Martha,

If your teachers deal at all with dialect diversity in their schools, I
strongly recommend _Dialects and Education_, by Walt Wolfram and Donna
Christian. I believe it is a CAL publication, and it's also out of
print. My college got permission to reprint it for my classes. It's
written for people new to linguistics, but at the same time it goes
quite deeply into issues like reading and improper special ed placement.

Another great book on diversity is Lisa Delpit's _Other People's
Children_, which explores issues in teacher training as well as K-12 ed.
I'm not sure if either of these books would suit your needs -- you would
know best.

I hope the curriculum that the group prepares takes full advantage of
children's already-existing subconscious knowledge of grammar through
all of the various tricks linguists have made known. And I hope they
plan to weave grammar into language arts instruction rather than
isolating it.

***************************************************
Johanna Rubba, Associate Professor, Linguistics
English Department, Cal Poly State University
San Luis Obispo, CA 93407
Tel. 805-756-2184 ~ Dept. phone 805-756-2596
Dept. fax: 805-756-6374 ~  E-mail: [log in to unmask]
URL: http://www.cla.calpoly.edu/~jrubba
***************************************************

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