Linguists and teachers collaborating in an ELA classroom: Teaching around the test

Abstract

In this paper, a scholar of English Education (Michelle) and a linguist (Chris) discuss their four-week research study in a ninth-grade classroom. Highlighting the collaborations with the classroom teachers, this paper discusses the importance of integrating linguistic concepts with current curricular demands. A focus on the final activity, in which students were asked to explore how linguistic concepts relate to areas of the everyday world like social media and the law, demonstrates that students were able to engage with the linguistic concepts in critical and important ways. The paper finishes with a discussion of how linguists can consider future collaborations with stakeholders in K12 spaces, and the importance of integrating these concepts into the existing curriculum.