“I Never Really Knew the History behind African American Language”: Critical Language Pedagogy in an Advanced Placement English Language Arts Class

Abstract

This article responds to two long-standing dilemmas that limit the effectiveness of language education for students who speak and write in African American Language (AAL): (1) the gap between theory and research on AAL and classroom practice, and (2) the need for critical language pedagogies. This article presents the effectiveness of a critical language pedagogy used in one eleventh grade advanced placement English Language Arts (ELA) class. Findings show that students held negative attitudes toward AAL before the implementation of the critical language pedagogy, and that the critical language pedagogy helped students to interrogate dominant notions of language and to express an appreciation of AAL.