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Birds of a feather, an interdisciplinary unit: Language Arts wing

This lesson, which features Mark Twain's “Jim Baker's Blue-jay Yarn,” is part of an interdisciplinary unit on birds that contains math/science and language arts components. In the language arts wing, students will explore dialects and personification through this very entertaining tall tale full of the antics of talking blue-jays.

Format: lesson plan (grade 7 English Language Arts and English Language Development)

By Janet Fore.

Language change in North Carolina's cities

In this activity, students view a video about the changing dialects of North Carolina's urban areas and then respond to a series of questions.

Format: lesson plan (grade 8 Social Studies)

By Hannah Askin.

Outer Banks English

In this lesson plan, students view a video about the dialect of North Carolina's Outer Banks and develop an understanding of linguistic patterns.

Format: lesson plan (grade 8 Social Studies)

By Hannah Askin.

African American English

In this activity, students learn about the history of African American English and the meaning of dialect and linguistic patterns. Students watch a video about African American English and analyze the dialect's linguistic patterns.

Format: lesson plan (grade 8 Social Studies)

By Hannah Askin.

Code-switching

Code-switching is the practice of moving between variations of languages in different contexts. This article explains the history of code-switching, explores important literature on the subject, and discusses approaches to language response in the classroom.

Format: article

By Heather Coffey.

Language families

In Intrigue of the Past, page 4.7

Students will identify and locate the three language families of contact period North Carolina and calculate the physical area covered by each language family.

Format: lesson plan (grade 4 and 8 Mathematics and Social Studies)

Dynamic dialect: Horace Kephart and Our Southern Highlanders

Students will read an excerpt from Horace Kephart's Our Southern Highlanders and explore how language and dialect have changed over the years.

Format: lesson plan (grade 8 and 11–12 English Language Arts and Social Studies)

By Billie Clemens.

The Official Lumbee Vocabulary Test or How to Tell a Lum from a Foreigner

Try this Lumbee vocabulary quiz and see how well you know Lumbee English.

Format: article

By Clare J. Dannenberg, Hayes A. Locklear, Natalie Schilling-Estes, and Dr. Walt Wolfram.

A Dialect Dictionary of Lumbee English

Originally published as a booklet by the North Carolina Language and Life Project at NC State University, this page provides a brief explanation of Lumbee English as well as a dictionary of terms and definitions from the Lumbee English dialect.

Format: article

By Clare J. Dannenberg, Hayes A. Locklear, Natalie Schilling-Estes, and Dr. Walt Wolfram.

Bubba: A Cinderella story

This lesson focuses on the whimsical interpretation of the Cinderella story. Students explore the story Bubba, the Cowboy Prince, through rich text and interpretations of the story.

Format: lesson plan (grade 4 English Language Arts and English Language Development)

By Jennifer Fessler and Karen Wright.

Spanish and Hispanic English in North Carolina

In this lesson, students will listen to audio recordings and view a video clip in order to gain an understanding of the Hispanic English dialect.

Format: lesson plan (grade 8 Social Studies)

By Hannah Askin.

Conventions

In The five features of effective writing, page 6

Conventions — grammar, spelling, and the like — are important to good writing, but should be taught only after the other Features of Effective Writing.

By Kathleen Cali.

Mountain dialect: Reading between the spoken lines

This lesson plan uses Chapter 13 of Our Southern Highlanders as a jumping-off point to help students achieve social studies and English language arts objectives while developing an appreciation of the uniqueness of regional speech patterns, the complexities of ethnographic encounter, and the need to interrogate primary sources carefully to identify potential biases and misinformation in them. Historical content includes American slavery, the turn-of-the-century, and the Great Depression.

Format: lesson plan (grade 8 English Language Arts and Social Studies)

By Kathryn Walbert.

"The difference is about our land": Cherokees and Catawbas

In Revolutionary North Carolina, page 4.1

During the American Revolution, American Indians living in North Carolina had to choose whether to support England or the colonists. While different groups of Indians made different decisions, most made their choices based on how they thought they could best protect their lands.

Format: article

By Jim L. Sumner.

Peoples of the Coastal Plain

In Prehistory, contact, and the Lost Colony, page 2.6

When Europeans arrived in the late 1500s, North Carolina’s northern Coastal Plain was home to two different cultures. Speakers of Algonkian languages lived closest to the Atlantic edge, in the Outer Coastal Plain or Tidewater. Iroquoian speakers lived more inland, on the Inner Coastal Plain. Based on the distinctive items each group left, archaeologists call the Algonkian speakers Colington and the Iroquoian speakers Cashie.

Format: article

Resources on the web

Do You Speak American?

What are American dialects or varieties? Does anyone in America speak correct English? Explore the ways people talk and consider your views and prejudices about how Americans should speak. (Learn more)

Format: website/lesson plan

Provided by: PBS

What did they say? Dialect in The Color Purple

This lesson, taught in conjunction with Alice Walker's The Color Purple, encourages appreciation of dialects by exploring their meaning and origins. Students experience a variety of dialects and participate in small-group settings. (Learn more)

Format: lesson plan (grade 11 English Language Arts)

Provided by: IRA/NCTE

Center for Applied Linguistics

Resources for the education of English as a second language (ESL) and foreign languages can be found on this site. (Learn more)

Format: website/lesson plan

Provided by:

China: An Inner Realm

An exploration, designed by high school students, of the land, culture, and language of China. (Learn more)

Format: website/general

Provided by: ThnkQuest