I seek refuge in the languages of truth.
Fairuze Ahmed Ramirez
I seek refuge in the languages of truth.
Fairuze Ahmed Ramirez
On November 13, 2025, I co-organized a Social Justice Teach-In with Faculty from the Los Rios Community College District to showcase "How Colonizers Force Starvation," a documentary created by Uncivilized Media. To learn more, access our PDF slide deck, a recording, and read my opening statement here: Resisting Erasure: Discourse of Truth I Listen To
8/13/2025
On August 7th, I had the joy of presenting once again at the CAL OER Conference—this time joined by my colleague Gregory Beyrer, Online Distance Education Coordinator and History Professor at Cosumnes River College. Together, we explored a question close to our hearts:
What does it mean to teach in the margins?
In our session, Teaching in the Margins: Open Pedagogy, Radical Inclusion, and Reclaimed Narratives in English and History, we invited participants to co-create meaning with us. Through stories, teaching strategies, and shared reflection, we examined how teaching beyond the “center” can challenge dominant narratives, center marginalized voices, and open new pathways for learning.
You can watch the recorded presentation, browse our slides, and join the conversation—because this work is richer when more voices are ALL part of it.
During the session, I was posed with a jarring—and important—question I’m happy to respond to:
"How do you hold students accountable for their writing work if your focus is on qualitative aspects rather than quantitative ones? Doesn’t that make meeting writing tasks more difficult, since the outcomes are more open to interpretation?"
In my critical reflection, I unpack this question, explore what “accountability” means in a liberatory classroom, and share why open-ended, qualitative approaches can actually deepen—not dilute—'rigor' and clarity. To learn more click here: Equity Minded Practices, Presentations & Resources
6/17/2025
Spotlight: When Leadership Disrupts the Order
What does it mean to lead from coalition—not control? In this reflection, I respond to the tragic assassination of Minnesota House Speaker Melissa Hortman and the powerful remembrance shared by Patricia Torres Ray on Democracy Now!. Through the lens of liberatory and transformational leadership, I reflect and discuss how Hortman’s radically inclusive, trust-based leadership style disrupted the social order of white supremacy—and why that kind of leadership is so often feared, targeted, and urgently needed.
A meditation on grief, justice, and the power of collective courage. Click below to read, and reflect with me.
6/14/2025
Today at the Curriculum Fair, we presented a three-week unit we designed in our Curriculum and Instruction Issues for Educational Leaders EdD seminar, led by Dr. Dale Allender. As part of this project, we—Fairuze Ahmed Ramirez and Cara Campbell—were challenged to build a unit around Sinners, a film by Ryan Coogler. To make our unit accessible to a broader range of educators, we adapted our original Google Sites lesson plan into a Canvas course format. Our goal is to support educators in centering Black creatives, intellectuals, and artists in their classrooms.
Click below to access our course design!
Hello and Welcome!
I am a proud Adjunct Professor of English Composition and English as a Second Language Instructor at Cosumnes River Community College. I am also the English Composition Faculty Coordinator for the Sac State EOP Summer Bridge Programs. This teaching portfolio/blog strives to demonstrate how I utilize open educational resources and culturally responsive teaching strategies to support anti-racist and inclusive teaching and learning in my literacy courses, ensuring that learning is student-centered and meaningful. Further, this space houses critical ideas (mostly ideas barrowed from academics who I like to call critics of the academy--the academic outliers) who cannot be fitted-into one disciplinary box or way of knowing and being; thus, as you will see, I am not fixated to one kind of practice or method of teaching, my humanized interdisciplinary teachings, which I seek out on my own, have informed my practices-practices that I revise and modify constantly.
To learn more about why I started this blog, read my revised About Me
Check out my CV
And consider reading my Open For Anti-Racism Reflections
To see how I tap into students' intellectual and creative contributions to the production of knowledge-making, click here: Open Pedagogy: Student Intellectual Works
To view recent professional development presentations for Cal OER 2024-2025, Sac State EOP Faculty & Staff Orientation training, or Organized Social Justice Teach-In's click here: Equity Minded Practices, Presentations & Resources or here Resisting Erasure: Discourse of Truth I Listen To
Finally, please be inspired and check out how 6 faculty from across the academic disciplines at Cosumnes River Community College used open educational resources and open pedagogy to support anti-racist and inclusive teaching and learning after participating in the 2023-24 OFAR Program
Here: OFAR at CRC
Consider this website my teaching praxis - a modality to hold myself accountable for my teaching methods and to inspire my viewers to think critically about language and communication- and to question the modalities and mainstream entities that construct 'knowledge' and 'truth'.