1st Edition
Decolonizing Middle Level Literacy Instruction A Culturally Proactive Approach to Literacy Methods
This text offers pre-service and in-service teachers pragmatic strategies for teaching middle-grades literacy in culturally proactive and sustaining ways. By demystifying big ideas and complex concepts, Domínguez and Seglem provide clear pathways and lessons for illuminating and engaging with race, ethnicity, culture, and identity in the middle-grade English Language Arts classroom. While addressing social justice, equity, diversity, and liberation can seem intimidating or unrelated to classroom practice, the authors demonstrate how weaving such questions into instruction benefits students’ development.
The guidance, strategies, and lessons in this book provide an answer to the question: What does decolonial literacy teaching look like? Concrete but not prescriptive, the authors encourage us to reconsider accepted logics of schooling, so that we can better support adolescents as they navigate complex identity landscapes. Bringing together disparate conversations around reading, writing, identity, and decolonial thinking, and specifically tailored to the middle grades, this book serves as a comprehensive toolkit for praxis and covers such topics as cultural change, community connections, and racial literacy. Each chapter features tips on reading and writing instruction, Teacher Spotlights, Planning Questions, and Additional Resources to make it easy for educators to apply the strategies to their own contexts.
An accessible entry to addressing challenging questions around identity in the classroom, this book is essential reading in courses and professional development on ELA and literacy methods as well as teaching culturally and linguistically diverse students. For teachers looking to push toward equity and reshape literacy education so that it serves all middle-grade students, Domínguez and Seglem offer plenty of accessible and motivating places to start.
Preface
Part I: In Dialogue / Desconocimientos
Chapter 1: Why Decolonize Our Classrooms?
Coloniality and Decoloniality: A Primer
Colonization v. Coloniality
Thinking Differently as Decoloniality
Questions to Consider in Reflecting on Coloniality
Resources to Explore
References
Chapter 2: What Is Racial Literacy?
Introduction
What Is Race? A Quick Primer for Decolonial Educators
Race and Middle Grades
Racial, Ethnic, and Cultural Identity Development for BIPOC Youth
Building Racial Literacies as Decolonial Praxis
Making Decolonization Normal
Questions to Consider While Planning for Racially Literate Praxis
Resources to Explore
References
Part II: In Praxis / Travesias
Chapter 3: Decolonized Classrooms...Nurture Introspection
Introduction
Complicated Racial Landscapes
Reading Instruction to Trace Community Histories
Writing Instruction to Practice Our Self-Narration
Pushing Past Racial Discomfort
Challenge in Practice
Questions to Consider While Planning for Introspection
Resources to Explore
Assessment Alternatives
Technology Spotlight
References
Chapter 4: Decolonized Classrooms...Connect Humans to One Another
Introduction
Abolishing Zero-Point Thinking
Reading Instruction to Nurture Interconnection
Writing Instruction to Foster Empathy
Building a Holistic Ecology in the Classroom
Challenge in Practice
Questions to Consider While Planning for Human Connections
Resources to Explore
Assessment Alternatives
Technology Spotlight
References
Chapter 5: Decolonized Classrooms...Position Everyone as Experts
Instruction
Disrupting Colonial Expertise
Reading Instruction to Validate Youth Expertise
Writing Instruction to Sustain Community Literacies
Closing the Cultural Gaps Between Ourselves and Our Students
Challenge in Practice
Questions to Consider While Planning to Position Everyone as Experts
Resources to Explore
Assessment Alternatives
Technology Spotlight
References
Chapter 6: Decolonized Classrooms...Ask Challenging Questions
Introduction
Challenging Reductive Knowledge
Reading Instruction to Get at Big Ideas
Writing Instruction to Engage with the World
Making Classroom Literacy Consequential
Challenge in Practice
Questions to Consider While Planning for Challenging Questions
Resources to Explore
Assessment Alternatives
Technology Spotlight
References
Chapter 7: Decolonized Classrooms...Disrupt Normal
Introduction
A New Way to Think of the Banking Method
Reading and Speaking Instruction to Build Radical Consensus
Disrupting the Activity System of Normalized Schooling
Challenge in Practice
Questions to Consider While Planning to Disrupt Normal
Resources to Explore
Assessment Alternatives
Technology Spotlight
References
Chapter 8: Decolonized Classrooms…Leverage a Multilingual World
Introduction
Linguistic Hegemony and Coloniality
Reading Instruction to Master Language Use
Writing Instruction to Encourage Code-Meshing
Language, Identity, and Decoloniality
Challenge in Practice
Questions to Consider While Planning for a Multilingual World
Resources to Explore
Assessment Alternatives
Technology Spotlight
References
Chapter 9: Decolonized Classrooms...Nurture Cultural Change
Introduction
Reacting to Cultural Change
Reading Instruction to Remix Futures
Writing Instruction to Sustain Youth Creativity
Honoring Middle-School Youth as the Creators of New Worlds
Challenge in Practice
Questions to Consider While Planning for Nurturing Cultural Change
Resources to Explore
Assessment Alternatives
Technology Spotlight
References
Part III: Pragmatic Vision / Conocimientos
Chapter 10: Decolonized Educators...Navigate Tight Spaces in a Changing Educational Landscape
Introduction
Teaching in a Neocolonial Climate of Fear
Cultural Artifacts in Education
Discourse in Education
Identity in Education
Challenge in Practice
Questions to Consider While Navigating Tight Spaces
Resources to Explore
References
Chapter 11: Decolonized Educators….Discover Ways to Sustain Their Practice
Introduction
Sustaining our Commitments to Decolonization through Interconnection
Sustaining our Connections to Students and Community
Learning about Student Practices: Community Ethnographies
Learning about Community Dynamics: Power Analysis and Mapping
Building Peer Networks to Sustain Decolonial Practice
Challenge(s) in Practice
Questions to Consider for Sustaining our Practice
Resources to Explore
References
Chapter 12: A Few Last Thoughts on Our Decolonizing Efforts
Introduction
Make Maps, Not Tracings
Epistemic Disobedience and Sustainability
Pragmatic Vision and the Decolonial
Biography
Michael Domínguez is an Associate Professor of Chicana and Chicano Studies at San Diego State University, USA.
Robyn Seglem is a Professor in the School of Teaching and Learning at Illinois State University, USA.
