  else  
language  because  that[‘s]  how  they  talk  and  how  they  learned  at  a  young  age.”  
Furthermore, Lola mentioned during her final interview:

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If I hear somebody saying something about it [AAL], I might confront them
and  say  like,  you  know,  actually  tell  them  what  it’s  really  about  and  that  it’s  
not always a bad thing that people think it is. It just how they did English
[and]  how  they  made  those  words  up.  We  made  our  own  words  so  they  can’t  
talk about it.
Lola’s  responses  reaffirm  Aim’s  (2007)  thinking  that  “by  learning  about  the  full  scope  
of their language use and how language can be used against them, students become
more conscious of the communicative behavior and the ways by which they can
transform  the  conditions  under  which  they  live”  (167).  
Seven weeks after the CLP had ended, Lola mailed me a copy of her final
attitudinal assessment, which I issued to only a few students to determine if their
language attitudes had made another shift or remained the same. Once again, Lola
drew a picture of two girls to represent both the AAL and DAE language sample. This
time, however, she stated that both the AAL and DAE cartoons represent her and her
friend because she realizes that she uses both  languages.  Lola’s  final  attitudinal  
assessment indicates that her attitude toward AAL still reflected linguistic affirmation
seven weeks after the CLP ended.
Allistar
Like  Lola,  Allistar’s  initial  attitude toward AAL was negative. You may recall my
analysis of his response from chapter four. In short, he depicted speakers of AAL as
having  “little  education”  “not  caring”,  and  “look[ing]  like  thug[s]” (see figure 17). I
wanted to get more into his negative thinking about AAL and its speakers given that
he self-identified as a speaker of AAL and the pictures he drew ironically resembled
him and his peers. In an interview following the pre-attitudinal assessment, I asked

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Allistar if he had ever been judged or classified as a thug while using AAL. He paused
before  answering  the  question,  as  if  to  think  about  it,  and  then  he  responded  “If  
somebody  was  to  walk  by  and  hear  me,  possibly.”  Allistar’s  response  demonstrates
that he had not made the connection between language and identity nor had he
considered  that  “attitudes  about  language  speak  back  to  selves”  (Kirkland  &  Jackson,  
2008, 142). Moments later, he began to go back on his negative view of all speakers
of AAL. He suggested that the thugs and bad people were those speakers who used
AAL all the time and did not have the facility to code-switch. By the conclusion of the
interview, however, it was evident that Allistar gave even more thought to his view of
AAL in general. For example, after I asked if he would like to add anything before
ending  the  interview,  he  stated  “Maybe  I  have  to  say…you  shouldn’t  be  judged  just  
because  you  speak  a  certain  way.”  As  illustrated  by  Allistar’s  remark,  posing  interview  
questions that highlight the relationship between language, the individual, and the
collective identity of speakers of AAL (Kirkland & Jackson, 2008) could lead the
student to interrogate their assumptions about language and identity.
After completing the first activity of the CLP, which exposed students to the
historical,  cultural,  and  political  foundations  of  AAL,  Allistar  indicated,  “I  did  not  know  
we spoke like that. I think the language should be preserved because [it] helped us
form [African] American culture.”  Likewise,  after  examining  DAE  and  AAL  through  the  
lenses of language and power, language and culture, and language and identity,
Allistar began to question the ideologies informing code-switching. Specifically, he
argued that code-switching  “empowers  speakers of DAE and disempowers speakers
of  AAL…  [which  ]  “might  make  [speakers  of  AAL]  lose  confidence  or  want  to  change.”  

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Similar  to  Kirkland  and  Jackson’s  (2008)  argument,  Allistar  is  suggesting  that  codeswitching pedagogies perpetuate speakers of AAL feelings of linguistic and cultural
shame as they fail to consider the matrix of language, identity, and power.
Immediately after the CLP, Allistar wrote a reflection about the change he
noticed in his attitude.
I think when I first started I thought one language was better that the other, but
they’re  both  languages  people  communicate  in  and  I  should  not  stereotype.  At  
first, [the picture I drew for] language A was [a boy] sagging and I even took it
one step further and called him a thug. But language B [speaker of DAE] was
a well-dressed college student. Now [I view] them both the same because I
can  speak  both  languages.”
This  change  was  also  reflected  in  Allistar’s  visual  representation  on  the  postattitudinal assessment. See figures 19 and 20 below.
Figure  19:  Allistar’s  Drawing  (pre)                                      Figure  20:  Allistar’s  Drawing  (post)

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If  we  compare  Allistar’s  before  and  after drawings, we see a clear change in the
speakers of both AAL and DAE. For instance, he strips the cartoon that represents
AAL from his sagging pants, gold chain, and backwards hat-all items that he
classified as negative or representative of a thug on his initial attitudinal assessment.
For his post-drawing, Allistar states:
In my picture, I drew the same boy for both languages because he is like me.
He integrate both languages wherever I am at. It is apart of me. It has become
one of my traits as a human being just like my culture and religion
In this statement, Allistar no longer seems to be conflicted in his perception of AAL or
DAE, and it appears that he has resolved his ill-informed views of both languages. For
one, his drawing suggests that he now recognizes that one language is not inherently
better than the other. Second, it suggests that he realizes that he does not have to be
positive toward one of the languages and negative toward the other. And finally, it
demonstrates that Allistar acknowledges that he speaks both languages and does not
have to abandon one in place of the other. In fact, following the CLP, he identified
himself as multilingual or trilingual on two separate occasions.
During his post-interview, Allistar confirms that his attitude toward AAL shifted
from linguistic resistance to linguistic affirmation when he asserts:
[It]  improved  by  a  lot  ‘cause  at  first  I  thought  it  was  a  bad  term  and  ghetto. But
you changed it and now I  think  of  it  as  heritage  and  culture  [and]  it’s  a  good  
language to use.
I was able to catch up with Allistar approximately five weeks after the CLP ended to
see if his attitude toward AAL was still the same. On his attitudinal assessment, he

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indicated that  the  AAL  sample  represented  “a cultural person who is proud of his
heritage,  which  is  like  me.  This  is  my  language.  I’m  multilingual because I can also
use  DAE.”  
In  this  section,  I  presented  Lola  and  Allistar’s  engagement  with  the  CLP as
exemplars of how the majority of the students in  both  classes’  attitudes  shifted fro
linguistic resistance to linguistic affirmation. In the section that follows, I will share Fetti
Bravo’s  experience  with  the  CLP to show how two of  the  students’  attitudes  shifted
from linguistic ambivalence to linguistic affirmation.
From Linguistic Ambivalence to Linguistic Affirmation
Fetti Bravo
Fetti was one of two students whose initial attitude toward AAL was ambivalent.
Indeed,  Fetti  recognized  AAL’s  value,  but  it  was  also  clear  that  he  considered  it  to  be  
inferior to DAE. For example, on his pre-attitudinal assessment, he explained:
In the cartoon representation A [AAL], I made a model of myself. The model is
me because although I know proper English, I just choose not to [use it] for my
comfortability. The cartoon representation B [DAE] is more on the educated
side, represented by the sophisticated suit.

