Cultural Change and Secondary English Pedagogy

My name is Alexis Cherby and I am a junior English Secondary Education major. I have accumulated five resources on this webpage that address various aspects of radical teaching that I believe is relevant and necessary to add to the secondary English teacher's standard pedagogy. It is my belief that radical social and cultural change is essential to a brighter future and that education systems are the first place to start.

"It's Pretty Much White": Challenges and Opportunities of an Antiracist Approach to Literature Instruction in a Multilayered White Context

By Carlin Borsheim-Black

Carlin Borsheim-Black defines antiracist pedagogy as "an approach that works proactively to interrupt racism. In classroom practice, an antiracist pedagogy acknowledges the importance of racial and cultural identities; honors voices and experiences of people of color; teaches through collaboration and dialogue; examines power and oppression; examines discrimination as systemic; critiques traditions of schooling; and advocates for social action." (409) In this study, Borhseim-Black then observes the successes, opportunities, and obstacles of antiracist pedagogy within the primarily white classroom of a white secondary English teacher, Ms. Allen. Borsheim-Black creates a chart of the different levels of antiracist pedagogy that Ms. Allen addresses in her lessons, such as on the levels of the individual, institutional, societal, and epistemological. Towards the conclusion of the study, Ms. Allen states "I want them to be thinking--rather than me telling them...I want to lead them to a place where they can make their own choice." (423) I would like to get to the point where Ms. Allen is because I deeply value the ability to think critically. I can see myself having lessons around race, racism, and whiteness based on discussions similar to how Ms. Allen approaches her classroom.

Inclusive Classrooms for LGBTQ Students:

Using Linked Text Sets to Challenge the Hegemonic "Single Story"

By Autumn M. Dodge & Paul A. Crutcher

Dodge and Crutcher discuss the need for LGBTQ representation and social justice education within the secondary English classroom. In this article, Dodge and Crutcher acknowledge that literature in ELA inevitably includes texts with themes of love and the triumphs and struggles of love. They also go on to acknowledge that heterosexual love and marriage are centrally positioned, and thus "moments of gender definition and enforcement are not only limited to procedures but also reinforced by both curricula and pedagogy." (98) To combat this heterosexual reinforcement, Dodge and Crutcher discuss a specific technique known as "linked text sets," or LTSs. LTSs are a sequence of diverse texts for students to read that aim to challenge diversity within stories while meeting both the requirements of the curriculum and the needs of students. For example, an LTS sequence surrounding themes of love would include having the students read Romeo and Juliet, followed by "A Poem of Changan" by Li Po, A Doll's House by Henrik Ibsen, ending with If You Could Be Mine by Sara Farizan. Each of these texts includes themes of love and suffering, but the characters, plot, and time period are all incredibly diverse. With a sequence like this, it provides students with the opportunity to open their eyes to a variety of diverse stories.

A High School English Teacher's Developing Multicultural Pedagogy

By Leslie Susan Cook and Kristi Bruce Amatucci

In this text, Cook and Amatucci analyze Amatucci's experiences with and exposure to multicultural teaching as well as multicultural tactics she used throughout her student teaching and first few years of teaching. Cook and Amatucci claim that multiculturalism and radical teaching is impossible to fully integrate into one's pedagogy right away and that many young ELA teachers fail to recognize that "a multicultural approach to an English Language Arts Curriculum involves more than including selections by multicultural authors." (240) Multiculturalism in the classroom can also look like valuing one another, working for social justice, and teaching tolerance that goes beyond curricular decisions. One tactic that stuck out to me that was both curricular and pedagogical was Amatucci's usage of a poetry unit. Amatucci carefully crafted a poetry unit during her student teaching that not only included having the students reach poetry written by a diverse range of authors, but it had the students interact with and become vulnerable with each other in ways they hadn't before. There was an identity portion of the poetry unit that gave the students room to truly value and listen to one another.

Alternative, Critical Multicultural, Abolitionist Pedagogies That Facilitate Critical Literacies

By Antonio Del Prete, Babatunde Lea, Molly Ware, Mayana Lea and Janani S. Srikantahrajah

The author of this text believes that "teachers have begun to recognize that their first job is to help students to find relevance in the skills and concepts they are asked to learn in the classroom." (155) With that in mind, there are several pedagogies listed that are infused with relevancy for the benefit of the student. For example, the "Problem-Posing Education" pedagogy aims to help students "identify their rich cultural knowledge, issues, and concerns through a genuine dialogical process." (157) Students learn through this approach that while teachers have a certain amount of knowledge, the students also possess valuable knowledge that their teacher does not possess. In the text, this pedagogical approach is a bit advanced and may be challenging for secondary classrooms, but can still be achieved to an extent through cultivating an environment where the teacher expects the student to think critically about their own identity and standing in the world while also giving the student enough space to share their experiences and critical thinking with the class. This multicultural approach is essential to the cultural change that I would like to strive for as it is a sturdy foundation for students to begin to open their minds and hearts towards others.

#BlackLivesMatter and Feminist Pedagogy: Teaching a Movement Unfolding

By Reena N. Goldthree and Aimee Bahng

Goldthree and Bahng acknowledge the necessity of spreading awareness of growing movements and current events within school environments, and so this text largely follows the creation of a curriculum for a new type of class that followed the growth of the #BlackLivesMatter movement. While this text largely focuses on higher education, we can look at their experimental take on addressing cultural movements. Their Experimental Learning Initiative is a pedagogy utilized in the course that focuses on volunteering and outreach while getting students to connect with the Black Lives Matter movement. While this is not a pedagogy that is easily applied to a secondary English course, what we can take away from this is the concept of having discussions within classrooms about current events and social justice issues that are occurring in real-time.

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