To enact antiracist teaching, we must carefully examine the texts we teach and the ways we teach them. The use of culturally sustaining pedagogies that affirm and empower students of color and disrupt traditional curriculum for White students is a starting point for change. Based on our experiences teaching in culturally and linguistically diverse 9th-grade classrooms in New York City, a teacher and a pre-service teacher share our experiences using a White canonical text, “Animal Farm,” and how we include diversity of texts to support culturally sustaining pedagogies. We highlight our use of texts representing marginalized perspectives to push back on dominant social narratives, including whiteness, patriarchy, and heteronormativity in digital spaces.
Through examining real examples of students’ conversations, personal writing, and assessment products, attendees will have the opportunity to discuss how each of us and all of us can navigate the canonical framework in relation to our own contexts and the students that we teach. Multiple media including pertinent instructional materials and resources, relevant common core learning standards, classroom artifacts, suggested text lists, and student reflections will be used to complement this conversation on inquiry as part of our ELA curriculums.
Open Zoom