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Figure  21:  Fetti  Bravo’s  Drawing  (Pre)

As  demonstrated  by  the  aforementioned  statement  and  drawing,  Fetti’s initial
reaction toward AAL was not hostile. Instead of vilifying AAL, he credited it for being
a more comfortable language to use than DAE. Still, there are indications in his
written and visual responses that suggest that he privileges DAE over AAL. For
instance,  he  refers  to  DAE  as  “proper  English”,  which  could  indicate  that  he  thinks  
AAL  is  improper.  Moreover,  he  refers  to  the  cartoon  representation  of  DAE  as  “more  
on  the  educated  side”,  which  suggests  that  he  believes  that  speakers  of  AAL  are  not  
as educated as speakers of DAE. I also found it interesting that he adorned the DAE
cartoon  with  a  “sophisticated  suit”,  yet  he  draws  the  AAL  cartoon,  which  he  referred  
to as a model of himself, without a body and wearing his backwards. During a followup interview with Fetti, he explained that he fashioned the DAE cartoon in a suit
because  “that’s  how  they  make  college  look.  They  make  it  look  proper  and  clean  and  
stuff  like  that.”  On  the  other  hand,  he  explains  that  he  views  AAL  as  more  “relaxed”;;  
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therefore, the  picture  he  drew  represents  “a  young  person  at  school  with  friends  and  
stuff.”  Though  Fetti  believes  “the  more  educated  you  are…the  more  you  won’t  slack  
and  use  AAL”,  he  recognizes  that  educated  people  can  use  AAL  too.  In  fact,  he  
explained that his father is educated and uses DAE at work and AAL at home. His
response demonstrates that while he does not necessarily view AAL as
academically valuable, he does recognize its value in the context of family and
friends. In this way, Fetti complicates Kirkland and Jackson’s  (2008)  thinking  that  
“AAL  is  not  seen  as  socially  or  intellectually  valuable  even  in  the  familiar  context  of  
family and must be suppressed or corrected” (p. 132).
Fetti’s  ambivalent relationship with AAL continued throughout the CLP, which
can be illustrated by his contradictory responses on some of the activities. For
example, Fetti expressed an appreciation for AAL after learning about some of its
historical  elements  (e.g.  “AAL  is  very  useful”,  “I  agree  with  the  rules”,  and so forth).
However, after exploring AAL from the perspective of language, identity, power, and
culture, Fetti insisted, “DAE  is  more  empowered  because  it  is  the  correct  way  to  
speak,  and  AAL  is  a  relaxed  way  to  speak.”  It  is  evident  from  his  responses  that  he  is  
caught at the intersection of accepting AAL and rejecting it. Smitherman (2006)
explains  that  “AAL  speakers  both  love  the  language  for  its  power  and  
expressiveness, yet often reject and denigrate it in response to the stigma it carries in
the  wider  culture”  (5).  
Fetti explained during his post-interview that he wrestled with fully accepting
AAL until he learned about linguistic discrimination and linguistic profiling. In
particular, he identified the linguistic profiling activity, which invited the student to

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listen  to  several  language  samples  and  determine  the  speaker’s  race  or  ethnicity,  as  
the basis for the change in his attitude. He said that his perception of AAL improved
“because,  like,  I  learned  that  you  shouldn’t  judge  someone  by  the  way they talk.”  This  
change that Fetti describes is also reflected on his post-attitudinal assessment.

Figure  22:  Fetti  Bravo’s  Drawing  (post)  

For instance, the cartoon that represents DAE is no longer wearing a suit. In fact, he
is stripped of any distinct features. On the other hand, Fetti adorns the AAL cartoon
with more detail such as a full body contrasted with the bodiless head that he drew
for AAL on his pre-attitudinal assessment. The AAL cartoon is also wearing a very
detailed Nautica shirt, belt, and shoes. When I asked Fetti what changed with his
before  and  after  drawings,  he  stated,  “I  think  that  Dominant  American  English  could  
just  be  a  regular  person.  It  doesn’t really have to be someone sophisticated or in a
suit.  It’s  just  your  background.”

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Though  Lola,  Allistar,  and  Fetti  Bravo’s  attitudes  toward  AAL  were affirming by
the close of the CLP,  three  of  their  peers’  concluded  with  indecisive  or  unchanged  
attitudes toward AAL. I briefly discuss and theorize about Crystal, Mob Boy Rell, and
The  Pope’s  attitudes  toward  AAL  after  the  CLP.
From Linguistic Resistance to Linguistic Ambivalence
Crystal
Despite her engagement with the CLP, Crystal, who was a focal participant,
was unable to fully reconcile the critical linguistic issues between AAL and DAE. For
example, though she expressed gratitude for having an opportunity to learn about
AAL and embraced it for being a language in its own right, she admitted that she
would  only  use  the  language  among  her  friends.  For  Crystal,  language  is  “all  about  
the  surroundings  that  [she’s]  in”.  In  other  words,  her  attitude  toward  AAL  is  
predisposed by how language is used and viewed in her home, school, and the
communities that she participate in.  On  one  of  the  final  assignments,  she  stated,  “I  
mostly  use  DAE  in  my  home  to  show  respect  and  it  wouldn’t  seem  right  talking  to  my  
mom  or  dad  in  AAL  language.”  She  also  informed  me  during  her  post-interview that
she frequently visits predominantly white neighborhoods, like Troy, Michigan, and
using DAE is necessary in these contexts because it calls for her to use her
“language  skills.”  As  illustrated  in  the  following  response,  Crystal’s  choice  to  use  DAE  
over AAL is motivated by her fear of being judged:
I  wouldn’t  want  people  looking  down  at  me  a  specific  way  because  of  the  way  I  
talk…’cause  that’s  embarrassing,  and  I  don’t  want  to  be  embarrassed  in  front  
of…family, friends, teachers or anybody.

