Using humorous texts to address social justice issues

• a goal of social justice is to help "students recognize subltle forms of bias, discrimination, and inequity (Goebel, 2018, p. 48)
• humorous text authors often use humor to call out biases and inequities (Goebel, 2018)
  • ex., Mark Twain, Jonathan Swift, modern-day comedians
• "...humor can motivate those readers and listeners who might otherwise be resistent to conversations about social justice " (Goebel, 2018, p. 49).

Challenges

• humor also has the ability to reinforce stereotypes and may be used to deflect or express negativity (Goebel, 2018)
• educators must use caution in selecting texts that can be used to advanced social justice work (Goebel, 2018)
• irony, paradody and word play leaves text interpretation wide open (Goebel, 2018)
  • can be addressed through prereading strategy
  • set a reading purpose: How does the author use humor to achieve...?

Teacher practice

Humorous texts (Goebel, 2018)

• use to break up more serious texts
• pair with tragic texts
• shape into short units
• start with texts that are the least likely to be misread
• Questions to consider
  • How is the author arguing for more equitable treatment?
  • What misconceptions are depicted?
  • What are the origins of the misconceptions?
  • How does the author use (literary terms) to achieve (goal)?
  • What does the author want the reader to understand about...?
  • What kinds of humor strategies does the author use? How effective are those strategies?

Researcher look-fors

References:

• Goebel, B. (2018). What's so funny about social justice? English Journal, 107(6), 48-53.
• Grennon Brooks, J., & Thomspon, E. G. (2005). Social justice in the classroom. Educational Leadership, 63(1), 48-52.
• Koltz, J., & Kersten-Parrish, S. (2020). Using children's picturebooks to facilitate restorative justice discussion. The Reading Teacher, 73(5), 637-645.
• Steele, J. (2002). Acknowledging diversity in the classroom. In L. Darling-Hammond, J. French, & S. P. Garcia-Lopez (Eds.), Learning to teach for social justice (pp. 13-21): Teachers College Press.