ABSTRACT
In recent years, No Child Left Behind (2002) punctuated the importance of the language arts; teachers and schools were held accountable for student achievement. This legislation continues to cause great anguish among those who believe teaching and learning are processes that cannot be evaluated by test scores alone. Adding to this dilemma is the fact that language arts teachers are expected to meet the academic and social needs of a growing student population from diverse linguistic, cultural, ethnic, and economic backgrounds (Sleeter, 2001). This information seems especially challenging when perusing state language arts curriculums, typically written by educators from the dominant, mainstream, middle-class, European American cultures. These educational outlines usually feature goals and objectives, materials and resources that frequently ignore languages and cultures of those from under represented groups. Ultimately, this way of proceeding inadvertently disempowers and marginalizes many students (Cummins, 1996; Nieto, 2000; Gunderson, 2009).