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This statement indicates that Lola is familiar with the potential consequences
speakers of AAL can face when using the language in certain contexts. Smitherman
(2006)  explains  that  “the  lingering  linguistic  push-pull is due to the still remaining
association of AAL with negative stereotypes and perceptions of Black  people”  (132).  
Though  Crystal’s  attitude  did not end with her fully embracing AAL like the majority of
the other students in this study, it did shift from linguistic resistance to linguistic
ambivalence, demonstrating that the CLP did transform her attitude toward AAL.
From Linguistic Resistance to Linguistic Resistance
Mob Boy Rell and The Pope
An analysis of the post-attitudinal assessments revealed that two students’,
Mob Boy Rell and The Pope, attitudes toward AAL were negative before and after the
implementation of the CLP.  Although  Mob  Boy  Rell’s  pre  and  post  data  suggested  
that his attitude toward AAL remained unchanged, my observations of his interaction
with the CLP did not align with those findings. This is evidenced by his response to
learning about the history of AAL:
I thought it was street talk or slang. Views about AAL is a bunch of stupid,
prejudice opinions. Why is AAL being treated like it wasn't decent and from
past relatives?
I found this response to be representative of Mob Boy Rell’s  overall  interaction  with  
the CLP. In fact, he was a very active and vocal participant, and his experience with
the CLP was  similar  to  Lola,  Allistar,  and  Fetti’s.  Therefore,  I  was  shocked  to  see  
negative  comments  about  speakers  of  AAL,  such  as  “not very  smart”,  “disrespectful”,  
and  “ghetto”,  on  his  post-attitudinal  assessment.  The  next  time  I  saw  him,  I  couldn’t  

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help  but  ask,  “What  happened?”  From  our  brief  conversation,  I  learned  that  the  
directions of the post-attitudinal assessment confused Mob Boy Rell. Because the
pre- and post-attitudinal assessments were identical (with an exception to a footnote),
Mob Boy Rell assumed that he was expected to respond the same as he did on the
pre-attitudinal assessment. This explains the similarities in his visual and written
responses on the pre and post-attitudinal assessment.
The  Pope’s  experience  with  the  CLP, on the other hand, was different from
Mob  Boy  Rell’s.  His  attitude  toward AAL was consistently resistant. For example, he
continuously  referred  to  AAL  as  “street  talk”  and  insisted  that  he  would  use  DAE  
when  communicating  with  “important  people.”  On  his  post-attitudinal assessment, he
drew  a  picture  of  his  cousin  and  criticized  her  for  “always  saying  her  grammar  wrong.”  
After noticing his unwavering perception of AAL, I scheduled an interview to meet
with him, but unfortunately he missed the appointment. Outside of his written and
visual  responses  and  my  field  notes,  I  cannot  explain  why  The  Pope’s  attitude  toward
AAL remained negative. However, I did take note of an interaction that The Pope had
with Fetti Bravo while completing the post-attitudinal assessment:
The Pope:

Which language is the bad language and which language is
good?

Fetti:

Neither language is bad. AAL is what they want us to think is
bad, but  it’s  really  not,

By referring to either of the languages as bad or good, especially after the
implementation of the CLP, could suggest that The Pope was not fully invested or

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interested in the project. This could also explain why he was silent during most of the
activities.
Conclusion
From the previous chapter, we learned that the students in English G and
English B internalized messages that suggest that AAL is wrong, inappropriate, and
incorrect. To transform these negative attitudes, I created and implemented a CLP
that provided students with historical, cultural, and political understandings of AAL.
This  chapter  demonstrated  that  the  majority  of  the  students’  attitudes toward AAL
shifted from linguistic resistance to linguistic affirmation. This chapter suggests that
critical language pedagogies that encourage students to interrogate dominant notions
of language while providing them space to value, sustain, and learn about the
historical importance of their own language can impact their attitudes toward their
own language in important and dramatic ways. In the next chapter, I summarize the
findings from this research, draw conclusions, and discuss the implications and
limitations. Finally, I will make recommendations for future research and practice.

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CHAPTER 6
“HANDLING UNFINISHED BIDNESS”
Discussion and Implications
Everywhere around them, Black students are met with messages that suggest
that they are linguistically inadequate and linguistically inferior. These negative
messages are informed by hegemonic language ideologies that privilege DAE over
AAL. They are reinforced  through  teachers’  negative  language  attitudes,  the  linguistic  
deficit theories grounding our disciplinary discourses and pedagogical practices, the
performance of linguistically diverse students in first-year writing and K-12
classrooms, and the linguistic stereotypes that are upheld by the general public. This
ideological structure has done a lot to diminish how people view AAL, and this has
tremendous consequences for AAL-speaking students. One of the greatest
consequences students face is when they absorb negative messages about their
language and react with internalization. These internalized senses of inferiority and
powerlessness can have a damaging cumulative effect on students, especially in
terms of how they learn.
The purpose of this study was to explore how 18 AAL-speaking students
understood themselves linguistically across multiple contexts and to determine if their
engagement with a CLP could transform their unfavorable attitudes toward AAL.
From the perspective of the youth who participated in this study, I found that: (1) AAL
was deemed a linguistic resource with associated consequences in their everyday
lives, (2) they resisted and held negative attitudes toward AAL before the CLP, and
(3) the CLP seemed to have had a positive impact on their negative language
attitudes. Following is a discussion of the major findings and conclusions drawn from
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this research. This discussion is followed by the implications and limitations of the
study.
The Struggle is Real: Linguistic Resource and Linguistic Consequences
The first major finding of this research is that the students in English B and
English G understood AAL to be a linguistic resource across multiple contexts in their
everyday lives in spite of the linguistic consequences that they experienced. The
students initially viewed their language as slang, which interfered with their ability to
articulate the role that AAL played in their everyday lives. After learning that I was not
there to further suppress their language practices, the students were able to discuss
how AAL functioned as a linguistic resource in their home, community, and school
lives. At the same time, they admitted that they also faced consequences when using
AAL in the context of home and school.
Home
At first, many of the students suggested that they did not use AAL in the
context  of  home.  However,  after  learning  about  AAL’s  deep  structure  and  that  it  was  
more than slang, I found that many of the students were able to admit to the crucial
role that AAL played in their home lives. The students shared stories, for example,
that suggested that AAL was intimately connected with their loved ones and personal
identity. Many of the students acknowledged that it was important to preserve AAL,
otherwise they would not be able to communicate with their family and friends. Still,
there was a lingering tension that suggested that AAL was not completely valued in
the context of home. For example, a few of the students stated that their parents
would correct them when using AAL. Other students explained that their parents

