This study is concerned with an exploration of the politics of language with predominately white pre-service teachers through a linguistic activity. It is a continuous, joint effort of three teacher educators working at two universities. Different pedagogical emphases and data collection methods are used at these two universities to investigate their impact on the pre-service teachers' awareness of the politics of language. It is shown that the pre-service teachers who are required to read critical literature and to reflect specifically on the linguistic activity through guiding questions become more aware of the political aspects of language than those who are not. Yet this critical awareness does not necessarily carry over into a change in their thinking about literacy education with language minority students. This study is hoped to serve as a prompt for more dialogue in this area. (Contains 3 notes.)