Start by watching this video:

For your text:

• Consult your writing for words, phrases, narratives, or text passages that will serve to represent yourself as a student seeking educational justice, or will serve to re-center you toward seeking educational justice in your school setting.

• As you look across your own writing or writing from texts from our recommended readings, consider: What words or phrases are calling out to me as I seek to pursue intersectional justice, antiracism, love, healing, and joy?

• Layer your writing in print or script handwriting, letter stamps, cut outs, etc.

For your silhouette/shape, you may want to consider:

• Asking a partner to trace your shape onto paper using a light source to generate your silhouette/shadow.

• Drawing a closed shape that represents or reclaims something about you (avoid cultural signs, or use a mixture of cultural signs, subverted to reclaim something about you).

• Tracing/translating a black & white photo of yourself from your phone in order to capture the light/dark values (shadows, highlights) onto the page.

• Using tracing paper to layer words over/under images if you’d like to keep image and text separate.

Reflection:

• What story might your self-portrait tell?

• What qualities of yourself are in the layers, or do others not have access to?

• What is visible when we slow down to examine the layers?

• How will this self-portrait serve to realign you toward educational justice -- intersectional justice, antiracism, love, healing, and joy -- for students?