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informed them that there is a time and a place for AAL. In other words, parents were
echoing code-switching ideologies that suggest that students use AAL at home and
use DAE everywhere else. As suggested by Kirkland and Jackson (2008), AAL, in
most cases, is often suppressed and is not seen as socially or intellectually valuable
in the context of family. This is not surprising since many parents have also gone
through  what  Smitherman  refers  to  as  the  “cycle  of  miseducation.”  This demonstrates
that as researchers and educators, we must consider the role of parents in this
conversation. How can we work toward getting our students to value their languages
and use it as a linguistic resource if their language is devalued at home? This
suggests that educators create a dialogue with parents about the impact that their
language  attitudes  have  on  their  children’s  learning.  This  issue  also  underscores  the  
need  for  research  that  addresses  parents’  attitudes  toward  their  own  language.
School
Despite the consequences the students faced when using their language at
school, they suggested that AAL was and could be used as a linguistic resource.
Many of the students indicated that AAL was the primary language that they used in
school not only to socialize with their friends, but also to teach and learn from one
another. Of course, the consequences outweighed the resource. The students
expressed that their teachers, two in particular, would correct them or express their
disapproval of AAL. I also found that the students faced consequences that they
could not articulate, such as linguistic microaggressions and linguistic discrimination.
Community

138

Based on their understanding of the role of AAL in their community lives, I
found that students were not judged for using AAL while in the community. In fact,
many of the students explained that they were able to communicate more effectively
when using AAL in their communities because of its omnipresence. The students did
bring up potential consequences that they could face in this context, but those
consequences pertained to using DAE. Some of the students suggested that AAL
identified them as a member of their community, and the use of DAE could cause
people  to  feel  that  they  have  changed  or  are  “trying  to act  white.”  
Conclusions
A conclusion to be drawn from these findings is that students use AAL across
multiple contexts in their everyday lives. Although AAL-speaking students face
linguistic consequences for using AAL, it serves as a linguistic resource that defines,
controls, and make sense of their realities. An additional conclusion that can be made
is that AAL-speaking students not only face linguistic consequences when using AAL
in the context of school, but also in the context of home.
Before the Critical Language Pedagogy: Consenting to Linguistic Hegemony
The second major finding of this research is that 16 out of 18 of the
participants held negative attitudes toward AAL before I implemented the CLP in their
classrooms. I found that the students’  responses  to  the  CLP  suggested  that  they  had  
internalized and acquiesced to hegemonic language ideologies that suggest that AAL
was inferior  to  DAE.  This  played  out  in  the  students’  written  and  visual  responses  to  
the pre-attitudinal assessment. For instance, although the students were using
features of AAL and self-identified as members of the African American speech

139

community,  they  continued  to  refer  to  AAL  using  negative  terms  such  as  “bad”,  
“ghetto”,  and  “incorrect”  while  referring  to  DAE  as  “proper,” “respectful”,  and  
“knowledgeable.”  I  found  these  beliefs  to  be  echoed  in  their  visual  texts  as  well.  For  
AAL, the students drew images of Black males wearing sagging pants, backwards or
sideways hats. They associated the cartoons with being thugs, bad grades, skipping
school and trouble. Yet, the cartoons they constructed to represent DAE often could
be seen wearing a suit and tie, glasses, and belts. From these findings, I believe that
the students in English B and English G consented to the subjugation of AAL to DAE
and Black culture to Dominant culture. It was also clear that the students internalized
and reinforced hegemonic language ideologies before I implemented the CLP in their
class. For these reasons, I conclude that the students held negative attitudes toward
AAL before the implementation of the CLP.
After the Critical Language Pedagogy: Linguistic Affirmation
The third and most significant finding from this research is that 16 of the
students’  negative attitudes seemed to have changed in dramatic and important ways
following the CLP. Although the students did not respond to the CLP exactly the
same, I found that many of them began to interrogate dominant notions of language
during the first activity of the CLP. I was also able to confirm  the  change  in  students’  
attitudes by comparing their pre and post-attitudinal assessments and interviews. On
the post-attitudinal assessment that the students completed immediately after the
CLP ended, I found that they no longer associated AAL with negative terms like
ghetto, incorrect, and bad. Instead, they associated AAL with being a heritage or
cultural language, and they identified themselves as multilingual and trilingual. The

140

cartoons that they constructed to represent AAL and DAE changed as well. Many of
the students stripped their AAL cartoon of the items that they considered negative at
the beginning of the CLP, such as sagging pants, and sideways basketball caps.
Some of the students drew pictures of themselves as the AAL speaker and DAE
speaker, indicating that they are users of both languages. Findings from the
attitudinal assessments that I issued to a few of the students 3-7 weeks after the CLP
reflected the same positive attitudes that they held immediately after the CLP ended.
Based on these findings, I conclude that the CLP that I created and implemented
seemed to have impacted the  students’  negative  attitudes  toward  AAL.  A  further  and  
related conclusion that can be drawn is that, students had sustained their positive
attitudes of AAL for at least 3-7 weeks after the CLP ended.
This study makes significant contributions to the research literature on African
American Language as it is pioneering work that has not been done before. That is,
the research literature does not account for the attitudes that students hold toward
their own language, nor does it offer any ways to help students foster positive views
of  AAL  (Kirkland  &  Jackson,  2008).  Further,  outside  of  Godley  and  Minnici’s  (2008)  
study, there are not many examples of how critical language pedagogies have been
applied in classrooms. In addition to its contributions, this work has important
implications for practitioners, language rights, asset-based pedagogies, and
multilingual writing pedagogies.
Implications
Practitioners
Findings from this study indicate that there is a relationship between language

