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