Cultivating Critical Language Awareness in the Writing Classroom

"Shapiro successfully explodes the false binary between pragmatism and progressivism by reminding us that teaching writing is not an either/or proposition. And after our many years of theorizing the teaching of writing, Shapiro offers a persuasive synthesis of theory and practice that shows us how to integrate pragmatism and progressivism into our curricula and instruction. In so doing, she provides teachers with a toolkit to promote self-reflection, social justice and rhetorical agency that empowers all writing students to learn how language shapes them and how they in turn can shape language."

--Juan C. Guerra, Professor Emeritus, University of Washington at Seattle, USA

"If you are teaching student writers today—especially if you care about teaching ALL student writers today—then this a book for you. Shapiro’s deeply researched and engaging text reviews the history of critical language awareness, examines its current principles and practices, and shows just how writing teachers everywhere can employ such principles and practices to create classrooms and pedagogies where linguistic justice and equity can and will thrive."

--Andrea Lunsford, Professor Emerita, Stanford University, USA

"This book offers an outstanding roadmap for building inclusive ESOL and English language arts classrooms where students learn to be critical and agentive consumers and producers of standardized written language. The book delivers a strong conceptual framework and principles for a CLA approach combined with abundant illustrations and resources for implementing the approach. A great resource for teachers."

--Linda Harklau, Professor, University of Georgia, USA

"Shapiro’s (2022) newly published book is a great addition and response to the long-standing debate over the political and social struggle concerning what constitutes ‘correct’ standardized and conventionalized language…. All in all, [the book] is a timely contribution in today’s contentious intellectual environment where identities, linguistic oppression, and epistemological racism are present in so-called ‘democratic’ education. [It] is indeed a critical addition to the field of second language writing (L2) in general and literacy education studies, as it encourages teachers to be active agents of social transformation and justice through education. Unequivocally, Shapiro’s work adds a diverse perspective to the application of CLA with a set of epistemological, practical, and pedagogical innovations. At the same time, she cleverly allowed teacher agency to blossom as she offered possibilities for adapting some activities that tap into students’ cultural and social resources"

--Journal of English for Academic Purposes

"The book…considered to be one of the most current books in the field of L2 writing. After reading this book, I felt it was a breath of fresh air to have an opportunity to focus on critical language awareness as it has solidified my approaches to L2 writing research and the teaching of multilingual students….Shapiro’s writing style in this book is entertaining and engaging in that the author has adopted a combination of personalized and jargon free writing Shapiro’s writing style in this book is entertaining and engaging…[M]any L2 writing scholars, practitioners, and graduate students who are interested in making classrooms more inclusive will find this book extremely valuable. For L2 writing research scholars, they will find this book full of resources that they can incorporate as tasks for participants in their next research projects with multilingual and multidialectal students. For practitioners, the second section of the book will be extremely useful in helping them (re)design writing assignments and integrate inclusive practices in their classrooms….For scholars in the EFL settings, I believe the book will be valuable to generate discussions around language awareness and the status of the English language in relation to other languages in different communities. Lastly, this book is also appropriate for those who are in rhetoric and composition studies."

--Bee Chamcharatsri, Journal of Second Language Writing, Vol 58, 2022