141

ideologies and student learning. The theory behind culturally relevant pedagogy
suggests that students learn best in environments where they can use their cultural
resources to support their own learning. Similarly, I argue if students have positive
attitudes about their own language, then there is a higher likelihood that they will
engage and be more successful. This study demonstrates that we can create
classroom environments that support the healthy identity of Black students and their
language practices. This study also indicates that practitioners, at all levels, should
be prepared in asset-based pedagogies. They should be prepared to enter into
learning environments and interrupt  students’  negative  attitudes  toward  their  
language for three important reasons: For one, these negative attitudes translate into
negative views of themselves and people who look like them. Second, we know that
these attitudes correspond to confidence, which creates a barrier for learning. Finally,
negative language attitudes interfere with the students being able to use their
language as a resource to build other skills.
Language Rights
SRTOL is a powerful and significant resolution that speaks to the language
work of professional organizations such as CCCC and NCTE. As scholars, we find
historical significance and pedagogical value in this document as it affirms, values,
and respects the language that linguistically diverse students bring with them to our
classrooms. Language scholars (Kinloch, 2005; Perryman, Kirkland, & Jackson,
2015) have  proposed  ways  for  educators  to  affirm  and  support  students’  language  
rights  in  the  context  of  classrooms.  While  SRTOL  “affirm  strongly  that  that  teachers  
must have the experiences and training that will enable them to respect diversity and

142

uphold the right  of  students  to  their  own  language”,  the  resolution  does  not  account  
for the attitudes of students who view their language as inferior. The assumption is
that linguistically diverse students enter into classrooms already valuing their
language; however, as demonstrated by the students in English G and English B,
some speakers of AAL enter classrooms with negative perceptions of their language.
In this way, SRTOL is rendered vacant and powerless if students do not realize that
they  have  a  language  that’s worth valuing. This suggests that not only do teachers
need experiences and training to respect diversity, they also need training that will
help  them  address  students’  negative  attitudes  about  their  own  language
Asset-Based Pedagogies
Paris & Alim (2014)  recently  called  for  a  shift  from  “pedagogies  that  are  too  
closely  aligned  with  linguistic,  literate,  and  cultural  hegemony”  to  culturally  sustaining  
pedagogies  that  “seeks  to  perpetuate  and  foster—to sustain—linguistic, literate, and
cultural pluralism”  (p.  85).  Culturally sustaining pedagogies establish how teachers
might  work  to  value  and  sustain  students’  cultural,  linguistic,  and  literate  practices,  yet  
there is still a need for pedagogies that address students who view their linguistic and
cultural practices as inferior. As demonstrated by the youth in English G and English
B, some youth enter into classrooms with little to no knowledge of their linguistic or
cultural heritage. How can educators encourage students to sustain their language,
literacies, and cultural practices if their perceptions of these practices are negative?
How can educators foster linguistic, literate, and cultural pluralism when their
students’  have  been  trained  by  their  parents  to  embrace  monolingualism?  Without  
providing students with opportunities to identify and critique hegemonic language

143

ideologies, we risk perpetuating and fostering negative language attitudes. Indeed,
educators should not assume that students enter classrooms with an understating
that they have cultural and linguistic practices worth valuing. To move students
toward valuing their linguistic practices, educators need to be prepared to provide
their students with an understanding of language through broader cultural, historical
experiences, which are not typically included in traditional language pedagogies.
Multilingual Writing Pedagogies
In writing studies, language scholars (Canagarajah, 2006; Horner et al., 2011;
Young, 2014) are currently arguing for multilingual approaches to language difference
in writing. Young (2014) advocates for code-meshing,  which  fosters  the  “blending  of  
vernacular languages and  dialects  of  English  in  speaking  and  writing”  (p.  76).  Horner  
et al. (2011) are calling for a translingual approach  that  sees  “difference  in  language  
not as a barrier to overcome or as a problem to manage, but as a resource for
producing  meaning  in  writing,  speaking,  reading,  and  listening“  (p.  303).  While  the  
translingual and code-meshing approaches help us to imagine how we might
theoretically and pedagogically respond to language difference in writing, as with
asset-based pedagogies, this approach does not account for students entering
classrooms that do not view their language as socially or intellectually valuable. How
might these approaches respond to the needs of linguistically-diverse students who
have internalized hegemonic language ideologies that suggest that their language
has no value in academic contexts? How do we invite our students to mesh AAL with
DAE given the tension between the two?

144

I see critical language pedagogies, such as the one that I implemented in this
study, as contributing to the literacy learning of students—an approach that leads up
to asset-based and multilingual writing pedagogies. This point is salient for first-year
writing and English Language Arts classrooms because it suggests that composition
instructors and classroom teachers cannot ask students to sustain, code-switch,
code-mesh, or translanguage without exposing them to the cultural, political, and
historical underpinnings of their language. In other words, before students can use
their language as a critical resource to build new skills, they must be able to view
their language as intellectually valuable.
Limitations
This study contains certain limitations—some of which are related to the
common critiques of qualitative research methodology in general and some that are
inherent  in  the  study’s  research  design.  One  of  the  limitations  of  qualitative  research  
is that it cannot be generalized beyond the study sample. The goal of this study,
however, was not to generalize; but rather focus on the transferability of the study—
that is, the ability to apply the findings in similar contexts or settings.
A further major concern of this study was the impact that my role as teacher
could have had on the research outcomes. In other words, the fact that the CLP was
created, implemented, and facilitated by someone who was an expert on Black
language and curriculum and instruction could have led to positive research
outcomes. A critique of the research might be that an expert facilitated the CLP, and
therefore, the outcomes may not have been the same if a non-expert facilitated the
curricular materials. An additional major limitation of this study was the short

145

timeframe in which I returned to the classroom to see if students’ attitudes toward
AAL were sustained. Future studies on critical language pedagogies may consider
implementing a pre-attitudinal assessment at the beginning of the school year and
implementing a post-attitudinal assessment at the end of the school year. A more in
depth study may consider following up with participants years after the
implementation of CLP to better understand how students apply their knowledge from
the CLP in their everyday lives.
Conclusion
This  groundbreaking  research  enriches  the  field’s  knowledge of AAL by
translating decades of sociolinguistic research into transformative practice that
immediately respond to the language needs of Black students in K-U settings. It lays
the groundwork for studies to come as it addresses three longstanding dilemmas and
visible discontinuities that have limited the effectiveness of education for students
who communicate in AAL:


Teachers are using outdated, unproductive, and uncritical teaching methods
that  increase  students’  negative  attitudes  toward  their  own  language  (Ball  &  
Muhammad, 2003; Ball & Lardner, 2005; Alim, 2005, 2007; Gilyard, 2005;
Kirkland & Jackson, 2008)



Most research on AAL has been descriptive or theoretical rather than
pedagogically-grounded (Smitherman & Quartey-Annan 2011),



Scholarship on AAL is not reaching classroom teachers, which indicates a gap
between theory, research, and practice (Gilyard, 2005 qtd. in Ball & Lardner,
2005; Smitherman, 2006)

146

This project directly addresses these dilemmas by advocating and developing
solutions for alternative practices, alternative training, dialogue between researchers
and teachers, and translating theory and research into classroom practice.

