"A Delicate Balance": Culturally Relevant Writing Teachers' Conceptualizations and Enactments of Grammar Instruction

• In Event: 34.078 - Roundtable Session 13
  In Roundtable Session: 34.078-7 - Funds of Knowledge and Grammars for Diverse Education Communities

Abstract

In the context of increasing linguistic and cultural diversity in public schools, grammar instruction is a particularly contested content area in writing. Drawing on semi-structured interviews with nine teachers of literacy, we explore the way that self-identified culturally relevant elementary and middle school teachers conceptualize and enact grammar pedagogies in their classrooms. Findings indicate that culturally relevant writing teachers both experience and work to manage tensions around grammar instruction--namely its potential to both empower and marginalize their students.

Authors

• Emily Machado, University of Illinois at Chicago

• Andrea Vaughan, University of Illinois at Chicago