In this study, we use qualitative research methods to explore how discourses about language manifested within two university writing teacher education classes, one in New Zealand and one in the United States. We used a collaborative teaching journal and student work as main sources of data, which were analysed inductively at key points before, during and after the focal classes. Findings showed that in these two geographically and culturally distinct contexts, practices related to “correctness” and “academic” language or writing were similarly hard to displace, even when the underlying ideas were unsettled. Our analysis suggests teachers and teacher educators have similar struggles of balance—to both prepare students to succeed within the world as it is now and to prepare them to push against the systems that maintain inequities.