147

APPENDICES

148

May 2013

Appendix A:
Informed Consent Form for Teacher

Dear [Teacher]:
Thank you for agreeing to participate in my research project Language Instruction in English
Classrooms:  Students’  Perceptions  and  Practices. As you are already know, this project will explore
student  perceptions  of  languages  and  how  language  is  used  in  students’  everyday  lives.    It  is  my  hopes  
that  you  and  your  students’  participation  in  this  project  will  help  teachers  better  understand  how  to
facilitate language instruction in English classes.
Your  participation  would  include  agreeing  for  me  to  study  you  and  your  students’  engagement  with  the  
curricular innovation that you and I will co-teach. You will also be invited to participate in an in-depth
interview, which I anticipate requiring one to three interview sessions of approximately 30 minutes each.
Sometime after the interviews (this may take a while), I will send you written copies of the words form
our conversation and invite you to follow up (by writing or calling) with any comments or responses you
would like to add.
I see no risks to you for participating in this project. Your participation is voluntary. You may choose not
to participate in certain procedures or answer certain questions. You can pull out of the study at any
time, for any reason without penalty. If I were to present or publish information from this project, I will not
share who you are, what school you teach at, or other details about your life that would cause someone
to recognize you. To respect your privacy, I will also use a pseudonym for your name (feel free to
suggest  a  name  you’d  like  me  to  use—see form below). Your confidentiality will be protected by to the
maximum extent allowable by law. Data from this project will be stored in a locked cabinet in my office
for at least three years. It will not be labeled with information that would allow someone unfamiliar with
the school to identify it. Only the appointed researchers and the Institutional Review Board will have
access to the research data.
Although I cannot pay you for participating in this project, I will provide snacks and beverages
throughout this project and I will give you a $200 gift certificate to purchase supplies for your classroom
as a small token of thanks for your participation. Beyond that, I believe participating may benefit you. I
hope that you find your participation a way to contribute to informing other teachers of how to better
teach students about language.
'If you have concerns or questions about this study, such as scientific issues, how to do any part of it, or
to report an injury, please contact me by phone at (313-477-1859) or email (adbell@msu.edu) or by
regular mail (434 Farm Lane, East Lansing, MI 48824).
If you have any questions or concerns about your role and rights as a participant in this project, would
like to obtain information or offer input, or would like to register a complaint about this project, you may
contact, anonymously if you wish, Michigan State University Human Research Protection Program at
517-355-2180, 517-355-2180, FAX 517-432-4503, or email irb@msu.edu , or regular mail at: 408 W.
Circle Drive, 207 Olds Hall, MSU, East Lansing, 48824.
Thank you for your help,
149

Warmly,
April Baker-Bell
Michigan State University
Form for Voluntary Participation in Project
I have read your letter regarding my participation in your project about languages in English teaching and
learning. You will be observing my participation in class, (possibly) interviewing me, and using my words in
possible future presentations and publications to the educational research community as well as to audiences of
practicing and in-service teachers. My signature below means that I voluntarily agree to participate in this project.
1. I grant permission for you to use my written or spoken words in written and oral presentations to the
educational community. You will not use my real name in these reports.
Your signature: ___________________________________________________
Your name (printed): _______________________________________________
Your email (printed): _______________________________________________
Date: __________________________
2a. I am interested in becoming a focal participant and therefore give you permission to contact me to schedule,
conduct, and audio record an interview with me for the purpose of this research, and to use excerpts from the
interview in written and oral presentations to the educational community.
Your signature: ___________________________________________________
Your name (printed): _______________________________________________
Date: __________________________
Preferred personal pseudonym or made-up name (as stated in the letter, all names of participants, as well as
communities, schools, and students will be masked through the use of pseudonyms).

Preferred school pseudonym: ________________________________________________________

150

Appendix B:
Assent Form for Students
May 2013
Dear Student:
My name is April Baker-Bell. I am a graduate student at Michigan State University in the Department of
Rhetoric, Writing, & American Cultures. This semester, I will be working on a research project with your
English teacher, Mrs. Henderson-Hudson, about English teaching and learning, and I would to invite you to
participate. The title of the project is Language  Instruction  in  English  Classrooms:  Students’  
Perceptions and Practices. In the project, I want to explore student perceptions of languages and how
language  is  used  in  students’  everyday  lives.    It  is  my  hope  that  your  participation  in  this  project  will  help  
teachers better understand how to facilitate language instruction in English classes.
Your participation would include agreeing for me to study your participation in your English class with a
curriculum unit for 2-6 weeks, in which you and your classmates will be engaged in talking about language.
You may also be invited to become a focal participant that would include an in-depth interview, which I
anticipate requiring one to three interview sessions of approximately 30 minutes each. Sometime after the
interviews (this may take a while), I will send you written copies of the words from our conversation and invite
you to follow up (by writing or calling) with any comments or responses you would like to add.
I see no risks to you for participating in this project. This research is completely unrelated to your grade for
your English class. Your participation is voluntary. You may choose not to participate in certain procedures
or answer certain questions. You can pull out of the study at any time, for any reason without penalty. If I
were to present or publish information from this project, I will not share who you are, what school you attend,
or other details about your life that would cause someone to recognize you. To respect your privacy, your
name  will  be  made  up  for  this  project  (feel  free  to  suggest  a  name  you’d  like  me  to  use—see form below).
Your confidentiality will be protected to the maximum extent allowable by law. Data from this project will be
stored in a locked cabinet in my office for at least three years. It will not be labeled with information that
would allow someone unfamiliar with the school to identify it. Only the appointed researchers and the
Institutional Review Board will have access to the research data.
Although I will provide snacks and beverages throughout this project as a small token of thanks for your
participation, I cannot pay you for participating in this project. If you are invited to become a focal participant,
however, I will give you a $10 gift card. Beyond that, I believe participating may benefit you. I hope that you
might find your experience with the curriculum a way to contribute your knowledge to the education of future
and current teachers about how to better teach students about language in English classrooms.
If you have concerns or questions about this project, please contact me by phone at (313-477-1859) or email
(adbell@msu.edu) or by regular mail (434 Farm Lane, East Lansing, MI 48824).
If you have any questions or concerns about your role and rights as a participant in this project, would like to
obtain information or offer input, or would like to register a complaint about this project, you may contact,
anonymously if you wish, Michigan State University Human Research Protection Program at 517-355-2180,
517-355-2180, FAX 517-432-4503, or email irb@msu.edu , or regular mail at: 408 W. Circle Drive, 207 Olds
Hall, MSU, East Lansing, 48824.

