TEACHING ANTI-RACISM
Scroll down to see lessons and units that strive to embody Abolitionist teaching, de-centering whiteness, maleness, and notions of superiority that permeate our classrooms and society at large. I will also include considerations while teaching this material. It is not simply about teaching BIPOC authors (though I would encourage teachers to stop teaching white authors; trust me, students will somewhere in their education get Steinbeck without your help), or even a curriculum that pushes against white supremacy. It is always about our students. In doing this work, it is vital that you stop to reflect on why you are engaging in this work. I want to lift my students up, give students whom have not had their voices heard, a chance to be in a classroom that hears them. To teach a traditional, white, American curriculum is to deny students the reality of their lives, to lie about a history built on exploitation. When we cover up this history, it makes it impossible to see the ways this exploitation has continued on to this very day. In teaching this work, especially if you are like me are white, which describes less the color of my skin, but the power I hold in society, we must always be considerate that this teaching must always be more than the plight of the oppressed, but the celebration of a multitude of voices of which we have damaged ourselves by ignoring. Even traditional teaching can explore violence against its people, for instance the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960's through overt racist sheriffs and fire hoses, but will often frame these events as aberrations or a sad inevitability in the course of progress. Abolitionist teaching argues that these narratives exist to hide much more uncomfortable truths about this nation's values and ideals, and that the sole focus on oppression is another way of fitting all BIPOC into a narrow, single story. Currently, I just have a list of the units, but will add explanations and links in the next month.
PERSONAL NARRATIVE AND THE BLUEST EYE
Students begin the year writing and reading personal narratives. Morgan Jerkins' essay "Monkeys Like You" from her book, This Will Be My Undoing, bridges the personal narraive unit into our first novel, Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye.
BETWEEN THE WORLD AND ME
by Ta-Nehisi Coates
List Subtitle
I like to end the year with Coates' debut novel. Not only do students respond to this work, even at the end of the year still wanting to read and engage in the class, but it also allows us to bring together many of the themes discussed throughout the year, explicitly teaching critical race theory and lessons from Black Lives Matter.
WOMAN WARRIOR
by Maxine Hong Kingston
I have taught Woman Warrior for several years and I find myself more drawn to it with each reading. Admittedly it’s a controversial novel, one that has been criticized for reinforcing American stereotypes of Chinese immigrants. I think that the novel allows for these difficult conversations about representation and portrayal. Ultimately, I find Kingston’s work to be a personal exploration of her early life and experiences, the confusion and anger that accompanied growing up feeling split between two culture, never allowed full access to either.
AFROFUTURISM AND KINDRED
with author Octavia Butler
One of my favorite teaching experiences was a unit on Afrofuturism for my sophomores. We began with short stories from two collections, Octavia’s Brood and Mothership: Tales from Afrofuturism and Beyond and poetry from Tracy K. Smith that led into the novel Kindred by Octavia Butler. The novel explores too many complicated themes to list, touching on code-switching, the delicate path BIPOC must walk to navigate a white world,the interplay between violence and sexuality, and the entitlement of men to feel like they “own” their partners. Many of my students reported that this was their favorite book ever assigned in an English class.
CHRONICLE OF A DEATH FORETOLD
by Gabriel Garcia Marquez