1st Edition

Pursuing Language and Metalinguistics in K-12 Classrooms A Framework for Critical Engagement

Edited By Renata Love Jones, C. Patrick Proctor Copyright 2025
    272 Pages 33 B/W Illustrations
    by Routledge

    272 Pages 33 B/W Illustrations
    by Routledge

    This conceptually expansive volume provides a theoretical framework and practical guide for designing and implementing literacy instruction that promotes students’ critical metalinguistic awareness in K-12 classroom contexts.

    Grounded in varied instructional contexts, the chapters present theories of language and overviews of research in ways that are accessible and engaging. Through innovative research and practical examples, chapter authors show how educators can address content areas, modalities, and K-12 student populations in increasingly diverse classroom spaces.

    Concrete instructional examples throughout along with a culminating set of teacher vignettes make this text an invaluable resource for pre-service teachers, graduate students, and scholars in the field of literacy education.

    Part 1: Critical Metalinguistics, Engagement Pedagogies, and Pursuing Language  1. Critical Metalinguistics (Jones & Proctor)  2. Engagement Pedagogies (Jones & Proctor)  3. Pursuing Language (Jones & Proctor)  Part 2: Teacher Practice and Curriculum  4. Critical Metalinguistic Engagement of Black Language Users in Writing Instruction (Hankerson, Kahdeidra Monét Martin, Anne H. Charity Hudley, and Christine Mallinson)  5. Becoming a Writer: Developing writerly knowledge and authorial agency (Chen, Newman, Myhill)  6.  Fostering Metalinguistic Engagement Through Text-Based Dialogic Talk (Al-Adeimi and Baumann)  Part 3: Student Engagement  7. Critical Metalinguistic Engagement and the Role of Listening in Poetry Inside Out (Park and Michaels)  8. Learning to Notice: Supporting educators of plurilingual learners to notice, name, and scaffold metalanguaging in the middle-grade classroom (Galloway, White, and Jiménez)  9. On Problem Scoping in Engineering Design: Notes about Language Practices of Multicompetent Learners (Pérez and Marvez)  Part 4: Teacher Education and Policy  10. Scenarios as an Instructional Approach: Prospective Teachers’ Metalinguistic Reflections about Teaching Mathematics to English Learners (Albert and Son)  11. Best Practices for Whom? Multilingual and Critical Perspectives on the Teaching of Foundational Reading Skills in Preservice Teacher Education (Noguerón-Liu, Johns-O’Leary, and Driscoll)  Part 5: Disrupting Paradigms for Equity  12. Metalinguistic Dismantling for Young Black Language and Spanish-Speaking Students (Lee, Handsfield, Rivas)  13. Autistic Language and Critical Metalinguistic Engagement (Bottema-Beutel)  Part 6: Praxis  14. Language Detectives: Using Metalinguistic Awareness to Build Vocabulary (Gately)  15. ‘Do you not see this pretty black trans girl?’: Reading Desire Beyond School in One Black Trans Girl ‘s TikTok Grammar of Futurity (Cooper)  16. Unraveling Binary Constructs: Navigating Beyond Dichotomous Thinking in Education by Leveraging Students' Insight (Rivera-Orellana)  17. Supporting multilingual students’ equitable sensemaking in science through metalinguistic and multimodal instructional strategies (Lee and McNeill)

    Biography

    Renata Love Jones is an assistant professor of Language, Literacy, and Culture in the Department of Early Childhood and Elementary Education at Georgia State University College of Education and Human Development. Jones is a former K-12 literacy, language arts, and ESOL teacher. Her research examines children’s learning engagement and the complex ways that engagement is shaped through curriculum, classroom activity, discourse, and teachers’ instruction.

    C. Patrick Proctor is Professor in the Teaching, Curriculum, and Society department at the Lynch School of Education and Human Development, Boston College. A former bilingual teacher, his work explores the correlational and causal intersections of bilingualism, literacy, teaching, and curriculum.