151

Thank you for your help. assent
Warmly,
April Baker-Bell
Michigan State University
Form for Voluntary Participation in Project
I have read your letter regarding my participation in your project about languages in English teaching and
learning. You will be observing my participation in class, (possibly) interviewing me, and using my words in
possible future presentations and publications to the educational research community as well as to
audiences of practicing and in-service teachers. My signature below means that I voluntarily agree to
participate in this project.
1. I grant permission for you to use my written or spoken words in written and oral presentations to the
educational community. You will not use my real name in these reports.
Your signature: ___________________________________________________
Your name (printed): _______________________________________________
Your email (printed): _______________________________________________
Date: __________________________
2a. I am interested in becoming a focal participant and therefore give you permission to contact me to
schedule, conduct, and audio record an interview with me for the purpose of this research, and to use
excerpts from the interview in written and oral presentations to the educational community.
Your signature: ___________________________________________________
Your name (printed): _______________________________________________
Date: __________________________
Preferred personal pseudonym or made-up name (as stated in the letter, all names of participants, as well as
communities, schools, and students will be masked through the use of pseudonyms).
Preferred school pseudonym: ________________________________________________________

152

Appendix C:
Informed Consent Form for Parents
May 2013
Dear Parent,
My name is April Baker-Bell. I am a graduate student at Michigan State University in the Department of
Rhetoric, Writing, & American Cultures. This semester, Mrs. Henderson-Hudson  (your  child’s  English  
teacher) and I will be working on a research project about English teaching and learning. The title of the
project is Language  Instruction  in  English  Classrooms:  Students’  Perceptions and Practices. The
project will entail Mrs. Henderson-Hudson and I co-teaching a unit about languages. As a result of this
project, we hope to generate new insights to help teachers better understand how to facilitate language
instruction in English classes. I would like to ask permission for your son or daughter to participate. I am
inviting your son or daughter to participate in the project because they are enrolled in Mrs. HendersonHudson’s  English class, the focal teacher for this project.
Your  son  or  daughter’s  permission  would  include  me  observing  and  studying  him/her  and  their  classmates’  
participation in class on a daily basis during a curriculum unit (2-6 weeks) in which students will be engaged
in talking about language.
I see no risks to your child for participating in this project. This research is completely unrelated to your
child’s  grade  for  their English class. Your son or daughter’s  confidentiality  will  be  protected  to  the  maximum  
extent allowable by law. You or your son or daughter may also pull out of the study at any time without
penalty.  In  addition,  your  son  or  daughter’s  identity,  the  school  he  or  she  attends,  or  other  details  about  your  
child will be protected by the use of pseudonyms in any publications or presentations arising from the
project. Data from the project will be stored in a locked cabinet in my office for a minimum of three years
after the close of the project. It will not be labeled with information that would allow someone (besides me) to
identify your child. The MSU Human Research Protection Program may have access to this data as well.
Although I will provide snacks and beverages (if you grant permission) throughout this project as a small
token of thanks for your child’s  participation, I cannot pay him or her for participating in this project. However,
if your child is invited to become a focal participant and he or she accepts, I will provide them with a $10 gift
card. Beyond that, I believe participating may benefit your child. I hope that he or she might find their
experience with the curriculum a way to contribute their knowledge to the education of future and current
teachers about how to better teach students about language in English classrooms.
If you have concerns or questions about this project, how your child will do any part of it, or to report an
inquiry, please contact me by phone at (313-477-1859) or email (adbell@msu.edu) or by regular mail (434
Farm Lane, East Lansing, MI 48824).
If you have any questions  or  concerns  about  your  child’s  role  and  rights  as  a  participant  in  this  project,  would  
like to obtain information or offer input, or would like to register a complaint about this project, you may
contact, anonymously if you wish, Michigan State University Human Research Protection Program at 517355-2180, 517-355-2180, FAX 517-432-4503, or email irb@msu.edu, or regular mail at: 408 W. Circle Drive,
207 Olds Hall, MSU, East Lansing, 48824.
Thank you for your help.

153

With kind regards,
April Baker-Bell
Michigan State University

Form for Voluntary Participation in Project
I  have  read  your  letter  regarding  my  son  or  daughter’s  participation  in  your  research  project  about
languages in English teaching and learning. You will be observing my child’s  participation in class,
possibly (interviewing) him or her, and possibly using his or her words in possible future presentations
and publications to the educational research community as well as to audiences of practicing and inservice teachers. My signature below means that I voluntarily give permission for my son or daughter to
participate in this project.
I (check one)
____ DO
____ DO NOT
Grant permission for you to use the written or spoken words of my son or daughter in written and oral
presentations to the educational community. You will not use the real name of my son or daughter in
these reports.
Your signature: ___________________________________________________
Your name (printed): _______________________________________________
Your relationship to the child (printed): ___________________________________________
Your  child’s  name  (printed): _______________________________________________
Your  child’s  age:  ______
Date: __________________________

