ABSTRACT

This introductory chapter posits the importance of going beyond a focus on teaching about language in English language arts classrooms to a focus on having students employ language as actions to enact relations with others. These actions constitute what we define as languaging that perceives language as a verb rather than a noun, as well as use of emotions or embodied actions for interacting with others.

Adopting a languaging perspective for teaching English language arts involves fostering students’ active engagement in discussions, responding to literature, writing, drama, and online interactions with a focus on creating supportive, trusting relations with others, as illustrated by classroom activities from 13 teachers’ classrooms from both urban and suburban schools. In engaging in these activities, students learn to employ relational framing of their languaging in certain spaces and time based on defining their intentions consistent with norms operating in these space and time. To develop in their languaging over time, students adopt a metacognitive awareness to reflect on how their languaging is serving to create relations with others.