154

Appendix D:
Student Interview Protocol
Title: Documenting Student Attitudes toward African American Language Before, Immediately
After, and 4-6 Weeks after Curricular Innovation
Directions:  Inform  the  student  of  the  following:    “You  were  selected  to  be  interviewed because of your
responses to the language samples on the pre-activity.  “  Note for interviewer: Be sure to point out
specific  examples  from  the  students’  responses  to  the  curriculum.  
There may be three sessions for this interview. Each will take approximately 30 minutes of your time.
Today’s  interview  is  session  1,  session  2  will  take  place  after  the  language  curriculum,  and  session  3  will  
take place during the last week of the semester. Would you be interested in participating in all three
interviews if necessary?
I would like to audio record this interview so that I do not miss anything that you say during this
interview. After the interview, I will transcribe (or type out) the recording into written form. Would this be
okay? Sometime after the interview (this may take a while), I will send you written copies of the words from
our conversation and invite you to follow up (by writing or calling) with any comments or responses you
would like to add.
Your participation in this interview is voluntary. You can stop the interview at any point, and if you do not
want to answer an interview question just let me know. Do you have any questions before we start? I
thank you so much for allowing me to learn from you.
Session One: Before Curricular Innovation
Note:  Some  of  these  questions  are  underdeveloped  because  they  will  be  based  on  the  students’  
responses to a specific activity from the curricular innovation.
[Probes:]
1) What is your opinion of the language listed under sample A?
2) Do you use any of the features of the language listed under language sample A?
 Which features?
3) Does anyone you know use this language?
 Who?
4) On your assignment sheet, you stated this [point to the response on the assignment]
about language sample A. Could you please tell me more about what you meant?
5) Could you tell me more about the person you drew to represent language sample A?
 [What about the language made you think of this person?]
 [Who does the person represent?]
Wrap up
6) Is there anything I did not ask you in this interview about how you use AAL or anything
else that you would like to add?
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7) Is there anything you would like to ask me?
Session Two: Immediately After Curricular Innovation
Note: The questions below are tentative and will change from person to person as it will be based on
their responses to the activities.
1) What is your opinion of AAL following the language unit that we just completed?
[If your opinion changed, what contributed to this change?]
2) Do you use any of the features of AAL that were discussed in class?
a. If so, which features?
3) On your pre-activity sheet, you stated this [point to the response on the
assignment], but now on the follow-up activity, you state this [point to the response
where you notice a difference].
[Could you explain why your thinking changed?]
4) Could you tell me more about the person you drew to represent language sample
A?
a. Let’s  compare  the  person  that  you  drew  for  the  follow-up activity to the
person you drew for the pre-activity. Could you explain the difference and
similarities in the people?
5) Before the curricular innovation, had you ever heard of African American Language
or Ebonics?
6) Did any of the information or activities presented in the language unit affect your
initial opinion of AAL? If the answer to this question is yes, then explain how so?
7) Did you find any of the activities helpful? If so, which activities?
Wrap-Up
8) Is there anything I did not ask you in this interview about how you use AAL or
anything else that you would like to add?
9) Is there anything you would like to ask me?
Session Three: 4-6 weeks after curricular Innovation
Note: The questions below are tentative and will change from person to person as it will be based on
their responses to the activities.
Read to the student: These questions may seem a bit redundant. I apologize for that, but they are so
important in helping me to understand the affects that the language unit had on your opinion of AAL.
1) Let’s  revisit  the  features  of  AAL  listed  under  language sample A. What is your
opinion of the language now?
2) Do you still use any of the features of AAL?
a. Have you used the language more or less since your participation in the
language unit?
3) Let’s  look  at  the  people  you  drew  for  each  of  these  activities.  

156

a. How are they the same? How are they different? Why are they the same?
Why are they different? [If a positive change is noted in all three activities,
ask the student about the change?]
Wrap-Up
4) Is there anything I did not ask you in this interview about how you use AAL or
anything else that you would like to add?
5) Is there anything you would like to ask me?

157

Appendix E: Attitudinal Assessment (page 1)
Name __________________________________________________________
Directions: Step 1: Each box below contains a language sample from two different varieties of English. Read the sentences in each
box. Next, draw cartoons featuring two persons: one person to represent Language A, and one person to represent Language B.
Include the cartoons in the blank boxes on the back of this sheet. Step 2: Write a paragraph that expresses your feelings about
Language A and Language B. Be sure to include your initial thoughts that came to mind as you read both languages, constructed
the cartoons, or thought of people who use either language.

Table 7: Language Samples












Language A:
People be thinkin’ teenagers don’t know nothin’.
We be talking about current events all the time in
our history class.
Yesterday, we was conversating with Mr. B. about
the war--it was deep.
The teachers at South High is cool.
But Ms. Nicks do be trippin’ sometimes. Like that
time she got really mad because Rob called her a
dime piece.
Ms. Nicks better quit trippin’ or imma drop her
class like it’s hot.
My cousin think the students at South High are all
mean and stuff.
The students ain’t as bad as she think though.
I told her she wrong about that

158









Language B:
Teenagers know more than people think they do.
We discuss current events in our history class on a
regular basis.
Yesterday, we were conversing with our teacher
about the war. It was a very interesting
conversation.
I really enjoy the teachers at South high school.
However, my cousin thinks the students at South
high are disrespectful.
I informed her that she was mistaken. All of the
students are not disrespectful.

Table 8: Cartoon Representations

Cartoon Representation A:

Cartoon Representation B:

159

Appendix F: A Conversation about African American Language Activity
Figure 23: A Conversation about AAL I

160

Figure 24: A Conversation about AAL II

161

Figure 25: A Conversation about AAL III

162

Appendix G: African American Language in Your Everyday Life Activity
 Imagine that you failed your first semester of ninth grade. Write a few sentences
informing the following individuals.

Family Member:

Friend:

Counselor:

 How do you use African American Language in your actual everyday life (in and
out of school contexts)? Where do you use it? With whom do you use it? Explain.

 Would your everyday life be impacted if you were refrained from communicating
in African American Language? Explain.

163

Appendix H: Links to videos and discussion questions on linguistic profiling
and linguistic discrimination
I.

II.

III.

IV.

V.
VI.

Warm  up:  Can  you  determine  the  color  of  someone’s  skin  by  the  tone  of  
their voice?
a. http://www.uiowa.edu/~c103112/lingprof.html
Topics of Discussion
a. Linguistic Profiling: the practice  of  identifying  one’s  race,  ethnicity,  
gender, class, etc., based on auditory cues, in particular language,
dialect, and accent.
b. Language Discrimination: the unfair treatment of an individual based
solely on their use of language.
Housing:
a. Hud Ad: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HAZMIC_OwTw
b. 20/20: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3KCL97s1lJg
Education: Ann Arbor
a. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WWIbIA9BltQ&list=PL8DF7BAE4162
AE2D5 (ann arbor)
Poetry about Broken English:
a. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qn_mqVD_7XQ (lyiscott)
Language in your everyday life
a. Explain Assignment

Questions about language and discrimination:
 How is language being used to discriminate against others?
 What are the consequences of discrimination and profiling? Is this fair?

164

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165

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